Where Has This UPS Envelope Spent The Last 14 Years?
This week, Paul received a package back from UPS that had somehow never reached its destination. That's not so unusual. What was unusual was how long it had wandered off for. He had mailed the next day air envelope at least fourteen years ago.
I just had UPS return a damaged overnight envelope to my business after being missing for over 14 plus years. I could not believe it. The package was torn open and the contents missing. After 14 plus years, I have no idea what we sent the customer as our records are long gone. The only way I could tell that the package was so old was that there was our company label on the package with our UPS shipping number. The address for our company shows my home address where I started the business and ran it out of my home when I first started.
I had to look online at my towns property records to see what year (1995) that I bought my first commercial building to move the business into rather than run it out of my home. I'm in a new location now and still have a UPS account. UPS was able to find me and return the overnight envelope to my new location.UPS set up a claim number but I called them and explained that this was shipped some 14 plus years ago and that our record are long gone. I even tried doing a UPS track using the tracking number and the tracking number does not even come back to anything. I get a message saying that I need to give them more numbers. The customer service rep. was very nice but was amazed that I was telling her this package was 14 plus years old and that I did not have the paperwork nor the UPS manifest because in those days everything was hand written. The customer service rep. was actually laughing about it.
I couldn't file a claim if I wanted to since all the records were long gone. I told the girl to cancel the claim. Who knows what I shipped the customer 14 plus years ago. You have to give UPS credit they were willing to pay the claim not knowing that this was so old.
Yes, while it's curious that the package went missing for so long, lost its contents, and then still found its way back to Paul, we are rather impressed that UPS is willing to pay his claim if he does ever manage to figure out what was in that envelope... a decade and a half ago.
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Comments:
tom hanks needed your skates to try and open coconuts.
Not only do I want to know what was in it, I want to know if you ever did business with that customer again, since these people never got what they were looking for. I'm thinking he had quite the headache telling these people he mailed in already.
Can't remember? Dude, even I know the package was filled with large carat diamonds...duh.
I hope they at least refunded you the cost of shipping.
Did Tom Hanks deliver this? Oh sorry, that was Fedex and not the trusty(?) people at UPS.
Ben, I have a story about UPS I think that would be great...I'm still waiting resolution on it, but I'd like to share it with Consumerist no matter which way it turns out.
I only hope my missing package doesn't come back to me 14 years later...
One would hope the customer noticed at some point in the 14 years and had already called you (OP) to arrange replacement. I don't think you should worry about it. :)
I had a friend that worked for UPS. He told me about small packages and envelopes like that that would be found underneath crates, behind machinery, etc. all the time. He would point it out, but the supervisors never really cared enough to even pick up the items and get them on their way.
I once ordered some bras from Victoria's Secret and when the package arrived, it was open with only the packing slip inside. UPS and Victoria's Secret straightened the whole thing out, but I still wonder if somewhere a burly UPS worker isn't wearing my bra.
@SLAAB: Yeah, that the Consumerist part of the story. If only Consumerist existed 14 years ago ...
"I ordered so-and-so product, and it never came. So-and-so company will not admit that they didn't send it. UPS says it can't find it either. I'm just getting a back-and-forth between these companies. Can't they just look in their paper records and figure out what happened?!"
How in the Hell can he give credit to UPS. Again they lose a package and it takes 14 years to get some kind of resoultion and the poster says he has to "give it to UPS". Screw UPS, they lose or damage most of the items I have either shipped or received. No Way will I give them credit for anything.
@nibblersmom: If someone had stolen it, they wouldn't have left the packing slip.
UPS employees will take everything out of the package but still send the empty package on its way (because if it just disappeared it would be simple to trace.) UPS discovers this somewhere along the line, stops attempting to deliver the package, but does not inform the shipper or receiver!
As a business owner I can honestly say a package 14 years past due has already been resolved with the customer and UPS as well.
How can I be sure? Because the customer would have given me Hell for the failure of UPS to promptly deliver the package on time. I would have shipped replacement products to the customer. And UPS would have promptly denied my claim for the lost package.
See, everything works out for the best.
So this lost package is worthless. UPS has already denied the claim and the customer has already been compensated or received the replacement products.
@nibblersmom: Hey, I used to be a UPS delivery driver and I was, and still am, female. And I was not, and still am not, burly. :P
I think I know what happened here.
Stop worrying, the original package got delivered. The customer, or someone else, reused the envelope to store documents or files for the past 14 years, and at some point recently the envelope found its way to a UPS depot. Since there was an account number and valid return address on file, UPS returned the envelope to you.
I bet it fell behind a piece of equipment or furniture at the processing center, and was found when they moved the equipment or furniture.
This has happened to U.S. mail before, when they're moving those bins of mail around the post office and they are overflowing. A letter will fall out to the floor and slide under a cabinet or sorting machine or something.
When it's found years later they do try to deliver it, I've seen it on the news. Of course in many cases I'm sure people finding old mail or packages just throw it out.
Probably sat behind a piece of equipment for the last 14 years. I'm sure the customer already had his issue resolved, but I'd like to know if you ever find out who it was and what they think about the whole thing. At least UPS delivered it KNOWING they were going to get knocked on the head about it!
Probably some junk you mailed to Cash-4-Gold.
Are you sure this wasn't during the UPS strike of '96? I lost several packages that were enroute during this time that still haven't surfaced.
I worked in a medical records office for a major hospital. One of our employees once found a patient file from about 10 years prior which had slipped behind a file cabinet in one of the clinic offices.
We managed over a million patient records (when I left), and were only half done converting to electronic records at the time I left. These things happen very rarely, but the occasional mishap is nearly inevitable. (As far as I know, patient care was not affected in this instance, but the hospital would be in a world of trouble if it was.)
Actually, as the chart lacked a barcode (I have not worked medical records for 10 years; the chart was originally lost about 20 years ago, before the hospital bar coded charts), some poor medical records clerk probably got an earful from a doc for "losing" the patient records, when it may well have been his own office which lost them.
Mistakes like this are not limited to package delivery, and sometimes have higher stakes.
This doesn't apply directly to UPS, but this reminds me of an experience I had with DHL and makes me wonder why certain couriers don't take a stricter approach to what they're supposed to do (DELIVER packages on time). I was expecting an important package from Australia, and it didn't arrive on time. After about two weeks of being overdue and still no sign of the package, between myself and the shipper we did enough detective work to determine that it made it all the way to the southeast US distribution center, which coincidentally just happened to be only a mile from my house. I drove down there and presented the tracking info to the guy behind the counter, who went to the back and came out with my package a few minutes later. I asked why it had not been delivered to my house. He said it had been sitting on a shelf for the past 10 days and that they didn't put it on a delivery truck because there was insufficient information to determine the shipping location. I examined the package, which had several different shipping labels stuck to it. My address was clearly listed in no less than FOUR different locations on the package! There were no inconsistencies, all of the shipping info matched correctly. I never used DHL after that, and made sure their management knew why (aren't they out of business now?). I always wondered what would have become of the package had I not tracked it down...I guess maybe it would've finally turned up several years later.
@Julia789: Yah and the contents
fell out when they pulled the package out from behind the machine and is still there right? More likely a ups thief employee stuffed the empty package behind a machine after stealing the contents.
@Gracegottcha: @cowboyesfan: That was a fun time. We repair business telephone equiptment where I work. During that strike some one switched the contents of a package and instead of a system card for repair there was a blow up punching bozo and some under roos kids underwear. I know some 4 year had a weird birthday that year.
@cowboyesfan: Good idea, but the OP figured out that since he moved his business in 1995, it must have been before that.
You shipped them a 100K dollars in cash, motherfucker. And you got the ancient, handwritten, easily falsified records to prove it.
Looks like they cut out the barcode from the original package and taped it onto a new envelope...
I once had a package arrive, delivered via UPS, that had much worse damage than that. The strange thing is, they were able to do all that damage in a mere 48 hours.
Lawsuit...now.
@sbcpunkrocker:
Stuff gets stuck under conveyor belts all the time. However, the majority of the time, Management, nor regular UPS employees, can really do anything about it. Management has to call it in so maintenence can come by and get it, usually during a shift change, depending on building, and run on sentences :^)
@StanTheManDean:
Claims aren't automatically declined. If you really own a business, I bet you don't give out your products or services for free all the time. It's a bad business model and you know it.
Maybe it was sent from the future you to remind yourself to do something that could change your destiny?
Rhode Island?!? Was it the twinkie factory in Natick?!? That would explain a lot, what with the whole stewie induced apocalypse.
@Stroll: Sometimes you have to replace for free, to keep a customer. And in my experience, UPS denies everything by default, then you have to appeal it to actually get your claim.
@kangaroo: UPS clearly states not to ship cash, cash equivalents, or jewelry in their packages, and that if you do, they're not responsible if it's lost.
Might be strange, but not unheard of for mail to just vanish for years on years. We had a small news article up here when Canada Post delivered a film canister to a photo developing studio that had been mailed out a decade back. The place developed the photos free of charge and tracked down the owner.