UPS.com - My Recent Painful Experience with UPS.com

UPS.com - My Recent Painful Experience with UPS.com

My Recent Painful Experience with UPS.com

My Recent Painful Experience with UPS.com

By Clinton Weir

http://CollegeClint.netfirms.com I have recently gone through a procession of painful experiences with and because of UPS.com. It all started, innocently enough, when I made a trade on GameTZ.com The gentleman, Richard, a good friend of mine, was to send me a few video games and some cash for my Genesis system with 50 choices games. Having less feedback, and in accordance with site rules, Richard sent his side of the trade first and I received in a timely fashion and immediately prepared a his shipment. Due to some form of a glitch in the system, the label I was printing for Richard's package bore the address of Roberto Carlo, a gentleman from California who recently made a purchase from me via eBay - the first error. Since I was in a blistering hurry that day(running behind), I slapped the labels on their respective packages and rushed out the door, never realizing the error until a few days later when Richard pointed out that the package was headed for California instead of his own address. I contacted Roberto immediately and notified him of the problem, and let him know he needn't worry about the problem causing him any personal inconvenience - and that I would personally set up and pay for a pick up via UPS so he wouldn't even have to leave the house. A few days later, he received the package and asked me to set up the pickup for the next day (Friday May 14th) between 3 PM and 5 PM. I set up the package shipment and pickup. Upon receiving the shipment notification, Roberto printed the label he was to affix to the package and did so. However, apparently, UPS never came to pick up the package. Therefore, I contacted UPS the following week and they, at first, refused to set up an additional pick-up under any circumstance whatsoever, until I finally spoke with a young lady who cordially went about setting up a new pickup, to which I greatly showed my appreciation until she mentioned she was going to charge me $26 for the service - more than the entire cost of the shipment with pickup that I'd already paid for. I told her that was crazy and asked her why it was so much, to which she replied that I was going to have to pay for the shipping AND pickup all over again! She never did explain why it would cost more than twice as much this time around though... Anyway, after much prodding, I managed to get the gal to agree to retry the pickup without charge on May 21st between 3 and 5. On that day, I received a call from UPS saying they could not find the place the item was to be picked up from and asking me for more information. I told them I couldn't give them any more information and that all I had was the address, at which time they said something to the effect that THAT was the information they were looking for. So, I logged into UPS and read the address from the web site (the very web site they ought to have access to). Nontheless, they again failed to pick up the package. At this time, Roberto suggested he would simply take the package to the UPS early the next business day (May 24th). He took the package to UPS to find out - oops - the label had not printed off correctly when he printed it from the email he'd received! They would not help him any further and kept asking him for his "account number" - a number which I myself don't even know with any certainty though I have been told it is represented in the tracking number by the first 6 digits. Even when he asked if they could print a new label from the tracking number, they refused to do so. He reported this to me late that night and I contacted UPS at their number the following day. The gentleman I spoke to from UPS notified me that there is no way to reprint a label because if UPS allowed you to reprint a label, you could reuse the same number over and over again and avoid paying shipping!!! I told him that was insane - that UPS would surely notice the tracking number had already been used and would not process the package. He said that's not true at all - many companies reuse tracking numbers (and, of course, pay new shipping each time) so that when UPS sees a package with a used tracking number, they clear the old data to make way for the new, apparently without checking to see if the new shipment has been paid for! This is part of the reason for my writing this document. According to this gentleman, one could receive unlimited shipments from Point A to Point B by simply retaining the shipping label used originally and reprinting it for every package going from Point A to Point B. While I certainly don't recommend doing this in the case UPS later decided they would frown on it, this would seem to be a way, according to the UPS employee I spoke to, to receive free shipping for life to any single location you choose. Anyway, after speaking to his supervisor(and being hung up on) and then calling back and speaking to another representative and then another supervisor, I was told how to go into UPS.com and void the shipment and given a tech support number to call if it didn't work. Needless to say, it didn't work, and I had to call the tech #. After telling THEM what happened, I was once again redirected to ANOTHER department which would be able to help me. After repeating the story yet again, this department said they could credit me back for the original shipment so I could make a new shipment and receive a new tracking number and label and let me know I'd receive the credit within 2-3 business days. I have proceeded to create the new shipment and label, this time making sure I have saved a digital copy of the label in case of another classic UPS screw-up. There you have it - my horror story regarding UPS. From one software glitch during printing, to two pickup failures, then another glitch during printing and a ridiculous policy against reprinting labels, and finally with their sorry excuse for a customer service team...

UPS has proven that they are a horribly disfunctional organization that shames the great name of America. AND THE PACKAGE STILL HAS NOT EVEN ENTERED THEIR SYSTEM! I sincerely worry about what is going to happen to my package once it actually begins its transit and I know that UPS will be there... to fumble and foul up this shipment... until the end of time... Thank you, UPS, for your abhorrent excuse for "customer service"!!! Clinton W

Click this link to e-mail the consumer that posted the above message: //