Worst Company In America Round One: UPS Vs. USPS

We hope these two parcel-punting pugilists know how to deliver the punches, because they both seem to have a problem delivering your packages.

Given the sheer volume that both of these companies deal with, even a very small percentage of errors adds up to an awful lot of ticked-off customers every day. But what really gets under the soft, supple skin of Consumerist readers is the way neither UPS nor USPS seems to care or accept blame for their own problems.

In just the last few months, there was the reader whose UPS driver would go straight to “final delivery attempt” notices on the first attempt, and who couldn’t get anyone at any level of the company to care; the UPS customer whose local driver first couldn’t get the apartment number right, and then delivered the package to someone else 11 miles away; and the small business whose damaged $5,000 package was caught in the blame game between UPS, the UPS Store and UPS’ insurance provider.

And then there’s the nearly insolvent U.S. Postal Service — which is not, contrary to a widely held belief, directly funded by taxpayers and hasn’t been for decades — a company that wouldn’t deliver to hundreds of people because their apartment building had a leaky pipedropped customers’ Christmas gifts into another dimension for more than a yearadded food items to a care package from mom… and got an upper body workout by tossing parcels over the fence… all while racking up billions of dollars in debt.

You now have a 2.5 day window to choose which of these companies is worse. Failure to do so means you will have to pick up your vote at your nearby vote depot. Be sure to bring your slip and proof of address.

(Voting for this poll will close at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, March 18)

This is a post in our Worst Company In America 2012 series. The companies competing for this honor were chosen by you, the readers. See the entire WCIA 2012 bracket and schedule of match-ups HERE.

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