Is UPS driving the brown truck — or the short bus?

I’ve never really had a problem with UPS. I’ve heard horror stories about broken merchandise or lost packages. The only hiccup I’ve ever had with UPS was when they delivered a big shipment of stuff for my dorm my freshman year in college in 2004, when they delivered it to the wrong address, a few houses down. No big deal, somehow I figured it out on my own and got it back.

So, in the past five years I’ve never had a problem with those people in the brown outfits. Usually on time — never early — but usually on time. I prefer to ship via US Postal Service, for various reasons, including the fact that our regular mailmen have the code to my apartment building, which is access-controlled by a keypad at the entrance. He knows each building, and where each apartment is. No big deal. UPS usually has the code too, but there’s been a couple instances where we had a new driver that didn’t have the code and we had to go pick it up at the UPS hub at East Hull and Delaware in Des Moines. No big deal.

But in the past few weeks, I’ve had nothing but nearly-catastrophic problems with UPS. It all began with Death Storm 2009, a blizzard that had its sights set on Des Moines last week. I was supposed to receive a package from Hamcity full of cables, connectors, tools, and a power supply. I usually watch all shipments’ movements very carefully online, so I know when to expect it to be on my doorstep. This was no exception.

The shipment was scheduled to arrive on December 10, so imagine my excitement when I logged into My UPS on December 8 to find out that the status was updated to show that it was actually ahead of schedule with an updated delivery date of December 9. Could it have been true? Every time my package is ahead of schedule, they hold it anyways — but maybe, I thought, they were trying to get packages out before the blizzard hit.

It arrived at the Des Moines hub on December 9, as promised, and went out for delivery that morning. Later that afternoon, a grim status showed up: “ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS / THE MOVEMENT OF THE PACKAGE WILL RESUME AS SOON AS THE WEATHER CONDITIONS ALLOW.”

The snowpocalypse was here. So was my mailman, as usual, and my next door neighbor even received a package from UPS that day. But nothing for me.

The package stayed on the truck for the rest of the day until UPS apparently gave in and re-scanned the package the next day and updated it to a status of “EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS’ CONTROL.” That’s ok, I thought. Most of central Iowa was snowed in (but my mailman wasn’t). I can’t really blame them for not wanting to put their goods and employees at risk. By the end of the day, the worst was over and snow plows were starting to get an edge over the snow. I thought for sure they’d deliver on Friday, the next day.

We were greeted on Friday with blue skies, no wind, and totally clear roads. Unfortunately, I was greeted again with “EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS’ CONTROL” even though I easily made a 30-mile-round-trip run to the weekly ham radio luncheon in my little sedan with ease.

]Are they not even trying anymore? I called the 800 number that UPS provides. I wanted to speak to an agent to see what was going on, and maybe arrange for me to pick up the package to help alleviate their backlog. I reached the automated menu, where none of the options applied to me. Instinctively, I pushed zero. A robot woman retorted. “I can get you to a representative, but first let’s choose an option to get you started.” The robot woman recited my irrelevant options once again, and I gave in and slowly said each digit of my tracking number so the robot woman could understand it. All the robot woman said was that the emergency conditions were beyond UPS’ control. Nothing else. Ok, thanks, I guess? All I wanted to do was arrange for a pickup — and in turn helping alleviate your backlog.

I hung up the phone. I called back. Kept pounding zero until I finally got to a representative. The agent, obviously reading a prepared script and ingenuinely apologizing for the delay, told me the package won’t be delivered until Monday. “Monday? Are you sure it’ll get to me by Monday?” I asked. “Well, I, uh, no, I can’t really guarantee that,” he replied.

I lost confidence in UPS at that very moment. What happened to the idea of customer service? Even though I paid for UPS to deliver to my door, I made the 17-mile round trip to their hub to make sure I got the package in Monday because UPS was showing incompetence by Friday, and they weren’t confident that I would get the package on Monday. I finally had the package in my hands Monday evening, and all was well.

Until the next week rolled around and I had three more packages to arrive on my doorstep via UPS.

Two boxes of split loom from Amazon.com and a box containing an antenna (which had been backordered for weeks) and mount from Universal radio was expected to arrive Tuesday, December 15. All three boxes arrived at the Des Moines hub shortly after midnight and were put on the trucks for delivery around 5 a.m.

Here we are shortly before midnight, where Wednesday the 16th is about to turn into Thursday the 17th. The packages have all been showing “out for delivery” for more than 40 hours now, and haven’t been heard since. No adverse weather here, nothing but blue skies since the blizzard cleared out a week ago. Clear roads. They’re not blaming it on the weather or anything, the status just isn’t being updated. I understand it’s the holiday season and everything, but the seasonal shipment volume shouldn’t be a surprise to them — they know what they’ll need to be on time during such a busy time of the year, so there really is no excuse.

Last night, I thought maybe the driver was just going to be working late. He’ll be here by 7 p.m. — maybe 8 — and then maybe 9 — alright, maybe he’s working really late — maybe 10? Tuesday turned into Wednesday and nothing was seen.

I decided with last week’s package problems, 8 p.m. will be my deadline before I call UPS… again. Eight o’clock came, and at 8:05 I was on the phone with another agent. She told me nothing more than the tracking number has already told me — it’s somewhere, and it hasn’t been re-scanned for a really, really long time.

“Once it gets re-scanned, we’ll know where it’s at,” the agent said. “Alright, uh, well, so nobody knows where it’s at?” I asked. “Nope, but rest assured that we’ll know where it’s at when it gets scanned again.”

“What if it never gets scanned again?” I asked in a somewhat tense voice. “You should probably call Universal Radio and Amazon and have them call us to put a trace on it,” she recommended.

Again, UPS customer service has failed me. I can’t even file a claim or request an investigation myself — I have to call the vendor and have them call UPS to request a trace. With Universal, it shouldn’t be so bad — but I’m having a hell of a time trying to find where I can do such a thing for Amazon.com.

This has definitely marred my perception of UPS. Any vendor that ships exclusively with UPS from now on will be a vendor of last resort.