To Me or Not to Me

I sent a bike on Friday I sold via overnight UPS. No Sunday delivery.

The bike didn't show up on Monday. My tracking number showed that it was 120 miles away from where it was supposed to be. I informed the recipient. He went down to his local UPS depot and they would hardly talk to him. He was paying for it so he started screaming. They said that they would open an investigation. Since he has a business using them he screamed even louder and someone went into the back and dug around and found the package.

Around here I've generally had better luck with UPS than FedEX but just getting UPS to TAKE a package from here turned into far more work than it was worth. So I vowed to take my business to FedEX from now on since they have a local office that does everything for you without you having to fill out all sorts of special forms and standing on your head.

So yesterday I heard the mailman put mail in my mailbox. Went out to pick it up and there was a "tried to deliver" form on top of everything. Why didn't he ring the bell as he was supposed to?

This morning I was at the post office first thing and was still 4th in line and it took me 30 minutes to get to the counter. Handed over the ticket and she wanted "ID" took my driver's license and disappeared into the back for 20 minutes. No package. Leave your phone number.

5 hours later I get a call and went down and picked it up. It took them that long to find a package the needed a signature! And it was a new set of wheels so it had to be the biggest package in the place.

What in the hell is going on?

On 2017-08-22 15:17, wrote:
I sent a bike on Friday I sold via overnight UPS. No Sunday
delivery.

The bike didn't show up on Monday. My tracking number showed that it
was 120 miles away from where it was supposed to be. I informed the
recipient. He went down to his local UPS depot and they would hardly
talk to him. He was paying for it so he started screaming. They said
that they would open an investigation. Since he has a business using
them he screamed even louder and someone went into the back and dug
around and found the package.

Around here I've generally had better luck with UPS than FedEX but
just getting UPS to TAKE a package from here turned into far more
work than it was worth. So I vowed to take my business to FedEX from
now on since they have a local office that does everything for you
without you having to fill out all sorts of special forms and
standing on your head.


Same here. Anything that goes out business-wise goes Fedex. Even if I
miss the cut-off for pick-up and have to strap it onto the rack of my
road bike for a "put-on-the-coals" ride to El Dorado Hills.

UPS is a union shop and that often shows.


So yesterday I heard the mailman put mail in my mailbox. Went out to
pick it up and there was a "tried to deliver" form on top of
everything. Why didn't he ring the bell as he was supposed to?

This morning I was at the post office first thing and was still 4th
in line and it took me 30 minutes to get to the counter. Handed over
the ticket and she wanted "ID" took my driver's license and
disappeared into the back for 20 minutes. No package. Leave your
phone number.

5 hours later I get a call and went down and picked it up. It took
them that long to find a package the needed a signature! And it was a
new set of wheels so it had to be the biggest package in the place.

What in the hell is going on?


Government work at its finest :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 8/22/2017 5:17 PM, wrote:
I sent a bike on Friday I sold via overnight UPS. No Sunday delivery.

The bike didn't show up on Monday. My tracking number showed that it was 120 miles away from where it was supposed to be. I informed the recipient. He went down to his local UPS depot and they would hardly talk to him. He was paying for it so he started screaming. They said that they would open an investigation. Since he has a business using them he screamed even louder and someone went into the back and dug around and found the package.

Around here I've generally had better luck with UPS than FedEX but just getting UPS to TAKE a package from here turned into far more work than it was worth. So I vowed to take my business to FedEX from now on since they have a local office that does everything for you without you having to fill out all sorts of special forms and standing on your head.

So yesterday I heard the mailman put mail in my mailbox. Went out to pick it up and there was a "tried to deliver" form on top of everything. Why didn't he ring the bell as he was supposed to?

This morning I was at the post office first thing and was still 4th in line and it took me 30 minutes to get to the counter. Handed over the ticket and she wanted "ID" took my driver's license and disappeared into the back for 20 minutes. No package. Leave your phone number.

5 hours later I get a call and went down and picked it up. It took them that long to find a package the needed a signature! And it was a new set of wheels so it had to be the biggest package in the place.

What in the hell is going on?


Nothing new. How long have you lived in this country?

We both ship and receive a lot of merchandise. All the
majors have their own features, foibles and failings. We're
presently with USPS for smallish expensive things and FedEx
for large cartons[1]. Both have excellent real-time tracking
and generally dependable service.

Do they sometimes smash or lose things and occasionally
route packages through the black hole time machine[2] for a
week or so? Yes they do - but not all that often.

That said, a system is only as good as the local staff which
can be absolutely miserable[3]


[1] Best service at the best price is overseas military via
APO/FPO. They must lose a gazillion dollars on it, fast
reliable and dirt cheap.

[2] Just got a set of new vintage French brakes returned
from Sweden. We mailed in mid-May, they arrived at SE Post
four days later, and then... nothing. Until yesterday.

[3] Legendary:
http://www.theweekbehind.com/2014/01...ce-in-america/

nearby zip codes are strong challengers, too.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Joerg wrote:

:Same here. Anything that goes out business-wise goes Fedex. Even if I
:miss the cut-off for pick-up and have to strap it onto the rack of my
:road bike for a "put-on-the-coals" ride to El Dorado Hills.

:UPS is a union shop and that often shows.

Fedex are, outside of the express service, low paid contractors, who
have been known to quit with a truck full of undelievered parcels. Or
who claim to have put a six foot long 80 pound package on top of a
three foot cabinet 8 feet in the air, when it had actually been
delivered to a building ahlf a mile away. Or leave a package requiring an
adult signature on the sidewalk. All of those have happened to my
parcels. In the last year.

And, of course, the various services are different companies, and they
do not communicate. Put a ground parcel in the building's express
drop off point, it will be in the dumpster tomorrow.




--
sig 6

AMuzi wrote:

:[3] Legendary:
:http://www.theweekbehind.com/2014/01...ce-in-america/

:nearby zip codes are strong challengers, too.

The really grumpy guy at my office's local postoffice (Lakeview,
60613) retired. I had the honor of telling him on his last
day that it would be a great pleasure to never see him again.



--
sig 117

On 2017-08-22 20:04, David Scheidt wrote:
Joerg wrote:

:Same here. Anything that goes out business-wise goes Fedex. Even if I
:miss the cut-off for pick-up and have to strap it onto the rack of my
:road bike for a "put-on-the-coals" ride to El Dorado Hills.

:UPS is a union shop and that often shows.

Fedex are, outside of the express service, low paid contractors, who
have been known to quit with a truck full of undelievered parcels. Or
who claim to have put a six foot long 80 pound package on top of a
three foot cabinet 8 feet in the air, when it had actually been
delivered to a building ahlf a mile away. Or leave a package requiring an
adult signature on the sidewalk. All of those have happened to my
parcels. In the last year.

And, of course, the various services are different companies, and they
do not communicate. Put a ground parcel in the building's express
drop off point, it will be in the dumpster tomorrow.


Yes, I've also had various issues with Fedex Ground and Fedex Home
Delivery. But not with Express.

With UPS I even had issues with their air ship service. Once they
started the habit of literally throwing packages over the backyard
fence. The topper was an expensive piece of electronics that was chucked
10ft onto a concrete surface. That's when I had it wrote to their CEO
and a serious thunderstorm broke loose.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 7:37:02 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-08-22 20:04, David Scheidt wrote:
Joerg wrote:

:Same here. Anything that goes out business-wise goes Fedex. Even if I
:miss the cut-off for pick-up and have to strap it onto the rack of my
:road bike for a "put-on-the-coals" ride to El Dorado Hills.

:UPS is a union shop and that often shows.

Fedex are, outside of the express service, low paid contractors, who
have been known to quit with a truck full of undelievered parcels. Or
who claim to have put a six foot long 80 pound package on top of a
three foot cabinet 8 feet in the air, when it had actually been
delivered to a building ahlf a mile away. Or leave a package requiring an
adult signature on the sidewalk. All of those have happened to my
parcels. In the last year.

And, of course, the various services are different companies, and they
do not communicate. Put a ground parcel in the building's express
drop off point, it will be in the dumpster tomorrow.


Yes, I've also had various issues with Fedex Ground and Fedex Home
Delivery. But not with Express.

With UPS I even had issues with their air ship service. Once they
started the habit of literally throwing packages over the backyard
fence. The topper was an expensive piece of electronics that was chucked
10ft onto a concrete surface. That's when I had it wrote to their CEO
and a serious thunderstorm broke loose.

Well, the UPS store doesn't have WAYBILLS. You have to drive around and find a UPS dropbox and rumage around in them and there are at least two different kinds of waybills and it isn't clear what the difference is other than size, shape and color.

If I go down to the local FedEX they have a scale, all the necessary paperwork and they can even improve the packing if they think it inadequate.

At the UPS store I had to know the weight of the box, I had to bring in a fully filled out waybill that I had found in an unlikely spot and they didn't even glance at the packing.

On 2017-08-23 07:51, wrote:
On Wednesday, August 23, 2017 at 7:37:02 AM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2017-08-22 20:04, David Scheidt wrote:
Joerg wrote:

:Same here. Anything that goes out business-wise goes Fedex. Even
if I :miss the cut-off for pick-up and have to strap it onto the
rack of my :road bike for a "put-on-the-coals" ride to El Dorado
Hills.

:UPS is a union shop and that often shows.

Fedex are, outside of the express service, low paid contractors,
who have been known to quit with a truck full of undelievered
parcels. Or who claim to have put a six foot long 80 pound
package on top of a three foot cabinet 8 feet in the air, when it
had actually been delivered to a building ahlf a mile away. Or
leave a package requiring an adult signature on the sidewalk.
All of those have happened to my parcels. In the last year.

And, of course, the various services are different companies, and
they do not communicate. Put a ground parcel in the building's
express drop off point, it will be in the dumpster tomorrow.


Yes, I've also had various issues with Fedex Ground and Fedex Home
Delivery. But not with Express.

With UPS I even had issues with their air ship service. Once they
started the habit of literally throwing packages over the backyard
fence. The topper was an expensive piece of electronics that was
chucked 10ft onto a concrete surface. That's when I had it wrote to
their CEO and a serious thunderstorm broke loose.

Well, the UPS store doesn't have WAYBILLS. You have to drive around
and find a UPS dropbox and rumage around in them and there are at
least two different kinds of waybills and it isn't clear what the
difference is other than size, shape and color.

If I go down to the local FedEX they have a scale, all the necessary
paperwork and they can even improve the packing if they think it
inadequate.


Same here and they even gave me a stack of airway bills so I can just
fill one out and call it in if I finish a diagnostic job on a client
prototype before the truck for pick-ups rolls through.


At the UPS store I had to know the weight of the box, I had to bring
in a fully filled out waybill that I had found in an unlikely spot
and they didn't even glance at the packing.


Our UPS store does have one advantage though. They have a notary public
and are planning to get all or most of their staff trained as notaries
public. I have used that service many times.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Ordering Dell equipment, DHL laid packages on the sidewalk outside my gate !

The metal box laptop had not shipped so calls to Texas led to shipping with FedEx.

DHL drivers were Haitian immigrants or so ...

different perspective on 'outside the gate'

Twice UPS crushed a box with freeze dried food from REI n sprayed a special insecticide thru the cracks ...criminal activity...requiring outside knowledge.

Prob from Jacksonville not Nashville.

UPS responded quickly n professionally

Amazon ships some dubious stuff in dubious bags ... mostly USPS... I was/am dubious but have not seen damage