Foo - UPS is amazing

Or not. This is from McMaster Carr to the east side of Indianapolis. Normally I order something at 5:30 PM, it's in my hand s at 10:00 AM the next day. This should have arrived Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Friday. I'm still not sure how exactly it's going to arrive today. After watching it arrive in town, and then start going back to Minnesota, I called them and was informed that Minneapolis/St Paul was the correct delivery facility for my delivery address, which they correctly have listed as an address on the east side of Indianapolis, which is not in Minnesota. Note that I had a duplicate shipment sent from the same origin to the same address yesterday, and it arrived this morning as expected. This one is still floating about. Also note that it appears to be going in a circle, and it's incoming on the end of the second loop. There's no way this thing's going to arrive today.

Bets on where it goes next (a third loop?)

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=127583&d=1259959080

All I know is they are incredibly efficient at breaking shipped pottery. :(

I also just noticed that the second time it went from Addison, IL to Hodgkins, IL it only took 32 minutes. The first time it had to go through Eagan, MN to get there, that took 21 hours and 35 minutes.

Addison and Hodgekins are only about 20 minutes apart. Hodgkins is the major hub for this area, and Addison is the local delivery hub.

So why did it have to go through Eagan, MN to get there?

Update: It's back in Indianapolis.

Your package has entered an endless loop, never to be delivered. For endless ages, it will be shuffled from brown truck to brown truck. It's next destination: The Twilight Zone.

UPS rose from the ashes of the MTA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VMSGrY-IlU

All I know is they are incredibly efficient at breaking shipped pottery. :(

And antique glass bowls.

If UPS sucked any harder they would be the USPS.

I think I saw your package heading east on I90 between Buffalo and Rochester this afternoon....

If UPS sucked any harder they would be the USPS.For items that size (3 lbs.), USPS is typically somewhat less expensive, and much faster. I don't understand why companies persist in shipping such items via UPS or FedEx.

I'll never forget the time the idiot UPS driver left my $3K guitar outside my house in the 20º cold for 4 hours. He never even rang the bell. My other favorite part is when they lean the package up against your garage door so you can hop in your car, pop the electric door opener, never see the package, and run it over with your car.

I got track my Nashbar order from OH to Vegas to Phoenix to Sacramento and back to Vegas. That was in fairness, FED-EX.

UPS was quite proficient in getting my bike to me in NM for a week-long tour. I shipped it over two weeks ahead of time. It arrived half way through the week that I needed it. When you absolutely positively need it late.

I've got to deal with all 3 on a routine basis.

I have to see (though I am aware) of UPS making a mistake on our end. FedEx has a couple of times, but we routinely get things that do not belong to us from the USPS.

but we routinely get things that do not belong to us from the USPS.

That works.

UPS is amazing. Or not.You're going to keep us informed about its progress, aren't you????

A timely thread. I am still in tears over my latest Ebay purchase (my longtime dream purchase, a gorgeous Litespeed frame) that UPS delivered after 10 days, box crushed, and the fork sticking out of the side & scratched. (I filed a claim with them but don't expect any action to make me whole.) This isn't the first time that I have fumed about their pokiness, etc. - say what you want, but compared to FedEx and the Postal Service, UPS is the absolute worst out there. Sad part is, 20 years ago (college days) I worked a summer with them and recall their emphasis on quality + efficiency, which obviously has long left their figurative building. I also remember 30-some years ago, starting out in cycling and ordering from Nashbar, how the brown truck pulling up to my parent's house would be so heavily anticipated. Now, I cringe when something I buy must be shipped UPS. Oh well, if GM can get run into the ground and go into bankruptcy, I suppose no one is immune from ending up in the dust bin.

Yep, UPS is the worst. Fedex isn't much better these days. Just read that since shipping is dow, they're going to raise rates by 6%. I'm sure that'll spur more people to rush out and give them their packages.

UPS breaks more guitars than United.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo)

What's up with them not ringing the bell? That standard operating procedure for Big Brown? Did that to me, yesterday.

What's up with them not ringing the bell? That standard operating procedure for Big Brown? Did that to me, yesterday.
I believe that residential deliveries don't require a signature. As a result, they drop and run. That is just speculation on my part.

I do know, however, that every route has a estimated time of completion based upon volume and number of stops. Routes are chosen to minimize the number of left turns. If it looks like the driver is slacking off, a supervisor does a ride along a.s.a.p. to find out why. Usually, it's because of factors that the driver can't foresee/control.

While I agree that UPS sucks (and is why I have a FedEx account, and not a UPS one), I have nothing but praise for my local delivery drivers. Dennis (UPS guy) will deliver to my house first. If no one is there, he'll take it to the bank where my wife works. If she isn't there, he'll bring it by the bike shop. If I'm not here, he takes it back to my house and leaves it where we'll see it, but no one driving/walking by will.

Fed Ex guy does pretty much the same.

While I agree that UPS sucks (and is why I have a FedEx account, and not a UPS one), I have nothing but praise for my local delivery drivers. Dennis (UPS guy) will deliver to my house first. If no one is there, he'll take it to the bank where my wife works. If she isn't there, he'll bring it by the bike shop. If I'm not here, he takes it back to my house and leaves it where we'll see it, but no one driving/walking by will.

Fed Ex guy does pretty much the same.
That is great customer service. Likely won't last once the corporate bean counters find out.

Price Point routinely ships UPS, and thankfully, nothing from them has been late/missing/damaged. JensonUSA does FedEx, and I can say the same for them.

Guess I've been pretty lucky -- NEVER had a damaged shipment, and rarely late. Maybe 1x/year....

Oh, and a few eBay merchants have sent me stuff USPS, and no problems there, either. But I know how they CAN be.

The annual Xmas UPS bashing thread, w00t!

Well, I ship violins all over the continent, all year. A few thousand instruments annually gives me a pretty clear picture of who ships well and who doesn't. UPS kicks all their butts, and here's why.

USPS: no accountability, no tracking. They aren't even in this century.

FedEx has two problems that limit their ability to do a good job. One is that their drivers are paid by the box, and it's the same money regardless of size. So the smaller the boxes, the more they can fit and the more $ they take home. So when you give them a large box, expect it to get kicked, expect your recipients to hear some rudeness from the driver, and get your claim forms warmed up. Photograph the boot prints on the box to facilitate claim payment.

Their second problem is they have different drivers for FedEx Ground, Fed Ex Home Delivery, and Express. If a home delivery guy gets a business box or a ground guy gets a home delivery box, his time has been wasted, and now here in the holiday season he won't be able to afford to get his kid the new G.I. Joe with Kung Fu Grip. So what do you think will happen to that box? Boom, zoom! To the moon.

UPS Tip: have all your shippers check the "signature required" box to avoid the mystery deliveries.

FedEx has two problems [...] expect it to get kicked, expect your recipients to hear some rudeness from the driver, and get your claim forms warmed up. Photograph the boot prints on the box to facilitate claim payment.
Their second problem is [...] Fed Ex Home Delivery [...] So what do you think will happen to that box? Boom, zoom! To the moon.

Literally. When possible, no longer do I order items with FedEx Home delivery, after one driver--upon seeing me come to the front door--dropped a box, containing a new computer, from chest height to the concrete sidewalk. "They're packed well," was his response when I expressed disbelief and dismay. (Second runner up.)

The first runner-up was a DHL driver: I watched him heave a package from the sidewalk to the concrete at the front of the door (about 25 feet).


UPS Tip: have all your shippers check the "signature required" box to avoid the mystery deliveries.

Makes little difference, it seems, and since the recipient is not the UPS customer, there are no provisions in UPS home delivery terms of service that allow the recipient to enforce the restriction. "Signature cross your fingers" is a better description (at least on this local route). The UPS TOS allow drivers to leave a package outside in a place that seems safe if it is not likely to be seen from the public way, and even if marked as signature required a driver needs only to obtain an illegible scribble from some unknown and unidentified person, possibly a child (though it can be requested only to an adult).

That "safe" place has included, in my experience, at the bottom of a 10 foot below ground enclosed patio (belonging to a different resident in the building; and another time on the opposite side, vacant unit requiring a ladder to go down to retrieve it), with no use of door intercom attempted.

Winner: Worse to date was a signature required delivery for an expensive SLR lens, handed over to a person the driver reported merely as a "man," but no name, address or signature obtained. The driver freely admitted he handed it to a man (not of my race) sitting in a car on the street whom the driver knew was not the named recipient. And still UPS took 3 weeks after that admission (relayed to me by one of their own customer service personnel) to advise the retailer the claim was verified (USP kept reporting it as "under investigation") in order for me to be able to begin the wait for the replacement (which by my request was intercepted and I picked it up at a customer service facility, rather than give the driver another). After several incidents of diverted deliveries with the driver still working the route (the other incidents not quite as flagrant) my use of UPS for deliveries has also been curtailed.

If you are fortunate enough to have a conscientious, efficient delivery person (UPS, USPS or FedEx), by all means (at least to the extent allowed by management and/or law enforcement) make your gratitude and appreciation known.

A bike messenger would have delivered this by now!!!


UPS, FedEx, these companies are known for looping goods around. I would rather trust USPS...really.

the box handlers at the depots are hired and fired revolving door style.
so it's only natural that no one gives a damn about the contents of your box.

the box handlers at the depots are hired and fired revolving door style.
so it's only natural that no one gives a damn about the contents of your box.


That is a fact!! The order pullers and dock hands are paid crap, also the clerks are lazy at most places.

Your package has entered an endless loop, never to be delivered. For endless ages, it will be shuffled from brown truck to brown truck. It's next destination: The Twilight Zone.

That seems to be the case. It made it back to Indy Friday, left Saturday, and showed up back in Minnesota Sunday, where I presume it still is.

I've never had an issue with our UPS delivery at our current apartments. If no one is home, we get a delivery tag on the door and he brings everything to the front office; they store it in their locked parcel room.
FedEx, for whatever reason, can't figure out that when a package says (in multiple places) "Deliver to Front Office if no answer at apartment", that they should just bring it to the front office. Instead, I get a "signature required" tag on my door; then a 2nd Attempt tag; then a "returned to hub" tag, and I have to drive out there and pick it up.
This has been the case for 2 parcels via FedEx which were not ordered as signature required, and handmarked by the shipper with the instructions to deliver at the front office.
Of course, the expensive computer which was marked as signature required was left in front of my apartment door.

If UPS sucked any harder they would be the USPS.
I'm thinking they might be worse now.

I have fewer problems these days with USPS than I do UPS....and that's a SCARY thought.

Try GBL. For those unfamiliar, it is how the government saves money shipping high dollar, heavy, sensitive equipment from vendor to shipyard.

Pretty scary.

That seems to be the case. It made it back to Indy Friday, left Saturday, and showed up back in Minnesota Sunday, where I presume it still is.

At least that package is keeping a few UPS guys employed. Way to save the economy there!