UPS Botches it Again!

[American By Blood]

So for the past week or so I've been waiting for AIM to work through their backlog of orders and send me 1,400 rounds of sweet South African 7.62 goodness. I've been checking my email like a fiend waiting for the shipping notification. The message arrived in my gmail account on Friday and it said that delivery was scheduled for 8/29/06. I couldn't wait.

At lunchtime today I went online and again checked the status of my package. I've been doing this almost compulsively since Friday. A mix of joy and worry filled me when I saw that the package had been delivered at 11:30am. Of course I wanted my ammo, but had they really left a full can and three more battlepacks of milsurp cartridges on my stoop? I mean, this is Baltimore for crying out loud.

Then I noticed that under "Location" the status report read "Office." Office? What "office?" I live in a house. Also, someone named "JMES" had signed for the shipment. Nobody was home at 11:30am and certainly no one named "JMES" or even "James." None of my neighbors fit the bill either. Definite red flag.

I called my girlfriend and told her that when she went home to feed the dogs there might be some heavy boxes on the stoop. A while later she left me a message saying that there were no such parcels. Uh oh. When I drove home a few hours later I checked with the neighbors and none of them had signed for or taken in any packages for me. Great. Just great.

Calls were placed to UPS and, surprise surprise, they have no idea where my ammo is. Their "best guess" is that the driver delivered it to the wrong location. O RLY? I hadn't already figured that one out, professor. Of course, the driver (a Teamster like the rest of the company) was already gone for the day and could be of no help. I'm skeptical that he'll be of any use, or even sober, tomorrow.

So much anger.

EDIT: For the sake of disclosure I should mention that I'm a FedEx employee. However, this has nothing to do with that. It speaks less to the quality of UPS as a company and more to the culture of carelessness and sloth that pervades Baltimore. Nothing works right here. Nothing.

 

[Lupinus]

Oh joy.

When I lived in PA our UPS guy was a total moron and almost every week I got packages for my neighbor. Everytime it happened we called them. You'd think that after a year and a half he would have gotten the picture that he was delivering chit to the wrong house, that and he liked to leave stuff under the leak in my porch roof. Plenty of other space, nope he leaves it on the one spot that is obviousy water damaged, maybe he was unconciously going for a bullseye.

 

[Ndenway]

I used to have problems with damaged boxes or ups delivering my stuff to one of the neighbors, finally got a different driver thats a gun nut,

that solved the problems, now my stuff gets here and its always wrapped in a plastic bag.

 

[50 Freak]

I got back at my UPS guy for leaving my clearly marked DELL box on my front door. When he could have just left it to the side of the door where the bushes would have covered it. Instead of the view all the high school punks walk back and forth to and from school.

I ordered 4 crates of 8mm ammo a couple of weeks later. Bet it nearly broke his back.

 

[baz]

I've no complaints about UPS or FedEx deliveries here.

 

[bpisler]

I had UPS leave 1,000 rds at my neighbors
door without anyone signing for it.

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

UPS has been great for me. I had a FedEx of some hot rod parts last week that was a nightmare to get delivered, but that was because it was "signature required". I couldn't even sign the door tag, it had to be in person. I can't take a day off work to wait for $200 of parts.
I do sometimes worry about the ol' ORM-D packages being left but haven't had a problem so far and it's a good neighborhood.

 

[Langenator]

I just received a rifle from Empire Arms. Delivered right on the day they said it would be.

But to do it, they let it sit in the distribution center in Redmond (about 90 minutes from my house) for TWO DAYS! Not the weekend either-it was scanned into Redmond on Thursday, and left on Saturday.

It's amazingly frustrating to keep checking your package status and keep seeing that you package is sitting in a distro center about 75 miles away. Heck, it's Redmond, maybe Microsoft had some mongoso shipment going through.

Remind me again why so many gun related mail/internet order businesses seem to use UPS?

 

[cracked junior]

that why i usualy get ordered items. shipped to my work. althought my work doesnt care about me doing this. but sometimes if i dont want someone to know i ordered something, i will get it shipped to my house. usualy its sitting inside the front porch door. one time it was under the mailbox. which is next to the road and like just under 1/4 mile from the house. i have a long driveway. the mail man has messed up more then ups and fed ex. closest neighbor is over half mile away. and we always get eachothers mail.

 

[sgtdevildog]

I recently had DHL leave a huge box of wine from CA on my front porch - in the daytime, in the rain - with huge yellow labels saying "Contains Alcohol", adult signature required, do not leave, blah blah blah. I guess all the delivery companies are like that. I also have a school bus stop just outside my house. Oh well - got it any way - this time.

 

[Deanimator]

There's no rental office in my apartment building, so I CAN'T have anything shipped there. In addition, according to a website I recently visited, there's a registered sex offender IN MY BUILDING.

I recently shipped a gun to S&W for repair of a factory defect (LONG story). I told them seven ways from sunset to ship the gun back to me at the office, NOT the apartment. Strangely, that's pretty much the ONLY instruction they followed...

 

[TXGunGeek]

Last time I ordered ammo (AA 20Ga and 12Ga) I met the truck at our loading dock so it wouldn't sit around the office. Driver asked if it really was 6 cases of AA and to let him know next time I ordered so he could join in!!

 

[Technosavant]

But to do it, they let it sit in the distribution center in Redmond (about 90 minutes from my house) for TWO DAYS! Not the weekend either-it was scanned into Redmond on Thursday, and left on Saturday.

I've seen them do that before to me. They haven't done it in a while, but for a time it seemed that if I paid for Ground (3-5 days), then they'd dang well make sure it took 3-5 days to get to me, even if it could have made it overnight. A box would sit in one place near me for a couple days before being moved to the delivery hub, then sit there for another couple days before getting loaded on the truck. Any calls pleading with them "just let me pick it up" were fruitless.

UPS seems to ebb and flow around here, sometimes they are awful, sometimes decent. They've been decent lately, but if I am shipping something myself, I either send it USPS (cheaper, not really any slower) or FedEx (if I really care).

 

[bender]

I'm reminded of the Jim Carrey movie (was it Ace Ventura?) where he is disguised as a UPS delivery guy, and he is basically playing soccer & football with a package...

 

[RNB65]

I don't think any delivery company is any better or worse than any other one. Ultimately, it's the quality and reliability of the local delivery driver that counts the most.

I buy tons of stuff over the 'net and I've had the most success with UPS. They occasionaly misroute a package which causes a one day delay in getting it, but the delivery drivers that deliver to both my home and workplace are 100% reliable. Never had a single problem with UPS.

Fed-ex I don't care for. Their delivery driver has a tendancy to leave packages sitting on the ground outside my apartment door rather than deliver them to the rental office. I've had two Fed-ex packages disappear that way.

USPS is a joke. They try, but way too often they fail. The mailman that delivers to my office can't tell the difference between 700 and 701 because at least 2 or 3 times a year he delivers my packages to the wrong office building. Also, they also have a nasty habit of leaving packages on the ground outside my apartment door despite that fact that the rental office is only 100yds away and they have to drive right past it on the way out.

 

[Thefabulousfink]

+1 on all carriers being the same.

I have had reasonably good luck with UPS, but a monumental F*up from Fedex. When I was back in college the video card died on my computer 2 weeks before my midterm projects were due . So I found a cheep replacement on the internet(using a buddy's computer) and had it shipped Next Day Air. Now I gave the physical address of my dorm room (more of an apartment complex) rather than my campuss mailbox b/c the school mail normally sits on packages for an extra 24 hrs.

So the day comes and goes with no delivery, however the tracking system shows it was delivered and signed for. I was home all day and no one had called me. It took ME three days of searchin all over the campus to find my package, Fedex was no help. The only good thing Fedex did was refund me the cost of shipping after I had called to complain for the 5th time.

UPS has allways put the package in my hands or left a note on the door if I am not home. Then I just drive the 10 miles to the terminal and pick it up. The security gate is open 24 hrs for employees, and they will send some one to get my package even at 11:30pm.

 

[unspellable]

UPS

Of late, UPS leaves all the packages for a guy up the street on my front stoop. Guess that beats their leaving all mine on his.

 

[TheArchDuke]

He probably delivered it to a felon haha

 

[gcerbone]

I can't stand UPS. I had the exact same problem, and when I called UPS, they wouldn't even talk to me. They told me that the shipper had to file the claim.

FedEX has been great. I've even called over to the distribution center, and the driver has come back when I missed a shipment. Excellent service all around.

 

[Radjxf]

Another fellow UPS-hater here. Does anyone notice the pkgs they deliver to be filthy and look like they've been drop-kicked all the way to their destination? And ONE and only ONE time have I tried to ship a firearm through UPS. The whole staff freaked out and made it a long, painful experience. :banghead:

 

[carterbeauford]

Warning: old guy joke follows.

Did you hear UPS and FedEx are going to merge? The new company is going to be called Fed-UP

UPS has gotten too big for its own good. I have problems with UPS simply because they handle the highest percentage of the items I receive. If FedEx and DHL handled a similar share, I would have just as many problems with them.

 

[bearmgc]

No, haven't had that happen. In fact, I've had all positive experiences with UPS every single time I dealt with them. The guys and gals in my area are super.

 

[Alex45ACP]

I've never had any problems. Quite the opposite, in fact, I've even had packages delivered early. But I always ask for signature upon delivery when I order stuff so they don't just leave it on my porch.

 

[obm]

i like UPS. whenever i send a firearm they never give me hassles. delivery and phone staff have always been courteous and competant at what they do.

 

[Roadwild17]

+1 on good UPS in my area. USPS is also pretty goot for me overe her, its Fex Ex that is the pits. One day I was home wating for a package and they just asumed noone was home, so they left it with the next door neighbor without even coming to my house.