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.

Adam writes:

So I ordered an iPhone from AT&T last week. I ordered it even though I was going to be away from my apartment for New Year’s because orders made before December 31st got an additional $50 off. I knew I would be away during New Year’s and AT&T would only ship to my billing address, so I could not have them ship it to where I was spending New Year’s, which was fine because I was told I could call and have them hold it at the local UPS facility.

I called and they said no problem. I got a call back from the local facility confirming that they would hold the package until Monday morning. Great, I thought.

Then I checked the tracking number again tonight…and got this information:

01/02/2009 7:19 P.M. THE RECEIVER DID NOT WANT THE ORDER AND REFUSED THIS DELIVERY / RETURNED TO SHIPPER
01/02/2009 1:29 P.M. THE RECEIVER WAS UNAVAILABLE TO SIGN ON THE 1ST DELIVERY ATTEMPT. A 2ND DELIVERY ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE
01/02/2009 12:09 P.M. A DELIVERY CHANGE REQUEST FOR THIS PACKAGE WILL BE PROCESSED / AS REQUESTED, THE RECEIVER WILL PICKUP AT A UPS FACILITY AT THEIR CONVENIENCE. THIS MUST BE WITHIN 5 BUSINESS DAYS

So my request to hold the package (note it says for 5 business days) was entered at 12:09pm. Then, less than two hours later they decide to try to deliver it anyway and then around 7pm say I actually have refused the package…

Then when I call and say what is going on they say sorry there is nothing they can do right now. That it has been returned and I will have to call AT&T. But they will have the local facility call me Monday morning to explain the mistake (I don’t care why, I just want my package).

So, now UPS has sent the package back without my request, admitting they made an error. Yet, telling me there is nothing they can do tostop the package even though they are a shipping company with tracking
numbers…and I have to call AT&T and deal with them. Keep in mind this is the company with ads with some dude in a mullet in front of a whiteboard explaining how awesome UPS is — that they can even reroute a package mid-transit. I guess this is reserved for people who pay extra, not for when UPS themselves returns a package in error.

(Photo: So Cal Metro)

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