It’s not that the UPS delivery driver who brought George’s wife’s Avon order to their apartment is stupid. He just has a very poor understanding of how the alphabet works. That’s the only explanation for why he brought the package to vacant apartment A instead of George’s apartment C, and how the package later ended up re-routed to another woman in a different town. Clearly letters are just symbols without meaning.

George wrote to Consumerist at the end of last month:

My wife recently began selling Avon and was excited to receive her first order last Tuesday (8/23). The day came and went with no delivery. She checked the UPS tracking number and the note said that the package was undelivered because the apartment was vacant. We live in apartment C, which is above apartment A, which has been empty for about a month.

She contacted UPS in [a nearby city] and notified them of the problem. They apologized and stated they would put our apartment number on the package and that it would go out the next day. The next day I was home all day and heard no UPS trucks outside. Again she checked the tracking number and AGAIN it showed that the package was undeliverable because the apartment was vacant. She called them at 4 and was told they would look into it and call her within a half an hour. An hour later they told her that the driver had screwed up. The supervisor talking to my wife told her they had had many issues with the driver in the past and that they would have a different driver alter his course so he could deliver it to our apartment.

Thursday rolled around and there was a knock at the door. It was the UPS guy! He had a package for me and one for my wife. However, she was expecting a 3.8lb box, not a small pouch. She asked if that was all he had for her and he said yes. She got online and checked the tracking number, and it showed that the package had been delivered. However it had been delivered the day before at 4:30 to a house eleven miles away in a town we have never even lived in. She was even more furious because at 5pm the day before they told her that the package had not yet been delivered and was back at the hub.

She called to complain again and I was pretty much live tweeting her rage. The supervisors told her that they would attempt to contact the person who received the package and try to retrieve it. My wife was shocked that someone would accept a package that didn’t belong to them.

Meanwhile, UPS PR saw my tweets and requested more info. They told her they would look into the matter. They replied a while later and showed that an investigation had been started and they would stay on top of it.

The local UPS hub called back and said they were unable to contact the recipient of the package and it might take another 2-3 business days to get it back. My wife called Avon, explained the situation and they went ahead and re-shipped her order, this time using a private delivery company.

My wife received a phone call yesterday from a very confused lady who received a package from Avon. She said her husband accepted it because she thought she had ordered some stuff. When my wife asked why he thought the package belonged to her, she said that her name and address were on the box. My wife asked her if UPS had made any attempts to contact her, and she said no. In fact, she had called UPS twice inquiring about the package but nobody ever contacted her.

It is now Tuesday and she still has not heard from them. When we inspected the label we could see the original label with my wife’s name and address and the proper apartment number. I’ve never had an issue with UPS before, so I guess they decided to make up for it by completely screwing up on every level possible. Luckily Avon has decided to use a private courier from now on, so I guess they’ve also had enough of UPS’s incompetence also.

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