UPS Delivery, Day 1 – Awful
Tuesday, May 01, 2007. Worst experience with UPS delivery.
I ordered from JB an item I intend to give as birthday gift. I have to personalize it, add a card and wrap it before sending it out again by mail. I’m pressed for time, so I requested 2nd-day delivery.
Because I was waiting for the package today, I couldn’t just go out whenever I wanted. But I had errands to run, so I was all dressed and had turned off the computer, so that as soon as the package arrived, I could leave ASAP after doing the wrapping. By 4:30, it still wasn’t here, so I checked the tracking progress on their website. It said:
3:50 PM
A CORRECT STREET NUMBER IS NEEDED FOR DELIVERY.
UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION
What??? I’ve had tons of stuff delivered from JB; my address is saved in their database and I never have to retype it. There’s no way there’s a mistake in the street number.
I call 1800-742-5877, and they say the driver attempted to deliver to XXXX Street. It is not the name of our street! The lady said she’d inform the local delivery hub to call me. (They don’t want to give out the number.)
After an hour, the local delivery station calls me and says the driver actually delivered and left the package at the wrong address, so he has to go back there, try to retrieve it, and bring it to me. Can you imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t checked the status and called them? Someone else would have been enjoying that gift!
Another hour, I check online and now:
5:20 P.M.
PKG DELAY-ADD’L SECURITY CHECK BY GOV’T OR OTHER AGENCY- BEYOND UPS CONTROL
I don’t have the number of the local station, so I call the 1800 number. I just want to be connected to the local station. A boy answers, slurring his words. I repeatedly ask him to speak slowly. Finally, he says slowly: “Which part don’t you understand?” Then he starts slurring his words again. I nicely ask to speak to his supervisor. I think he says, “He’ll tell you the same thing.”
After a few minutes’ wait, a woman comes on (doesn’t sound like a supervisor). She repeats what the online status shows, and she says she’ll forward my inquiry to the local station and that they’ll get back to me after 30 minutes. They don’t, so I call the 1800 number again.
A fourth person (at the 1800 number) comes on and says the local station will actually take one hour to get back to me, not 30 minutes.
At 6:50 PM, the local delivery station finally calls me. She says: “Oh, the driver has gone home already. He says he tried you at 5:20, but you weren’t home.”
This is what these lazy drivers do. When they’re running late, they cut off the poorer sections of their route, and then report on their handhelds that they attempted delivery but no one was home. They think we people in the barrio don’t know enough English to complain.
So I just wasted a day and have to do my computer work tonight. I wasn’t able to mail out my other letters, because the post office closes at 7 PM. Worse, I have to stay home tomorrow morning to wait for the package to arrive!