Just Say No to UPS!

I am so mad that I'm vibrating. It takes a lot to get me to this state, where I literally feel on the verge of an out-of-body experience.

But UPS managed to do it.

Yes, that's UPS in case you missed it. Unadulterated Pure Slime. Unrelenting Poor Service.

I hope that no one I know will use UPS for their personal shipping, especially international shipping. And I hope that any other bloggers who read Elevated Umbrella will give this post some play to help spread the word:

If you actually want to receive your packages and don't want to be anally raped on the payment side for the privilege of NOT getting your packages, then JUST SAY NO TO UPS.

This is what happened.

In his joy and anticipation at spending five childless days in Vancouver with me, Basil accidentally left his Blackberry on the kitchen table. When I called to check in with my mom while Basil was in transit and she mentioned this news, I freaked out. Basil practically sleeps with his Bberry under his pillow. I yell at him for trying to drive and read email at the same time. He's a political campaign consultant, it's prime time in an election year, and the man seems to need his Bberry with him at all times to respond to his obsessed clients. So I told my mom to dash to the UPS store near our house and express-overnight-whateverittakes the Bberry to us at our hotel in Vancouver.

And those are the words that I regret. Because we were in Vancouver for two more days, then we were in Victoria for a night, then back in Vancouver for two more days and now back in northern Virginia for two days and...WE STILL DON'T HAVE THE BLACKBERRY. AND IT WON'T ARRIVE UNTIL NEXT THURSDAY.

That's not really the outcome you expect when you pay $68 to send a package via express service, yknow?

The reason we didn't get it in Vancouver was Canadian customs. (So much for my raving about those Canucks and their polite efficiency.) My mother swears that Tony at the UPS Store never mentioned any possibility of delay, but in talking with Tony today, I believe that he told my mother it would be there 'pending normal customs clearance.' I'm sure my mom heard 'normal' and assumed that meant 'no problem' when, in reality, Tony was covering his ass for the possibility of customs delays. Someone with a little more savvy would have caught his meaning and paused to question what that meant before signing the packing slip.

So, fine. Despite the fact that on Friday UPS customer service promised me that the package would clear over the weekend and deliver Monday morning, I'm willing to cede that we expected too much in hoping that it would clear customs right away and deliver in a day or two. And I'm willing to admit that my mother wasn't the best candidate to fill out all the forms and carefully consider the pitfalls of shipping internationally. I'll suck up the $68. Right now all I want is Basil's Bberry. (Good God, did I ever think that I would say those words?) But we're still nowhere close.

When the package still had not cleared Canadian customs as of Monday morning, I knew there was no way we'd get it while in country. Even if it cleared that day (which, of course, it ended up doing), it wouldn't be delivered until Tuesday morning - when we would be on a plane to Toronto.

So I told UPS to return the package to sender. 'Don't try to deliver it to the Marriott Pinnacle,' I said, 'because we won't be there.' UPS customer service told me they could do that. They'd send a message post haste to the facility in Richmond BC, telling them to cancel the delivery, turn it around where it was and point it toward old Virginny.

I told UPS I expected my package to come back at the rate it went out - express. The Bberry was something we needed (without it, Basil kept ducking into business centers and internet cafes to check and respond to email and using my Bberry to call and check in with his office) and we wanted it back soon after our arrival. UPS said they could do that no problem, but we'd have to get the shipper (Tony at the local UPS Store) to agree to accept the return. And there would probably be a cost involved. The estimate was $48.

I was incredulous at the idea of paying more money just to return my package to sender, but UPS had me over a barrel. Did I want the Bberry back unharmed? Then pay the ransom.

I called Tony in Virginia and explained the situation, and he said that he would call UPS and authorize the shipment once he talked to my mom about the cost and payment. So Tony called my mom and told her it was going to be $64 to send it back. Apparently, UPS quoted me the 'wholesale cost' and Tony had to charge us retail because, as he put it, he's just a middle man between the customer (us) and the carrier (UPS). (Insert eye-rolling and huffing and snorting here.)

My mom protested at the cost. 'How can you charge them so much when they never even got the package? Isn't there something you can do to get the cost lower?' Tony said he was sorry, but no. But he estimated that the package would reach us at home on Wednesday or Thursday. At least that was some consolation - we'd get the damn Bberry back in a timely manner. We'd fight city hall about the extortion price after we had our package in hand. My mom gave Tony our credit card number and told him to get our package home.

So Tuesday morning, before we left for the airport, I called UPS to check in. At this point, I didn't feel like I could trust anything to go to plan. When I called the automated tracking line, it told me that my package was 'out for delivery.' WHAT?!??!? I asked to speak to an agent, who looked into the status of my package and told me it was on a truck for delivery in Vancouver.

Now, I was starting to lose my cool. Delivering it to the Marriott would add God knows how much time to the eventual process of GETTING THE BBERRY, which is the whole point here. I explained to the customer service agent that I had requested that the shipment be cancelled and the package returned to sender and was told by UPS that my package would be turned around where it was - in the warehouse in Richmond BC. She had no explanation as to why UPS put the package on one of its shit-colored trucks and planned to deliver it anyway.

Whether the Marriott refused the shipment or UPS successfully got a message to its driver not to deliver the package (guess which scenario my money is on???), my package was never delivered to the Marriott. At that point, on Tuesday morning, it was turned around and send back to the States.

I called throughout the day on Tuesday to check the status and was told repeatedly that my package was being returned to sender and was on its way. I was also told that it was, indeed, going express, so we should expect it back around Thursday.

We didn't hear from Tony or anyone at UPS yesterday. I was really, really busy recovering from our trip, getting my mom to the airport and preparing to host a giant party for my church choir tonight (yes, I am crazy) so I didn't call to check in. First thing this morning, I called UPS to get a status report on my package. It had cleared US customs yesterday (we are so much more efficient than the Canadians!) and was indeed on its way back. Estimated arrival of next Thursday, June 22.

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!???!!?! How could express service take so freaking long?

Well, it couldn't. Those stupid assholes sent it GROUND. From Seattle to Washington DC. Basil's Bberry is on a freaking truck, making its way across the country like Easy Rider. And I fully expect that the driver is stopping off at whorehouses and dropping acid in cemetaries just like Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda did.

I really lost it with UPS customer service this morning. I mean, I didn't swear or raise my voice or anything, but I was pretty upset that despite my requests and authorization for express service, the package had been sent ground. And the customer service agent kept saying that (a) there was no way to upgrade delivery service once a package was in transit and (b) if the package was delivered ground and I was charged for express then I could talk to billing and ask for a refund.

She just didn't get it. I kept emphasizing that I wasn't unhappy with what I had been billed (as of this afternoon, my credit card has not yet been charged), I was unhappy with the fact that I had requested a certain service and authorized payment for a certain service and was told I would get that service. And then I didn't get it. And because of someone at UPS's incompetence and/or mistake, I was not going to have my package for an extra week. And who could I talk to about being compensated for the mistake that had been made that was now causing me great inconvenience?

The UPS customer service representative's response was this, almost verbatim: 'Just because you request a certain service, that's not a guarantee that you will receive that service.'

Go back and read that again. Now, read it again.

Can you even believe that? You say, 'I want to ship my package express' and UPS says, 'Okay, express.' And then they turn around and ship it ground and don't apologize or admit that they've made a mistake. They just say, 'There was no guarantee that we'd ship it express.'

Once my head stopped spinning around, I called Tony at the UPS Store to check and see what he had requested and what he had been told. He was flabbergasted and pissed that the package was being sent ground. UPS told him that they COULDN'T send it ground. If it went express, it had to come back express. He had asked about cheaper options because of my mom's protestations (um, actually, that wasn't the point, Tony - she wanted a deal on express service because of how we had been inconvenienced by the delays and mistakes), but they told him that express was the only option. So he said, okay, then express it is. And that's how UPS told him it would come back.

I told Tony that while I was unhappy with the customs delays, I understood that it was out of their control. But the lies ('your package will clear customs over the weekend and deliver Monday') and mistakes (putting in on a truck for delivery instead of sending it back, sending it ground instead of express) had me fed up and I was going to be seeking a refund for whatever I was charged for the return shipment and possibly more for the inconvience of being without the contents of the package for an additional week. And because Tony was my shipper, I was going to have to seek the refund from him. (Isn't that nice how UPS forces their little middle-man store franchisers to deal with customers and, thus, be the ones responsible for granting refunds, while UPS is the entity that actually delivers shoddy service? What's their motivation for getting it right?) I told Tony the whole thing would be much better if he could call UPS and request a refund, too. And he said he would, because he had authorized the express service and been told the package would ship express, and he was mad that the package was coming back ground.

What I didn't tell Tony was that I had my made up my mind to tell you the whole sordid story, Internet, and start a campaign: JUST SAY NO TO UPS.

Spread the word.