I find it very odd that they told you to go meet the driver at a construction site. Thinking about the safety of the driver and you, it just seems like a very dangerous place.

Good luck with it. I find UPS is one of the hardest companies to get refunds from.

Oh....the drama!!

I do exports and a lot of hot packages are overnighted to my warehouse to get there in time to make same-day flights.

Too many times I check the tracking and it shows my warehouse refused the package and it will be redelivered the next day.

Call #1 - ask warehouse why they refused. they didn't - in fact UPS hasn't been there yet

Call #2 - UPS - ask how a package can be refused if they haven't yet tried to deliver. they don't know and say they will send a message to the driver and get back to me... They never do.

So when the driver shows up, I ask him about it. He said that the street my warehouse is on (with several others) had too much traffic and he didn't want to deal with it so he put everything in for delivery later in the day (by claiming it was refused)

Nice, brown...

It happened the other way for me. They found my house all right but I wasn't home. They left over $5000 worth of computer equipment on my front step. The large boxes were clearly labeled with brand names.

Or the other time they simply emptied $1200 worth of computer parts from a box and resealed it. The sad thing is that when I contacted the shipper he promptly sent me out a replacement order no questions asked. He told me that this happens very often to their UPS shipments.

UPS always pisses me off. At my apartment complex, they just leave a "we were here" note instead of actually buzzing your apartment.

Further, they leave a "we were here for apt #101" note instead of telling me who the damn package is for. I treked out to the UPS facility a few times only to find out they were holding a package for my stupid roommate (who, of course, said "I'm not expecting a package, so it must be for you).

The US postal service often gets a bad rap, but I dislike UPS so much more.

I give UPS credit usually for pickup. On days where I will not be home a majority of the day, and I have to sign for something, I call up and request a meetup with the driver. It has worked about 3 times, Driver seems happy to not make another stop, and the deal is that you have to meet him in route. So, he will be at this house at 2:03 pm on this block, meet him there, and he will give you the package.... Never had a problem with UPS!

I get better and faster service sending from the US to Canada via USPS than I do from UPS.

UPS sometimes rings/knocks on the door, and other times I'll go to check my mail and find a box (or two) lying on the stoop. They are pretty much hit or miss.

It depends on the drivers as there is one who is pretty friendly and knocks before leaving a note (double entendre...lol!) but like andrewe mentioned I'll sometimes have valuable items (brand names ablazing) left.

I've had this happen a few times where I needed a critical package and UPS dropped the ball on me. I called and they told me to meet the driver en route, which usually just meant wherever their next stop was. In the OP's case I guess that stop was a construction area. I don't think UPS had much to do with picking that location over any other location, only that it was next on the route, or matched with the time it would take him to get there.

It's crap that they don't treat people's packages or their priorites very well. That's not how I'd run a company.

The driver was probably flakey and didn't want to deal with a package more than usual so he takes any chance to not deliver it and scrams.

I've had days like that. Not a particularly good practice, though.

Strongly agree with Gadgetgirl - it all comes down to the drivers. UPS has been far more reliable in NYC for me than FedEx, DHL and (especially) USPS combined, but that's because the drivers for my home and office are both solid fellas with hearts of gold. The guy that delivers to my home will even make multiple attempts to deliver to us in the same day, since he knows we get home from work late from time to time (he came back at 8pm after a 3pm attempt once!).

So here's a thought: Consumerist, UPS, whoever... is there some site/system for rating/praising/berating both the awesome and the skeezy drivers? It seems the good ones are so great they deserve free cars, and the bad ones ought be heaved over to FedEx as punishment. Seems like it would benefit both UPS and John Q. Recipient equally...

When those commercials say "What can brown do for you?" I always think of poop, and what poop can do for me. Apparently shit, was not that far off from what the slogan was representing.

I have to admit, UPS is the absolute worst. Something usually goes wrong with my deliveries from them.

It wasn't always that way though. About six years ago, I used to have the same two UPS carriers delivering my packages. Their route was pretty consistent which meant they tended to show up around the same time for delivery--usually around 1-2pm. There was no waiting all day wondering when or if they would show up. They were both very nice and I liked them very much.

Then, if I recall correctly, one of them told me UPS was going to make some changes and it wasn't going to be for the better. Well, I guess something did happen at UPS because soon both of them were gone; my UPS delivery hell began; and it's been that way ever since.

The replacements were random delivery guys who didn't care whether I got my packages or not. No-shows, showing up well past delivery time windows, delivery reschedules at the end of the day. Sometimes, I feel like I am on a game show waiting in anticipation to see if I will win a prize, i.e., get my package delivered.

FedEx I love because they actually show up when they say they will. They arrive early afternoon at the latest and don't keep me waiting around all day. And they deliver on Saturdays.

@tinyrobot: "Strongly agree with Gadgetgirl - it all comes down to the drivers. "

Very much so. My UPS dude always delivers, always early, and when he thinks the package is fragile or expensive (and nobody's home), he goes around to my BACK door. And when it's raining, he either puts it inside the door, or goes around the back to put it under the awning.

Our last USPS carrier would drop-kick packages and throw them at the door. (I frequently work from home, I witnessed it!) FedEx just can never be bothered to show up, and they're pretty flingy too.

yesterday we had a substitute ups guy and he looked like a serial killer. he rang the doorbell and i didn't answer because i was in the bathroom and he started pounding on the door for a good three minutes until i answered. he said he had to get these packages to me right now. it was realllllly creepy. it turns out it they were my sister's study books for the bar exam and weighed like 75 lbs and i think he just didn't want to carry them back to his truck which he would have because i needed to sign for them. he still had the smile of a serial killer.

@chemmy:

I worked as a temp for UPS during the Christmas season. Your story is about par for the course. The computerized boards they use (they're called DIADs) know that certain shipments are supposed to be delivered by certain times. So if the driver is going to be late for whatever reason, they'll just punch in something to get the board to shut up.

My father is retired from Yellow Freight. The UPS drivers in this area were part of the same local union, so they interacted regularly. He used to tell me that the UPS drivers were only allowed a certain amount of time (on average) per stop.

Methinks that the majority of drivers don't want to make any delivery that is going to raise their average stop times, such as apartments with buzzers, high traffic areas, or whatever.

@jodles: Hey, send your serial killer my way; I'll deal with the slicing and dicing as I sign for my package.

I wish I could get a driver who was that intent on delivering my packages. Either the driver knocks very lightly and runs back to the truck before I have time to answer. Or he doesn't deliver at all. Especially if it is a heavy package, I know there will be a problem.

In my area the absolute worst is FedEx. But I believe they're the worst for anything. Haven't had a problem with UPS in my area, unless its christmastime. And then its only late because there's just so much that they have to deliver.

The refund will be processed by the shipper, not the shipping company.

Call the shipper to receive the refund that they have already received.

UPS isn't the worst, FedEx and DHS are much worse in my area. None however, will bother to use a plastic bag to cover packages left out in the rain- even if the are blatantly marked as electronics... However, the shoes my neighbor got had the courtesy of a plastic bag when it was drizzling...

I will say however, my regular UPS guy is decent. I just wish he'd consider the rain issue when he leaves packages.

@Corporate-Shill: "already received?" In your dreams, lady.

UPS is the Suckiest Company around. I also live in Orlando and have experienced all the usual problems, one of which really rankles me is the habit of leaving a package in front of my door! (I live in an apartment complex and most of the time these packages have been stolen) The deal breaker for me though is trying to get my insulin delivered using UPS. The pharmacy uses overnight UPS and UPS would NEVER get it delivered in a timely manner, hence they would try & deliver the 3rd day which is no good because by then the Insulin has been un refrigerated for too long. (Florida, try keeping a freezepack item cool on a UPS truck for more than one night, lol) How friggin difficult is it to deliver something from Pinellas Park Florida to Orlando Florida inside 24 hours!!!
I have had to have 3 shipments of insulin destroyed to the tune of 865$ a pop!!! I will never ever use UPS for anything ever again, as far as I am concerned they are the worst company ever!

I live in Canada, and often get packages mailed from the US. Fedex by and large is ok, although in one critical package they I had paid priority shipping for (international in 3 business days), it took them 4 weeks. FOUR WEEKS. Then they charged me $150 in brokerage fees for something worth about $200.

DHL on the other hand, I've had a few items with them and while it may be the driver that gets assigned here, he is fantastic. I missed a delivery (I wasn't expecting) at noon, and he tried back again at 3pm and again a 7pm because he wanted to get me the package.

..UPS can kiss my ass.

When the regular driver wasn't on his shift to my house, my packages would show up on the web site as "no such address" and "only odd number houses on this street," and other similarly written dodgeballs. Granted, it was a little screwy layout in a HOA, but one only had to look to the OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET to see the even numbered houses.

I am actually far more impressed with USPS: they are less expensive and have a much higher accuracy rate than UPS. I don't remember USPS ever screwing up a package.

@rellog: That's interesting because I never really thought about their responsibility for packages in inclement weather. From my parent's covered porch to the inside of a building, I've always lived somewhere that offered protection.

I wonder what their liability is for leaving packages exposed to the elements like that.

I had 2 friends send the same thing to me, at the same time. One friend sent me the thing via regular mail from Thailand. The other friend sent me the thing via UPS from New York.

Guess which got here (Oregon) in 4 days, and which got here in 8???

UPS is a waste of time and money.

Not to mention USPS get across borders with much much less in fees. Shipping fed-ex or ups international is just silly IMHO.

Good luck with the refund. When I tried they told me they don't guarantee deliveries to a residence, their delivery guarantees only apply when the delivery address is a business.

@Invalid_User_Name: Oh don't even get me started on the USPS. At least UPS is predictably bad. I generally know what they will screw up and how they will go about doing it.

With the USPS, their screw ups are so random, I never know what to expect. And they always blame it on a "substitute carrier covering for my regular carrier who was on vacation." Yeah right. Once, they screwed up my delivery so badly, and I complained up the command ladder so vehemently, that the branch manager got a call from a higher up directing him to personally deliver my package to me. He did.

My post office branch is incompetent. I hate them. But I'm not sure who I hate more, them or UPS.

I'm sure the microphone was packed in a solid brick of styrofoam that protected it from far worse drops than the one you witnessed.

I run a business and ship hundreds of Priority Mail orders a month. USPS, in spite of their reputation, is darn good and we almost never have problems. On the other hand, UPS is erratic and as one poster said, a good way to get reamed if you ship internationally. Furthermore I have had customers specifically request that we NOT ship UPS, but not the other way around.

I will never forget trying to sign up with UPS for scheduled pickup several years ago. I got transferred several times at their call center, and finally I reached an agent who got me set up. Two weeks later I got a bunch of badly photocopied application forms to fill out. It went straight in the trash.

I can recall the one time I had to call the UPS distribution center over a package the "claimed" to have attempted to deliver, despite my wife being home ... twice. I told the girl "What can Brown do for you? I feel like I now have BROWN all over me!" There was an awkward silence on the other end of the phone, followed by a round of giggles. Needless to say, I had to drive nearly 20 miles (through poorly marked detours and around bridges that were "decommissioned") to pick up the package at their distribution center ... all because my wife wasn't going to be home on their "third, and last" delivery attempt!

I see that UPS has two choices ... 1) learn to provide decent customer service, or 2) rot in hell and die a well-deserved death!

UPS really takes the cake when it comes to incompetence. They mis-delivered packages addressed to me to someone else. They won't talk to me, because I'm not the shipper. Their system shows it was delivered, and that's good enough for them. Without going into unnecessary details, the contents of the package are of significant value, and are not supposed to be in just anybody's hands. UPS charged extra for "high value item", and supposedly handles and monitors these shipments carefully.

The shipper contacted them, and is told it was delivered and signed for. When the shipper requested a proof of delivery, they send him an image of a signature that is fairly clear and readable, and very clearly a different name than mine. UPS claims someone at my address signed for it. Since the driver never came to my place, and someone we don't even know signed for it, we all called BS on this. Due to the nature of the contents, the shipper was required to contact ATF.
After 2 days of investigation they were able to track down my package. The person who received it was also very concerned, and didn't want the package after opening it and discovering the contents. She called UPS, and asked them to come back and pick it up. They told her they would be right over, but of course, never showed.
After all of that, UPS denied the shippers claim for a refund, as it was their position it was delivered on time. It was delivered on time, to some random person 3 miles away with a completely different name and address. But that's an irrelevant technicality.

USPS: repeated theft and incompetence - it got to the point where I couldn't have any of my bills mailed to me.
UPS: screw ups, but generally minor.
Fedex: screw ups (especially for international shipping to Europe where one of the local drivers didn't like working after 3pm)
DHL: oh the humanity, so many screw ups, so very many.

My favorite recent UPS story: we ordered a gallon jug of soap along with a smaller dispenser and a whole bunch of tiny cardboard boxes. I work in a lab, so we get a lot of packages. When I opened this particular box and put my hand in to pull out one of the little boxes, I felt something slippery. When you're in a lab, there are two things that have this texture: detergents and strong bases. After a moment of panic, I realized that it was just soap. UPS had managed to somehow open a gallon of liquid soap in the package and instead of fessing up, they removed the incriminating gallon bottle, repackaged the remaining items and, after razoring out and taping on the shipping label, delivered it to us.

Classy.

That said, they didn't argue with me or the company who originated the shipment. Refunded and the company sent us a new, intact bottle.

Sadly depending on where you go and who you talk to you'd have stories like this every week for every shipping company. They all pretty much such. At least with ups and fedex you can track the package better.

@drdom: Had to contact ATF?! The lady didn't want what was in the box after seeing it?! (What lady doesn't want what's in the box?) She was so scared she left the box there and caught the next plane out of town?! Good god man, what was in that box?!

Hey wait a minute. Ummm...Osama, is that you there shipping explosives and reading Consumerist? :-)

I just went though UPS voice jail hell yesterday trying to find a way to tell them they'd mis-delivered a package to my house that should have been delivered to somebody else. They hide the numbers for the local offices, you have to go through the 1-800 number and none of the voice jail options even hints at being customer support related.

And you can bet the person who the package was supposed to have been delivered to would get told "we have a delivery confirmation for your package, so it's not our problem".

I've said this in previous posts about UPS:

I have had great succcess, as a result of an EECB on UPS, dealing with Cynthia Webb - Manager for Customer Relations at UPS corporate.

404.828.7884
cwebb@ups.com should be the address. Good luck!

@Gadgetgirl: Oh, yeah, in my experience it definitely comes down to the driver. I have anything UPS delivered to my work, since I know our driver there and can expect my package to actually reach me and in good condition. The driver for my home neighbourhood will leave stacks of packages on our porch and once delivered a big box of merchandise I ordered (about $150-200 worth) to the wrong apartment in my building. That may not seem like a big deal, except there are only four apartments in my building, each is clearly marked, and instead of coming into the lobby, he went up my neighbour's fire escape and left the package on their balcony in the rain.

To boot, my neighbours opened the package and started burning my candles, using my other purchases, etc... Although that isn't UPS' fault, when I phoned them to ask after my missing delivery, they told me they couldn't help me because the package had been signed for and successfully delivered. My neighbours admitted to opening my package and basically stealing the contents (they claimed they thought it had been misdelivered for a previous tenant), but swore up and down that they never signed for it, it just showed up on their balcony.

In any case, it wasn't delivered to ME, and UPS was unhelpful in the extreme.

Well them having you meet him somewhere is just a courtesy they are trying to extend for you to get your item as early as possible.

That said, they totally screwed up by not just delivering it, making the driver come back or just telling you to come get it after 7. You just happened to be lucky and get the weirdest location possible.

I had a package sent out I needed for Sat delivery today and was sent for next business day by accident, which will be Tues. I called to see if I could pay extra and get it delivered (its here, but not scheduled for delivery) or if I could just come pick it up. They told me no, I'd have to wait til Tues. I had to of course ask why they wouldn't want more money from me, but all she could say was I'll have it Tues.

Idiots.

UPS has no problem getting on Air Force bases. USPS FTW!

Most of the products our company sells ship from our distributor's warehouses. We specify which carrier to use and hope for the best, especially on overnight shipments. Items get delivered on-time and without incident 90+% of the time, but when there is a foul-up, it's usually a doozy. The carriers "guarantee" delivery by a certain time or you don't pay the shipping fees...just try to collect on that guarantee. We recently had a shipment go from a New Jersey supplier's warehouse to a customer in New Jersey. The shipment was delivered hours past the guaranteed deadline. I contacted FedEx and they responded via email that there was weather at the destination that prevented an on-time delivery, so there would be no credit for the shipping fees. Our office is 10 minutes from the destination and the skies were clear all day. I pointed this out to FedEx who changed their story to "there was bad weather at our Memphis hub and that caused the delay." The tracking, however, showed that the package went from the warehouse to the FedEx sort center in Newark, to the customer -- it went nowhere near Memphis. After lying to me twice, FedEx issued the credit. Nice try, boys.

Also, a FedEx driver once showed up here with a package that was for afternoon delivery. He asked if he could have a glass of water and wait a few minutes because the company hassles drivers if they deliver afternoon packages too early. I could see how other drivers might decide that they don't want to come back for an "afternoon" delivery and just mark the package as "undeliverable" due to whatever excuse they chose. Management creates a stupid system and the drivers will find a way around it -- customers notwithstanding.

The only way to get the best results from UPS is to avoid them at all costs.

If I'm buying something online and I see the only shipping available is UPS, I'll make that purchase elsewhere. Even if the shipping costs 5-10 dollars extra, it'll still be cheaper than paying the additional brokerage fees they apply to every single item that crosses the border into Canada.

Seriously, I will NEVER give UPS my business. They are crooks and do not deserve to be in business.

Wow, well I love UPS, they have always been great to me, both from a shipping and receiving standpoint. I think it's reasonable to be able to pick up at a distribution center at 7pm, but ridiculous to suggest you meet them at the construction center. You sir, are owed $40 for overnight shipping.

I haven't had any trouble with UPS, but the FedEx guys in Orlando suck. They don't even go to your apartment and check if you are home, and leave a hangtag. Instead, they head straight to the office. I had a package waiting for me in the office for a week cause I never got a hangtag.

@Jubilance22:

This is so true. I just moved to Maitland into an apartment and I order stuff from online all the time. I remember one day when I was home ALL DAY awaiting a package and received a call from the office. They told me that the FedEx guy tried my apartment twice before giving it to the office. What a crock of crap.

Man... around here I have Ninja UPS men.

My dog barks at everything. Birds, cats, people at the door, people at the door two houses down the street... everything. But every once and a while, he'll be beside the front door and won't bark at all. And I'll open the front door and find a small box under the chair or behind one of the planters.

So, they're either ninjas or magic gnomes.

And, I'm just happy to get the stuff. Even though it's my grandmother's medication that requires a signature.

Most of the time UPS is okay. I've had packages not show up before and one time they left a $600 Smart phone next to the trash can down the stairs from the front porch. A place nobody would think to look for it.

Brilliant.