Heads up......shipping via UPS.

I just thought I would pass along something I learned the hard way this week, maybe will save one of you some problems in the future. I sold a few unneeded car parts on another forum and took 3 of them to Office Depot on Oct 3rd and shipped them. Got all the receipts and forwarded the tracking numbers to the buyers so they could watch them come to them.

Two days later one of the three buyers sent me an email saying that tracking number was not coming up, so I put it in the computer, he was right. I went to O-D the next morning and they told me they saw my stuff go out the door (It was some odd shaped stuff, like dropped axle, batwings, hairpins) I then called UPS and they told me they see this happen occasionally where no tracking info shows but the box suddenly shows up delivered. She said it should be there by the 7th.

I kept the buyer in the loop and told him to let me know if it showed up. Friday came and the box didn't show up, so I went to the local UPS depot and spoke to a manager. He said it was O-D problem, not theirs and I had to put in a claim with them. Monday I went to the O-D store at the time they told me the UPS guy shows up every day and caught him. He was less than helpful and basically said if the box is picked up he scans it, so O-D must not have given it to him. :mad:

Long story short, I have refunded the money to the buyer to get him out of this mess and have put in a claim with O-D. No one can tell me how long it will take for me to get reimbursed (thank God I insured it) or who will be paying me, UPS or O-D. I feel like a ping pong ball.

Moral of story, from now on I drive the extra few miles and put the packages right in the hands of a UPS counter person, that way they can't deflect the blame onto some second party that they sublet shipping privilages to.:rolleyes: Oh, in case you are wondering, the other two packages arrived fine and tracking info showed up as normal.

Don

Good word, Don - we use UPS on a regular basis as well as FedEx and rarely have any issues. Of the few problems we've had, our regular driver(s) have been extremely helpful.

The problem with the Office Depot (or similar) is that they are agents and the contracts are cut over brandy and cigars in a dark room somewhere with vague conditions that are never passed on the the drivers so they (the drivers) are sometimes at a loss as to how to handle these issues - however; doesn't excuse rude behavior.

My experience has always been professional but as your story points out, the insurance is always a good idea if you're shipping anything of value.

I had a CNC dropped axle worth about $1000 shipped from CA to me in Tucson. An empty axle box arrived. Called UPS, they said the shipper had to file the claim. The theoretical axle journey could be traced from the shipping point to two intermediate UPS locations and then to Tucson hub but they could not find a 52" long axle.....somewhere out there is a UPS worker with a high dollar axle under his hot rod or maybe under his brown truck.......and nobody at UPS said "sorry", "f**k you" or anything.

if all else fails they`ll claim the loss as a " act of god " .. happened to my company a few years ago on a 50 grand finished product we shipped .. it was found a year later in a terminal warehouse ..

Strange you should mention that , Robot. I have a very funny feeling the driver didn't scan that one package on purpose. When I walked up to him on the sidewalk as he was going into O-D, he was almost avoiding me as I was telling him I wanted to talk to him about a lost package. He had a very strange manner about him and seemed to want out of there as fast as possible.

I could be way out in left field, but who knows?

Don

I ordered a ball cap with my call sign on it OF NO USE to some one else. After 2 weeks I called the shipper(seller) told him I never got it. He said that had never happened before.....He finely sent me another one and it arrived in less than a week no additional cost to me.........about a month later a box showed up on my door step from UPS it looked like it came from china with out a boat smash and all torn... I opened it there was my hat. I called the sellewr and sent him another check I now have 2 hats with my call on them

ha ... i have a spare deck lid spoiler for my stang ... i only paid for one ....

UPS operates a fairly reasonable odds business----stuff is in their possession 100%(except for the drop off point contractors like Office Depot) and the liklyhood of it going astray are remote---so----they sell insurance to the customers---and as long as the insurance bottom line is showing a profit---they don't care what happens or needs to happen to fix any reliability problems---that would be an excessive expense to them as they would have to give training to each and everyone of their employees and the results wouldn't show any thing added to the positive side of the ledger. Soooooo-------------

Don....the UPS guy who didnt want to talk to you....
did he look broke?
did he look like he stayed up late working on his hobby?
were his fingers cut?
did his clothing have grease on them?
was his credit card max'd out?
did he have a 9/16" box wrench in his pocket?

If any of the above are a "yes" he might be a hot rodder
and "acquired" a few parts from you.

Afew years back,I ordered some Model A running boards and valances from another fiberglass company in Auckland..The guy wrapped the stuff up for me,and walked the quarter mile(or less)down the road to Mainfreights main depot,and left them there for delivery..They never turned up,or for that matter,turned up anywhere..Fact is,,the silly beggar wrapped the stuff in bubble wrap,,and it was quite obvious what it was..Methinks,they had a guy either on the staff,or someone who walked in the main door,saw it and took it....:( The hassles of going through an insurance claim with the company bugged me,,cos they just didnt seem to care about it..:confused:

not sure if its true but if ups drops off a box and you do not sing for it or not there driver lost it ? but tracker shows it made it to the final destination it comes out of the ups drivers pay

One thing that he said while the O-D clerk and I were talking to him that made me suspicious was he asked if the missing parts were "like car struts or something." (They are a pair of Pete and Jakes hairpin radius rods) :eek: I said yes, and he said he did remember taking the axle out because it was in bubble wrap and he had to put it under his arm, instead of on his hand truck. Maybe he made a lucky guess as to the contents of the missing box, but his demeanor just seemed standoffish somehow. I know he was in a rush because those guys have so many stops to make, but he seemed overly anxious to me.

Another thing that I do not like about UPS or FedEx is that they will leave stuff at your door if you are not home. I came home one day and there were two big boxes sitting on our landing, and in them were two custom made bomber seats Dan had ordered for his car. Anyone could have come along and taken them.

Don

Don just wondering you said they were in bubble wrap.... I haven't been able to send anything UPS for several years without it beingin a cardboard box,or on a skid.

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not sure if its true but if ups drops off a box and you do not sing for it or not there driver lost it ? but tracker shows it made it to the final destination it comes out of the ups drivers pay

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Pat A delivery by UPS to a business has to be signed for . A residential delivery can be left in a secure place without a signature . But then what
is a secure area ?
Robot you are right , It's amazing that a large part , like an axle , can fall from a box and it Isn't noticed !!!
ALLWAYS OVER INSURE , in the end you might break even !

yep when i send stuff i request that it must have the singnature of the name of customer when they receive it.i have talk about this to the third party i use for ups or fexdx they said many times the driver makes a judgment call as to how good the neighborhood is to just drop it and run

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Originally Posted by hawk56

Pat A delivery by UPS to a business has to be signed for . A residential delivery can be left in a secure place without a signature . But then what
is a secure area ?
Robot you are right , It's amazing that a large part , like an axle , can fall from a box and it Isn't noticed !!!
ALLWAYS OVER INSURE , in the end you might break even !

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yep they only leave a box at my shop a business with business addess only when its paid for with a worker or i leave a note on the shop door .both fedx and ups know me very well :) .but if they do drop the box or you do not recive it then its the drivers butt .do not ask how i know this

No, I have shipped a lot of axles, springs, radius rods, etc and just put bubble wrap over them and then tape the h*** out of it with clear tape. Haven't had any problems so far, although a clerk at Kinkos (FedEx outlet) wouldn't take something one time, but I went to UPS and off it went.

The hairpins were in cardboard. I first wiretied them together, wrapped them in bubble wrap, and made a box that was tapered sort of like their shape. It was 39 inches long, x 8 wide x 3 thick, kinda tough to miss.

Don

I used to ship boxes in and out from other states. I found the post office to be the cheapest... most reliable... and with the least damage. I won't use the others any more.

Jay, if you go the basic flat rate boxes there is no way to track or prove they were delivered, the PO tells me. Do you add some sort of receipt required deal or something? I would love to start using them as they are a lot cheaper. Please tell me more about how you ship your stuff safely.

Don

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Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Jay, if you go the basic flat rate boxes there is no way to track or prove they were delivered, the PO tells me. Do you add some sort of receipt required deal or something? I would love to start using them as they are a lot cheaper. Please tell me more about how you ship your stuff safely.

Don

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yes there is i use them to. you can ask for delivery confirmation i get that on the flat rate boxs and insured them but after that it can be more then ups as the first $100 is free with ups

I'm going to have to sit down with the local PO and get all their rates for options. We are shipping more lately and UPS and FedEx has gone through the roof. I just shipped some headers to Iowa and the shipping was $ 68.17, and they only weighed 26 lbs.:eek:

Gotta be a better way.

Don

So far lucky with shipped parts to and from me with the exception of trashed boxes. My biggest complaint is when they deliver - it has been as early as noon, but usually between 6 and 8:30 PM like last night and that sometimes holds me up (usually my fault ordering late). Also, if it says on line that they will deliver on a particular date, it will be that date or later even if the item shows it's in the local warehouse and has been for several days

I used to ship a lot of miscellaneous items to strange parts of the world - and UPS was the worst, by far, to make it undamaged or even close to being on time. Used DHL mostly for that shipping, but they have now mostly gone the way of the gooney bird

I don't know how OD does it as an agent, I use the local UPS Store (Used to be Mail Boxes Etc. before UPS bought them to compete with the FedEx Kinkos program). They give me a receipt for each package that has the tracking number on it to prove I've entrusted them with it, and they email me the same info with a quick link to tracking, so making a claim shouldn't be too tough. Like Pat said, it's automatically insured for $100 unless extra is paid for. They don't make it easy, at least time wise, to collect though.

I haven't had anything recently go missing, but a few years back I bought a pair of old Torque thrust wheels. The seller did me a "favor" and taped the two boxes together to reduce the shipping cost. Well, what looks well taped on the garage floor at home doesn't always hold up to the rigors of the handling system. I ended up with a single box with a single wheel, but there were four frayed tape ends on the box.:HMMM: At that time (dozen or so years ago) all strays in the UPS system ended up at a central warehouse in, I think, Atlanta. When I finally got ahold of someone there I gave them a full, detailed description of what the wheel looked like. Three days later it showed up at the shop. The box was a little worse for the wear, but the wheel was fine. Could be Pops, your stuff is in that limbo land.

Last week I had a small package that the tracking showed had been delivered, but it wasn't on my front porch as normally happens. Once before this had happened and I got a call from a neighbor a couple blocks away that he'd gotten home and found a package on his front porch with my name on it (addresses aren't anything alike except for city/zip). So I thought, well maybe they did that again. The next morning I called the customer service line, went throught the push this button, push that button exercise and finally the disembodied "voice" said, "delivered at 3:38pm, left in the garage". Ain't technology grand? I rememberd I'd had the garage door open that afternoon, but it must have been at a time when I was out back or in the house and didn't hear the truck pull up. Anyway, went out to the garage and looked around, sure enough there it was on top of the sheet metal shear. I'm sure the driver figured it was safer in the garage than the porch.

Good luck Pops.

Bob, I also got a printout from OD for each box I shipped that day showing who it was going to, tracking number, weight, dimensions, etc, so I should be covered there. What I hope is that they don't ask me for is an invoice for value because it was a private sale to a HAMB member, and the only "invoice" is where I gave him the price and shipping in PM's we exchanged and he agreed to that and Paypal'd me the money. I did insure it for $ 200, so we will see how that goes.

On the other side of the coin, years ago we ordered something and it never came, but the tracking info showed the driver had left it "at the front door." The shipper filed a claim and as part of it UPS did their investigation. We had a UPS investigator come to our house and interview us. He was retired ex cop or something and I got a little annoyed because he basically was telling us we got the box and were lying and stealing it. He didn't come right out and say that, just his cop type attitude and the way he hinted that we got it because the driver said he left it there. (I guess we were guilty until proven innocent.:rolleyes:) But after he saw we lived in a nice place and didn't seem to be the kind of people who would rip them off for a $ 100 item, he backed off and they paid the claim.

On a side note, a while back it was on the news that a UPS driver was busted in a nearby town because he had something like $ 20,000.00 worth of stolen packages in his home. You would think the flags would have gone up because he had to have a lot of customers on his route filing missing package claims.

Don

UPDATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I put in a claim with Office Depot and Pam there has been working on it for me. Luckily, I had insured it for $ 200.00 so I figured it would take time but that I would be ok in the end.

Today I got a PM on the HAMB from the guy in Tulsa who bought them and he says when he got home last night he tripped over a box at his door !:eek: When I track the shipment now it shows it was left at his door at 7:08 pm last night. That is 17 days since I shipped it. He says the box is in good condition and not only are the addresses I wrote on the box legible, but so is the OD plastic envelope with shipping paperwork that Pam put on there.

He wants to keep them and is Paypalling me the money today, so we are right back where we were on Oct 3rd...............un freaking believable !!!! Makes you wonder where it has been for all this time.

Whatever happened, the problem started because the driver, who picked it up at OD, DID NOT SCAN IT. It went out the door, and if he would have scanned it the package would have been in the UPS system, just like the other 2 I shipped that day. So I only see two possibilities:

1) He forgot to scan it and when it got put out of his truck at the UPS depot that night it had no scan and went into some lost bin where it has been laying, or....

2) He didn't scan it on purpose, and took it. Then when I confronted him at OD that night he realized this one was going to be a problem and put it back sometime later when he was unloading his truck at the end of the day.

I hate to think #2 happened, maybe it just fell off of some conveyor belt and was legitimately lost all that time. But there is no question the problem started when he didn't scan it at OD the day he walked out the door with it.

Very strange, especially that there is no record of this package even moving cross country until UPS shows up at his door and just leaves it late in the day. :confused: I called Pam at OD and told her to call off the dogs.

Don

I think I'd go with door #2, after you confronted him he probably did just what you think he did and decided it wasn't worth the hassle for him trying to explain what happened. I've had the same problem with my letter carrier.

I think there might be something fishy about this whole deal. When I confronted him he did not want to be part of that conversation, AT ALL. Kept trying to walk away from us. The problem is, UPS will probably do nothing to investigate this either, too much trouble. :mad:

Oh well, at least the stuff finally got there.

Don

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Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

UPDATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I put in a claim with Office Depot and Pam there has been working on it for me. Luckily, I had insured it for $ 200.00 so I figured it would take time but that I would be ok in the end.

Today I got a PM on the HAMB from the guy in Tulsa who bought them and he says when he got home last night he tripped over a box at his door !:eek: When I track the shipment now it shows it was left at his door at 7:08 pm last night. That is 17 days since I shipped it. He says the box is in good condition and not only are the addresses I wrote on the box legible, but so is the OD plastic envelope with shipping paperwork that Pam put on there.

He wants to keep them and is Paypalling me the money today, so we are right back where we were on Oct 3rd...............un freaking believable !!!! Makes you wonder where it has been for all this time.

Whatever happened, the problem started because the driver, who picked it up at OD, DID NOT SCAN IT. It went out the door, and if he would have scanned it the package would have been in the UPS system, just like the other 2 I shipped that day. So I only see two possibilities:

1) He forgot to scan it and when it got put out of his truck at the UPS depot that night it had no scan and went into some lost bin where it has been laying, or....

2) He didn't scan it on purpose, and took it. Then when I confronted him at OD that night he realized this one was going to be a problem and put it back sometime later when he was unloading his truck at the end of the day.

I hate to think #2 happened, maybe it just fell off of some conveyor belt and was legitimately lost all that time. But there is no question the problem started when he didn't scan it at OD the day he walked out the door with it.

Very strange, especially that there is no record of this package even moving cross country until UPS shows up at his door and just leaves it late in the day. :confused: I called Pam at OD and told her to call off the dogs.

Don

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Don it is more likely it was misplaced in a hub sort.Yeah I yrs ago worked for them.

Yeah, I guess, that makes more sense. But if he had done his job and scanned it, as he stressed he does with EVERY box he picks up, this never would have happened in the first place. It all started with him missing it.

Don

UPS is so big,they really don't care much about the little guy.They have contracts with big companies that has a built in freight flow rate.

Maybe he was just being a human being and made a mistake and then later couldn't admit it? Or maybe I'm just naive... 8-)

No, you are actually thinking the right way. I was being too judgemental and suspicious. I think he just missed scanning it and the box was in limbo somewhere until they found it. We've become so accustomed to people doing bad things that we suspect everyone, and that isn't always the case. They give these guys so many stops a day that they have to hustle so mistakes will happen.

Don