• shipping

    UPS Damages $1,700 Worth Of Shipped Items, Admits They Messed Up, Still Won't Pay

    Awesomely-named reader DrSpaceMonkey tells us he shipped some stuff to himself during a move, discovered it was damaged, and now can't collect on his insurance. More »
  • shipping

    Why Does The UPS Store Ship Packages With FedEx?

    Alex shipped two packages to San Francisco from the UPS store in Boston. One was delivered, the other wasn't—until without any explanation or notification, it arrived back at Alex's house in Boston on a FedEx truck. Huh? More »
  • lost and found

    Help, Dell Won't Ask UPS To Trace My Lost Monitor!

    UPS' website promises that they will deliver Corey's Dell Vizio 37" LCD monitor tomorrow, which would be exciting, except the website has said the same thing every day for the past two weeks. UPS' customer service representatives insist that the package is lost and that Dell needs to initiate a trace. Dell would be happy to accommodate—who wouldn't want to trace a lost package?—but their customer service representative claims that it's Dell policy not to initiate a trace until 48 hours after the scheduled delivery date, which according to UPS, is tomorrow. More »
  • shipping and handling

    UPS' "Professional Packaging" Destroys Antique Car

    UPS ruined this antique 1953 Willys Aero Wagon concept studio model by shipping it in three boxes taped together with packing peanuts and bubble wrap. UPS claims they can "pack almost anything," and that their "certified packing experts" "specialize in fragile and high-value items, including antiques." Whoops! More »
  • above and beyond

    Threadless Replaces Stolen Shirt With Style And Grace

    Matthew isn't sure who got his order from Threadless.com, but it wasn't him. UPS claims they delivered the package to Matthew's apartment, but the reception desk would've been closed during the supposed delivery time, and Matthew doesn't have his package. Rather than wait for UPS to complete its investigation, Threadless dug up an extra print of their sold-out design and sent it to Matthew, along with a little something extra... More »
  • ftd

    FTD Never Mentioned That They Failed To Deliver The Flowers You Ordered In December

    Ryan sent his father flowers last December through FTD.com but they never arrived. Ryan apparently forgot to give his father's apartment number to FTD, and when UPS tried calling FTD for delivery instructions, rather than ask Ryan to clarify the address, FTD instead told UPS to chuck the flowers. None of this was apparently worth mentioning to Ryan, who just recently learned that his gift was never delivered. More »
  • scams

    eBay Scammer Says PC "Destroyed" In Mail, Takes $500, Sends Back "Destroyed" PC Minus Parts

    By exploiting loopholes in their policies, scammers are using eBay, Paypal and UPS to rip unsuspecting sellers off, like reader Chad. The buyer reported the item as "destroyed" and demanded and got a refund from Paypal. When the buyer shipped it back to Chad and he opened it, he found there was nothing wrong with it - except that the scammer had removed the memory, processor and hard drive. Now Chad is out $500 and left with a shell of a computer, and since the item was "received" Paypal won't do anything. His sad tale, inside... More »
  • ups

    UPS Gets A Twitter Monitor To Solve Your Problems

    Looks like UPS has set a guy on Twitter to search for complaints and offer help as well as act as customer service ombudsman. If that package just never seems to be coming or you'd like the guy to just stop playing skeeball with it on your front porch, and regular customer service isn't of help, Thomas looks like your guy. In addition to being a web-dude at UPS, he's been blogging since '99 and founded a theater company in '06. Sounds like a cool cat to me. You need a real human being non-drone your face-fronting Twitter presence. He's ThomasAtUPS on Twitter.
  • ups

    UPS Inadvertently Busts Mail Order Pot Scheme By Delivering Brick Of Marijuana To Wrong Address

    UPS delivered a package to a Texas man expecting some tools he had ordered. Instead, the man found a 30-pound brick of marijuana. More »
  • ups

    UPS Coughs Up $50 But Still Hasn't Delivered Your Daughter's Christmas Present

    Reader Michael wants to know why it's taking UPS almost a month to ship his daughter's Christmas gift from Los Angeles to Seattle. Michael thinks his package might have been eaten by the snowstorm that broke Seattle a few weeks back, but UPS swears that they have the gift and that this is all a simple matter of "the driver forgot to put it on the truck." Worried that it that it might have been faster for a messenger to walk between Los Angeles and Seattle with his daughter's present, Michael decided to launch an Executive Email Carpet Bomb at UPS executives. More »
  • dumb

    UPS Refuses Your Package On Your Behalf

    Adam asked UPS to hold a package at his local facility because he knew he would be out of town. UPS sent Adam a confirmation message saying they would hold it for five days. Instead, they twice tried to deliver it to Adam a few hours later. Then they marked the package as refused by receiver and sent it back to the shipper.
  • racism

    Sikh Signs For Package, UPS Driver Enters His Name As "TERRORIST"


    A UPS driver entered a Sikh man's name as TERRORIST on its online package-tracking database. The man's family discovered the epithet when they searched for a package UPS failed to deliver.
  • shipping battle

    Overnight Shipping Battle! FedEx Vs. USPS Vs. UPS

    In the battle of the overnight shipping, which service reigns supreme? Is it FedEx? Or UPS and its long-haired whiteboard dude? Or the folks in blue at the Postal Service? More »
  • ups

    How To Get Past The UPS Phonebot

    Luke writes, "I recently had a package delivered to me by UPS, and by 'delivered' I mean that they left a little yellow slip stating that they showed up and left." Thanks to a burst of anger, he figured out how to get past the phonebot that intercepts calls. It turns out you don't even need to add the curse word to the end. More »
  • ups

    UPS Randomly Delivers Unordered, Damaged TV, Charges You For The Pleasure

    Matt didn't order a broken 42" plasma TV, and he didn't ship one either, but that didn't stop UPS from plopping a big box with a broken TV on his porch, a service for which they charged $120.12. UPS explained that the TV Matt didn't ship was being returned to him by the recipient because it was damaged, and it was now his responsibility to arrange for re-delivery. “If I was the shipper," asked Matt, who lives in Ohio, "why would the package have come from Ontario, CA, not Medina, Ohio?" The TV sat in the rain overnight, and it wasn't until Matt reached the local depot, where his father worked for 27 years, that he convinced someone to take back the mystery box. Two weeks later, a bill arrived... More »
  • j crew

    J.Crew Apologizes For Bad Website, But That's All They Do

    A dozen readers (and probably a couple of PR flacks) must have forwarded us J.Crew's email today, in which the CEO and president of the company extend a mutual apology for the non-workingness of their "enhanced" website and call center. Oddly, the email simply asks customers to "bear with us" but doesn't offer any discount or sale. Well, maybe they figured driving more traffic to a broken site would only make things worse. More »
  • j crew

    J.Crew's New Website Does Everything Except Fulfill Orders Properly

    Kimberly, a frequent J.Crew online customer, placed an order on June 30th for five items from their newly revamped website. In the past, writes Kim, "it usually takes 2 days at the latest for me to receive any shipment that is not backordered." This time it's been 2 weeks, and not only has nothing arrived, but the UPS tracking number they've assigned her order is invalid (it doesn't even follow the UPS numbering style). The unhelpful J.Crew customer service rep told Kim that they had her correct address and to wait 10 days before calling back. In the meantime, one of the items has already been returned and refunded to Kim's credit card—although about $200 worth of merchandise has still been shipped to some as yet undiscovered location. More »
  • ups

    UPS: Please, Please Stop Forging My Signature

    A mysterious sounding reader known only as "sonic boom" emailed the tipline today, asking for advice on how to get UPS to stop forging his (?) signature when leaving packages with the local florist. We say Mr. Boom should consider himself lucky... we can't even get UPS to ring our doorbell. Ever. More »