What is the standard for a UPS store pickup center to release a package to someone who is not the addressee? Ace writes that apparently, one needs more than a signed note authorizing the pickup and an order from a UPS call center. What should have been a routine package pickup turned into a bizarre slap-fight.

Ace writes:

I witnessed a disturbing scene at the UPS pick-up counter in [redacted], CA yesterday…

A young woman was there to pick up a package and had brought a signed note (from the package’s recipient) authorizing her to pick up said package.

The counter people said the note wasn’t enough and they wouldn’t release the package. She countered by saying that she had spoken to he UPS call center and was only doing what she was told by them (and she had traveled some distance to do so).

She them proceeded to call said center and got the SAME advice from them, and gave the phone to the counter person. The counter person then proceeded to tell his OWN call center that they were wrong, and she wasn’t getting the package.

The customer, visibly upset, asked to speak to a supervisor, who came out promptly. The supervisor them told the customer the exact same thing — that the note wasn’t enough, no matter what UPS’ own call center had said.

Frustrated beyond her own tolerance, the girl smacked the supervisor and ran out. The supervisor ran after her yelling, “I’m sending that package back.”

The counter person then tried to play it off, by saying to me, “That happens here every day.”

Shouldn’t UPS get their own house in order, rather than subject their own employees to physical abuse?

It’s likely that the employees at this particular UPS store were not direct employees of UPS, but that the store is a franchise location. Still, the concept of “franchise” means that it’s part of a brand, and theoretically a unified brand means that policies are, um, consistent.

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