UPS loses irreplacable original archival elements

[Leo Enticknap]

UPS lost my wife's wedding ring. After it was accidentally dropped, she took it back to the jewelry store where I bought it for inspection. They determined that it needed to go to a specialist facility for repairs, and shipped it there via UPS. About a week later, we were told that it had never arrived. About a month after that it was declared lost, and the store was able to provide an identical replacement. My reaction to that news was similar to reading about these films: surely no-one in their right mind would ship such a valuable object using a method that has a significantly less than 99.9% reliability rate? But they did.

Until around a year ago, the reputational word on the street in these parts was that FedEx was significantly more reliable, both in terms of time taken, and not losing things. But then FedEx started to deteriorate, too. One ongoing issue I have with them involves a 12-plex in downtown LA that is buried in the middle of huge shopping/restaurant mall. Access to the theater requires climbing three stories, using a combination of stairs and escalators. Almost every time we've needed to have a warranty replacement part from Barco/Cinionic shipped there, we provide copious instructions, and the head tech puts a notice in the window of the main entrance saying "FedEx - please call XXX XXX-XXXX on arrival." But they always, without fail, report a failed delivery attempt, with the result that the site staff have to go to a FedEx office, collect the package, and then haul a 50lb light engine up several flights of stairs when they get back.

Very belated edit: this reminds me of an extremely tasteless joke that did the rounds a couple of years ago. Why do FedEx and UPS workers have so many abortions? Because they never want to deliver.

[Frank Cox]

Here's my shipping odyssey.

I had some documents that need to be in Mauritius ASAP.

I checked the Canada Post website this morning and determined that they offer "Priority Worldwide" service in some kind of partnership with FedEx. Priority Worldwide takes three days to get to Mauritius.

Off I go to the post office with my envelope. "Sorry, we can't do that. The best service we have to that destination is 12 to 18 days."

Back I come. I phone their 800 number. The guy I talk to on the phone asks for my postal code and says that of course Priority Worldwide is available at the Melville post office, just take my envelope there and they'll look after everything. So I printed out the relevant section of their website and went back to the post office.

"Sorry, we need customs form some-long-number before we can ship that." "Where do I get that?" "You can probably find it online."

So I come back and check their website again. Under customs requirements it says that form is required for items other than documents but it is not required for documents alone.

Back I go for the third time with that section printed out.

"Ok, if it says you don't need the customs form then we need shipping label another-long-number and you can find that on the website."

Back I come. I fill out the form for this shipping label on the website for this expecting to get a printable form but what I get is a QR code. "Print this QR code and take it and your envelope to your local Canada Post Office."

Okey dokey, fourth trip to the post office. They scan the code and get to a certain point in entering this-and-that and say that this won't let us proceed unless you have that customs form even though it says it's not required.

Back again. Find the customs form. Fill it out. Get another barcode.

Fifth trip back to the post office with this shiny new barcode.

"This says that it requires a special envelope and we don't have one of those here."

So I drove to Yorkton (about a half-hour down the road) and went to the post office there and had my envelope mailed in about ten minutes after I got to the counter. The guy there didn't need any of these barcodes and whatnot; he just whipped out a form from under the counter and said, "Fill this in with sender and receiver check off where it says documents and how are you paying for that?"

It will be there early next week, after five trips to the local post office and one drive to Yorkton and back.

I've never put this much effort into getting an envelope mailed before.

[Mike Blakesley]

I guess my best UPS story involves a guy shipping a printer through our counter UPS service. He brought it in, and the box he'd found was over the size limits, so I said he'd have to find a smaller box or ship it by truck.

Later he came back with it in a smaller box, but I could feel the printer sliding around in the box when I tipped it. I said, "You have to have enough packing in there to keep it from sliding around, otherwise it could get damaged." He said "Oh, it's only going to Billings (100 miles), it's a durable machine, it'll be fine. Ship it. And insure it for $1200."

I said, "I can insure it, but I doubt UPS would pay for any damage because it's not packed well enough -- you have to keep it from sliding around in the box." He said, "Look, I've been packing up stuff my whole life, I know what to put in a box for packing, and I need this thing to get to Billings, so SHIP IT." So...I did.

A few days later I get the dreaded "Your package was damaged" letter from UPS, and in the letter they said the printer had been damaged, but upon inspection, they'd found it wasn't adequately packed, so a damage claim would not be available. Surprise, surprise. So I called the customer and told him, and of course he hit the ceiling.

Thus ensued a bunch of letters back and forth between us and UPS, because since we were a "customer counter," we couldn't have him deal with them directly -- I had to forward everything he would write, and send their responses back to him -- this all took place before email, of course. After about six weeks of back and forth, a guy from UPS finally called me and said "We are not going to deal with this person anymore, it's abundantly clear the item wasn't properly packed." They then informed me that as the shipper, it was really MY responsibility to make sure things were packed properly. So from that point on, my word was law: If I didn't think it was OK, it didn't ship.

The customer was still steamed, threatened to take UPS to court for the $1200, and then when he found out (from them) that it was really our responsibility to make sure the thing was properly packed, he started claiming that I should have insisted he pack it properly before I accepted it, and especially before I charged him for insuring it, and he was going to take our store to court, since I was the professional and he was the amateur.

I typed up a nice strongly-worded letter to him (with a copy to UPS), reminding him of his insistence on me shipping the package, his assertion that he'd been packing stuff his whole life and knew what he was doing, etc. and finally letting him know that we weren't in the packing business, just the shipping business, and I had only sent the box because he demanded and insisted that I send it.

The day after I mailed the letter, I found out he had been arrested for drug possession, and hauled off to jail. When he got out with probation, he immediately moved to Florida, so I was told, and I've never heard from him since.

[Leo Enticknap]

The day after I mailed the letter, I found out he had been arrested for drug possession

Are you sure it was just the printer in that package? That might explain why he hit the ceiling...

[Mike Blakesley]

Well, he wasn't complaining about loss, just damage! But maybe he was looking for a payday, who knows.

[Leo Enticknap]

There again, he could hardly file a claim for that 3lb of crystal meth that was hidden in the printer!

[Marcel Birgelen]

It baffles the mind that UPS would hold the service point accountable for any damage arising out of insufficient packaging. While it may be obvious in some cases, you can't always judge wether or not the stuff in the boxes you get is sufficiently packaged. And what if the guy would've ordered a pickup at home? Would the UPS driver be held accountable for insufficient packaging?

[Mike Blakesley]

Well that's different. If you order a pickup at home, then YOU are the shipper and the driver can inform you if the box is badly packed. Since we are the UPS account holder, that means WE are the shipper. It just saves UPS from having to deal with somebody they don't have an account with. In this case, the box looked fine when it left here, so he just took it in the stack with the rest of them that day.

You can't always tell bad packing from the outside, anyway. Let's say you were shipping a 6" square glass cube, but you put it in a box that exactly fit the cube. UPS would easily accept that because there's no evidence of bad packing. But if your cube got busted, they would inspect the box and then refuse to pay, saying you needed to have space around the breakable object inside the box. Our driver used to preach "4 inches, top bottom and sides" for breakable items.