UPS..is it just me or?

[MDE3 0]

I have used UPS as my primary shipper for both documents and goods for many years and for the longest time swore by their service, as I have a distribution center about 4 miles away. However for the last approximately 2 years, it seems their prices and policies have gone nuts....and their service fallen off a cliff.....I just shipped a copy of my daughter's new CD over to a friend in Scotland. UPS did all the paperwork, and I payed them $39.00 to send this as a document......An hour after the center closes, they call me, and have me come back down because apparently it could not be shipped as a "document" in an overnight pac, so they repackaged it, and charged me another $25.00 making a new total of $64.00. The service center placed an arbitrary value for insurance puproses of $100.00 on the package....the UPS employee did this, not me. The actual value, if UPS had correctly declared it was $15.99 USD..which if labeled as a gift, would have arrived no problem....

The package was supposed to arrive on Tuesday, which it did, but they call my friend, and tell them that she must pay another L22.00 (about $50.00) in order to recieve the package....additional value added tax, and tax on the extra shipping costs..... ......I told her to refuse the shipment and make them send it back.....I also talked to UPS and they assured me they would look into this.....no response.....

If it was just one incident, I would not be so hostile....but of the last 5 shipments I have done with them, 4 have had problems....sticks I sold and shipped to a guy in North Carolina, ended up in Seattle, took a month to get to the customer, was promised some sort of refund, and it of course never came. Sent an overnight to my kids in Canada the same night I sent out the CD, and it was scheduled to arrive at noon the next day....their tracking docs showed an attempt to deliver at noon, but as my kids were there and waiting for the package ....I know UPS made no attempt to deliver it....but of course their docs showed they did..... So it doesn't get there in time....but now they claim they tried (which they did not), and so refuse me any refund on a $30.00 overnight shipment....

I would not go on and on, if I had not seen a bunch of shipping complaints on here recently, with a bunch of extra charges being levied on stuff going into Canada...was wondering if most of this was also UPS.......

[mik3 1]

On top of all that I've seen their tracking be weird in the past few months. Things disappear for days. One problem I've seen is once things go into Secaucus, sometimes they'll just sit there for a day or two. Get their arrival scan and just sit there. Meanwhile over the same period of time (last 2-3 years) I've seen FedEx get better and better year after year. When they say something will be there in a certain time window, it is.

[MDE3 0]

Agreed...I am definitely switching.....I think it started after 9-11, when UPS figured they could charge more under the guise of additional security costs...as their prices went up their service went down.......

[mik3 1]

Pretty much. I used to work for FedEx, they just seem to have a better run company from top to bottom. And on top of it all, they pay better. I think part of the problem is they've cut down on the amount of drivers UPS is using. I live near tab ramos sports center, yet stuff that comes to me from UPS comes from a station in Tinton Falls. That driver has a hell of an area to cover I'm guessing.

[Borsch 0]

Pretty much. I used to work for FedEx, they just seem to have a better run company from top to bottom. And on top of it all, they pay better. I think part of the problem is they've cut down on the amount of drivers UPS is using. I live near tab ramos sports center, yet stuff that comes to me from UPS comes from a station in Tinton Falls. That driver has a hell of an area to cover I'm guessing.

Yeah, have to say FedEx is better in my (limited, but none-the-less) experience too...

[joshy207 15]

UPS' ad campaign focuses on their color, brown... Brown is the color of shit!

[Jackal3688 0]

UPS' ad campaign focuses on their color, brown...  Brown is the color of shit!

That really depends

But yes, UPS has been lacking lately. Its better than USPS though, especially internationally. I sent something by USPS to mexico and they lost it. But UPS is generally cheaper.

[hehatemefrisbee 0]

maybe try DHL. UPS charges too much for me, and USPS is far too unreliable with bick packages. FedEX is ok, but too limited. I havent tried DHL, but im willing to give them a shot.

[GekigangarIII 0]

UPS is union, Fedex is not.. 'nuff said.

a perfect example being, when you track your ups package and you get a standard ground ship and the delivery date is say on the 5th of January but the package gets to your local distribution warehouse early (say it got to the local warehouse on the 2nd), it will SIT in their warehouse until the estimate date arrives. Just plain lazy and a waste of your and their money (they'd rather waste warehouse space than deliver the product).

Fedex on the other hand will deliver early if the package arrives to their warehouse early.

[mik3 1]

UPS is union, Fedex is not.. 'nuff said.

a perfect example being, when you track your ups package and you get a standard ground ship and the delivery date is say on the 5th of January but the package gets to your local distribution warehouse early (say it got to the local warehouse on the 2nd), it will SIT in their warehouse until the estimate date arrives. Just plain lazy and a waste of your and their money (they'd rather waste warehouse space than deliver the product).

Fedex on the other hand will deliver early if the package arrives to their warehouse early.

DING DING DING

I type this sitting here waiting on a package that sat in Secaucas for 2 days before being moved to the local station. I'm waiting for another package that's supposed to be delivered friday, and is also currently in new jersey. Like you said, nothing will ever get pushed up when it comes to UPS.

I like FedEx for most everything

I like USPS for smaller things (nothing as big or bigger than skates due to a previous big problem)

And I wouldn't choose UPS to send something to someone.

[LegoDoom 0]

FedEx has been horrible in my area for years. I only use whichever is cheaper (If I have the choice), but Fedex has screwed a couple things up coming to me and UPS never has. I've never had a problem sending things out, no matter which company I've used.

FedEx used to rarly update their scans and therefore the tracking page almost never updated. It's been better lately though. UPS has done the same thing, but not nearly as often.

Maybe it's just my local offices that have screwed things up.

[Chadd 916]

maybe try DHL. UPS charges too much for me, and USPS is far too unreliable with bick packages. FedEX is ok, but too limited. I havent tried DHL, but im willing to give them a shot.

Our DHL girl is cute too, more reason to use them. B)

[hattrick74 0]

a perfect example being, when you track your ups package and you get a standard ground ship and the delivery date is say on the 5th of January but the package gets to your local distribution warehouse early (say it got to the local warehouse on the 2nd), it will SIT in their warehouse until the estimate date arrives. Just plain lazy and a waste of your and their money (they'd rather waste warehouse space than deliver the product).

i dont agree with the reasoning for doing this, but i used to work for DHL and our reasoning was that there are more ground packages thus they are taking up space in the trucks and thus taking up time to deliver/pick up. look at it this way. if a truck delievers everything in the wherehouse, it takes up more space in the trucks and that is more time to sort, organize and deliver. i dont agree with it because it should be if the package is in the wherehouse, it should go out. if you wana hear ridiculous, heres a story you all will love. i once picked up a ground package that was being delievered to another company on my route, so it should have gone out next day right? nope, 5 days later it went out, the two companies were no more then 10 miles apart too!

[mack 44]

Only used UPS once to ship something and it was painless. They have also given me better delivery service because FedEx will always just leave packages laying around and I'd rather put in the extra effort of driving to get something rather than have it laying around on a doorstep.

[HackeyNoob 0]

They haven't ruined anything yet but I do prefer to ship through usps for cost reasons.

[DekeHead 0]

I used to work for UPS, and I think UPS is a pretty good company for domestic shipments. FedEx has come a long way with their FedEx Ground program, and the competition will do the whole market good. Whoever said FedEx pays more is mistaken, at least for my area. UPS pays best dollar in every area I've ever lived, and they have a wonderful benefits package for employees. Packages that arrive at their destination hub early shouldn't be delivered early because the shipping premium on Blue or Red shipment hasn't been paid. I know that to most people it would seem a good business practice, but UPS would lose money this way. If you've ever been in a big UPS hub, there is no shortage of space for keeping a package an extra day if needed. Generally packages don't arrive early, or if they do, they were scanned in after the package vans were loaded for the day.

For international shipments, I think DHL is the absolute best. Cheap, quick, and reliable.

[hattrick74 0]

DHL paid pretty will but with the merger screwed some drivers (at least my whole station) but i have heard UPS and FEDEX take some time to become a driver, i was 19 and started as a driver, which was nice

[Aussie Joe 0]

I find UPS' tracking options via the Interent borderline useless. I have found numerous occasions where I've ordered gear from Epuck that UPS' upto date tracking system has labelled my package "In transit - Layfeyette, LA".

In actual fact the goods have passed customs and are in the UPS warehouse (which is incedently a 10 min drive from my house). I only found this out because I rang through to their call centre (based in another city!). I had a complication a few months ago where the package was booked for delivery 3 days after when it actually was able to be delivered. Because the call centre girl was unaware of suburbs within Melbourne she stuck to guidelines and caused further ineffeciency.

Of course she was just doing her job but simple geographical training could have been given to her. With mine as well as countless other possible packages delivered early and therefore more efficiently to the consumer and the deliverer!

I think my point (and this has been proven before by Justin) is that surely customer service is paramount in any civil service industry. Where a product and/or a service is provided at a cost all efforts must be made from the head of the company to the person that mans the phone to make sure the service is provided at the maximum level.

PS: I wasn't trying to bring Justin into the argument. Just using a set precident.

[MDE3 0]

Update to my original post......

I am sitting here barely able to type....so badly am I seething at the sort of treatment a larger company thinks is satisfactory to their customers.....

As I said originally, I used to swear by UPS, they were reasonable, prompt, and accountable......but no longer. After at least 5 phone calls, I finally got a call back from UPS international. I went through the scenario again..for the 5th time, and they said well, "you signed the invoice"..an invoice for an international shipment created by UPS, and recommended as the best way to ship a CD, by a counter person at the local UPS distribution cente. She was pretty blatant about admitting she was incompetent at international shipments.

Now having already paid $64.00 US to ship a 3 oz. CD to Scotland, "priority", I was being asked to kick in an additional $42.00 US for them to complete the shipment..."value added tax" due to the "$100.00" value they assigned to the package. Further when it was shipped, the computor at UPS took my personal information and then printed out an invoice to my company...which also has an account there. When I entered all the shipping information into the computor, I did NOT enter in any company reference....the computor system at UPS took this upon itself to do.

Because the shipment was now being sent by a "company" and not an individual, British customes would not back off the tax and duty issue..even though they knew it was only a CD worth $15.99, and being told it was being sent as a gift. Had the UPS employee filled out the correct description, and had the UPS computor not translated a personal shipment into a corporate shipment...there would have been no problem.

In there "generosity" UPS agreed to pay half of the extra, while I was to pay the other half....due entirely to their own screw ups....a package scheduled to be delivered within three days, will now end up being "destroyed" 10 days later, as they will not ship it back to me, nor will I pay for their screw up......

That is absolutely the last business I will ever give to UPS...I have had it....their promises of return calls "within the hour"..went out to 3 - 4 days, and most times I had to be the one to initiate. I have seen this type of arrogance in many other companies(some of whom I have worked for), and it is usually not long before there are major headlines in the financial news about "mega losses" being suffered by same. They have gotten to the point through the use of computors, where the human element has been largely squeezed out, and treating customers with any fairness, means following a set of rules written by some isolated desk monkey who never has to be held accountable for his own screw ups....