Reader John is an Amazon Prime member who can’t get anything sent to his house via UPS without a signature after he filed a claim over a $30 DVD that never showed up. He really likes his UPS driver, but the guy says that because of the “blacklist” he’s powerless to leave packages when John isn’t home. Period. Does anyone know how to get off of a UPS blacklist?

I’m having some trouble and I didn’t know who else to turn to – I sound like a grieving widow on the A-Team – but I thought of you folks and maybe you can help me out.

My family and I buy a lot of stuff online, mostly from Amazon, so we got the Prime deal that gives you free two-day shipping. Good stuff, right? We all work and some of us don’t get around as well as we used to so it works out very nicely. Save money on your things, save gas and parking, save your back and your knees, etc.

One of the first things I bought with the Prime membership was a DVD boxed set of a TV series.

Now we’ve had the same UPS driver for many years, we know him, he’s a nice guy, and he ALWAYS leaves our packages in our front door no matter what. When it came to this PARTICULAR package the online tracking was telling me it was delivered but no one at my house ever saw hide nor hair of it. No big deal. We’ve gotten packages for other houses occasionally, stuff gets misdelivered, it happens, and after none of my neighbors brought it over for about a week I figured it was lost and made a claim with UPS. We’re talking thirty bucks here. I didn’t want blood from a stone, I just wanted my season 3 of Stargate Atlantis.

In case you’ve never done it before making a claim for a lost package with UPS is a screaming nightmare. They make it incredibly difficult, you have to go through half a dozen web pages and talk to as many different people on the phone. It’s a giant pain in the ass. I made my claim anyway.

Since I made my claim, every few days I come home and there is a “we missed you” sticker from UPS on my front door. All my lovely Amazon stuff UPS was now demanding a signature for – even when, after this happened a few times, I called Amazon and had them set up my deliveries to not require signature authorization. I called UPS and they said “regardless of the shipper’s instructions it is at the delivery driver’s discretion as to whether to require a signature for delivery.” This strikes me as absolute garbage. Like I said, we’ve had the same driver for years, he’s a really good guy and he KNOWS everyone at my house works and we can’t be home to pick up packages.

Then, yesterday, I got home from work just as he was walking down my front steps with a package and he said, “hey, thank god you’re here and you can actually get this.” I asked him what the hell was going on with our deliveries.

He explained that it wasn’t him who misdelivered the original package that I had to file the claim on, that a relief driver was doing his route that day. He went on to say, though, that since we filed a claim – a THIRTY DOLLAR CLAIM – we had been put on a “blacklist” – his words, not mine – and that he was prevented by his superiors from delivering ANY package to our house at ANY time without a signature, regardless of the shipper’s instructions.

This is a delivery driver who has left large packages INSIDE OUR HOUSE before – we live in a safe area and don’t always lock the front door, and if we get large or multiple packages he has opened our front door, stacked them inside the house, and closed up behind himself. He’s a great guy and he’s always been good to us, but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“So you’re telling me that even if a package specifically says it can be left without a signature, you aren’t allowed to just leave it in the doorway or inside the house like you’ve always done?” I asked him.

“Nope,” he said. “You’re on the blacklist. If I leave anything at your house without a signature I’ll lose my job. Sorry man.”

I can’t start taking off work to be home to pick up packages (and neither can anyone else) and I don’t want my UPS driver to lose his job, but what’s the best way to go about fixing this situation? I don’t want any special treatment, just what we’ve always had – a good, nice delivery driver who can leave stuff in our doorway when no one’s home.

I mean, a BLACKLIST? Seriously? They CALL it that? That’s pretty dumb.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

(Photo:Northernplateguy)

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