The AM Forum

Normally I don't rant and rave about minor little irratants that occur day-to-day, it's just a normal part of life.
However, today UPS pushed my buttons one to many times. Tuesday I come home from work and find a UPS notice on my door. Since I hadn't ordered anything lately, I thought it was a little odd. The notice stated they (UPS) wanted a mis-delivered package back to re-deliver to the rightful owner. Usually they leave packages for me on the back porch, so I looked and looked again, but no package. I called the 1-800 # and they had no record of any notice or package. Happened again last night, same result. Today, my wife was home with the day off of work, and the driver shows up looking for the package. My wife expalins to him we don't have it. Turns out this package was mis-delivered on July 20, over 2 months ago. He then gets angry with my wife saying we are breaking the law by holding this package and we are now a "drop off risk location" and will require a signature for anything that is delivered. At this point she doesn't know what to do and calls me.
I called UPS and explained to them very firmly that we do not have a package, have never had a package, and that if he or any other driver for UPS shows up on our property again that I will call the police. Also, I will never ever use UPS again, and make sure I specify any carrier other than UPS. Seems a little drastic, but 2 other attempts to report that we didn't have a package, to penalize us for thier mistake, and call my wife and I thieves is a little drastic too....

Just venting, climbing off my soapbox now, over....

Mike,2ZE

Normal operating proceedure for them.

They once left a box on my porch that weighed less than 1 oz.  The wind was blowing over 40 mph.  I never found it and Mouser, bless their souls, replaced the part at no charge, even for shipping.

Mouser good..........   

UPS is made up of a bunch of lying empty suits and employees who would like to work elsewhere or have resigned themselves to just being pricks. Mixed in are a few nice people. The worst facet of this company is their fradulent insurance practices. They have been fined by the feds more than once for setting up offshore dummy insurance companies in order to beat taxes. The alternatives for shipping are almost as bad. At least their trucks look better.

July 2005- 60 pound shipment of rifle ammo left in the driveway, not even a knock on the door. signature required by law for all ammo/hazmat shipments. brought to the door by neighbor's children later that day. January 2006- small envelope of parts including expensive and delicate match trigger assemblies left under a car in the driveway, perfectly wedged under a rear wheel. August 2006- SB220 filament transformer once nicely double boxed arrives in shredded packaging found in the woods near the mailbox, again no knock, no signature. at work Septmeber 2006- I.F.R. service momitor back from repair/calibration (40 pounds with battery) hurled 20 FEET from back of big brown truck onto garage floor. packaging appeared damaged even before "the flight" from the truck. result was 5000$ of space junk ruled "improperly packaged" by UPS. nice work there guys...

Telefunken Opus 6 reduced to tooth picks. Triple boxed professionally packed. Took 10 months for insurance check. >:( Phooey...................

From my professional life:

Automotive OEM supplier, 1998:  UPS driver hurls boxes of items across warehouse dock, in path of oncoming forklift, causing operator to try to lock brakes.  When challenged, UPS driver said that it "wasn't his problem."

Telecom-equipment manufacturer, 2002:  Box containing $5,000 of multilayer backplane PC boards reduced almost to tissue paper.  Several boards cracked, almost all with one or more corners flattened.  Very little packing in the box [little wonder, it all spilled out the gaping hole in the side].  Called sister subsidiary in Canada that sent the boards; they assured that the box was intact and stuffed with packing around the boards, when it left their dock.

Another telecom-equipment manufacturer, 2005:  Various boxes containing ferrite-cored inductors and transformers [everyone here knows how brittle they can be] from China looking as if they'd gone through a FIFA Cup match.  Several items broken, and there was a production deadline to meet.

No wonder that they're called, "(U)nmerciful (P)ackage (S)mashers." >:(

I can't stand those bast**ds at UPS. (Unmitigated Package Smashers) We have a fair amount of stuff coming and going as well, and NONE of it goes by UPS. I've had decent luck for years with Fedex, never a need for a claim, and they don't throw our deliveries over the fence(happened with UPS)

The few times a customer insisted on UPS, I'd bring the box right to they're counter, set it down, and whip out the dig camera and snap a few pics of the nice clean, INTACT box with they're personel in the background. BOY, that'll get you some nasty looks.

A buddy of mine is trying to get them at they're best by taping the delivery. I was at his house a while back, and we hear the truck come rolling up, he jumps up and graps a video camera off the table and he's shooting a video of the guy bringing the package to the door. He says if he can catch him tossing it from the truck to the house on tape this time, he'll send it to Channel 8 news. They can call the story "Special Delivery". They can block out the drivers face, and show him flinging the box 30 feet to the front door. 

I  like the idea of documenting the condition of the box at the UPS office, in front of the employees.

Routine video taping of the delivery would be a good idea in any case, for documentation in case the contents of the box is smashed up.

Not only with UPS but any delivery service.

It could be useful when they try to deny your damage claim.

I worked for Fed Ex for about 3 years.  I can assure you they are no better!! 
The worst thing I Think I saw, was a tractor Trailer (from the main hub in Memphis) that was nearly full of packages.  Some inbred dumped a  SNOW PLOW Blade (the kind that go on front of the trucks, complete with hydraulics and frame)  on top of the whole pile of packages. You can imagine what they looked like after the >1000 mile road trip from Memphis to Manchester NH...

The large conveyor belts that fed pacakges down the "alley" had a safety line to Pull to Stop.  If you ever did stop the belt during a Sort, (freight Sorting operation) you had better have a major appendage in the rollers, or you A$$ would be...  People who stopped the belt to correctly stack their frieght  were flamed hard by agents and managers...

So glad I quit that Job....

UPS bad !!

I ordered a half dozen 5ft. solar panels over the summer one by one instead of a complete shipment.  Each and every one of them was broken.  It took 2 months to get 6 perfect panels.  Complaints to UPS and the vendor were a waste of time.  It wasn't until after complaining many times to the vendor to ship them via another service that they arrived safe and sound.

An interesting website complete with gory pictures:
United Package Smashers (http://www.unitedpackagesmashers.com)

Being that I am a project manager for a commercial construction company. This is a constant source of dilema for me.

UPS, usually damages anything larger than a shoebox, Fedex is most likely to lose it.
Truck freight usually yields damaged or destroyed materials, and the USPS is just a total crapshoot, what the hell can ya do these days.

I think that the whole problem just boilz down to lethargic employees that are being pushed beyond their limits, and just dont give a szht!

Mike, so sorry to hear of your plight.
If you can speak with someone in corporate you should be ok.

As for UPS vs. FedEx, my experience, as both a UPS and FedEx shipper, has been that both are about the same. If anything FedEx's once high service standards have been lowered by the use of independent "contractors" for home delivery and non-critical items.

If I want something breakable to arrive safely, I do the following:

1) Box within a box packing, use foam instead of peanuts

2) Insure heavily

3) Ship Red Label overnight, less time in transit, less time to break

If UPS was really as bad as some claim, they would have been out of business long ago.
The majority of corporate biz still ships with Big Brown.
Its like anything else, you have to plan around the "human factor", once you understand that then the system works well.

There's even some smashed up ham gear there.

I personally have had fairly good luck with UPS.   USPS Priority Mail is what I prefer to use.  Fed Ex has left too many things out in the rain without a knock on the door for my tastes.

Like others have said, I think it's a toss.  Depends how lucky one is with each package.  Fed Ex lost my brother's TS940.  He got paid for it but he waited a LONG time.