A few weeks ago, reader Melissa got married. Congratulations, Melissa! Only she and her now-husband had to celebrate their marriage without the nerdy custom wedding rings that they had ordered from a jeweler in Canada. At first, UPS told the couple that their package was being held at customs and would be on its way soon. Then they lost it. Or it had been lost all along.

Now, in theory, it doesn’t matter whether this package was a pair of wedding rings for a ceremony just a few weeks away, a bunch of crumpled-up newspaper and some floppy disks, or a $12,000 nitrogen calibration system: all packages deserve equal dignity. They paid for three-day shipping from Ontario to Tennessee, and they didn’t get what they paid for. However, a wedding does make their story extra sympathetic. Also, their rings came from a popular jeweler who has a lot of experience shipping internationally. He says that he has never experienced anything like this with UPS before.

Melissa did some research on how a customs hold is really supposed to work, and learned that normally the government actually tells the courier why their items are being held, and doesn’t just keep them indefinitely. UPS maintained that they couldn’t do anything more until 30 days after Melissa requested the investigation.

Here’s what the UPS tracking info for the rings looked like:

Earlier this week, UPS gave us their final verdict: they have no idea where the package is. “The customer has been advised that the package appears to be lost, and has been referred to the shipper to discuss the matter further,” a representative told Consumerist. Well, okay, so why has there been an imaginary customs hold on it for six weeks?

In her first e-mail to us, Melissa summed up the runaround she was getting pretty well.

We also were unable to have our rings in our wedding pics, which was heartbreaking, and while I’m not a cliche bridezilla, I was beyond excited to find these gorgeous super nerdy triforce rings, and the frustration of not having them as a new bride and the run around and change of story from UPS has been the cause of more tears than I would care to admit.

Even after that, UPS continued to tell her and the jeweler different things. He has very generously offered to make new rings if the original package has really gone missing, but he tells Consumerist that he is currently checking with UPS in Canada to find out whether it will be possible to get the original rings back. If there really is an issue with importing them (either the United States government or UPS fears the power of the Triforce) then he should get them back, and he could find another way to get the rings to Melissa. After this story was published, Zsolt Székely, the jeweler, contacted us: he says that UPS has declared the package lost, and he will receive a $500 insurance payout. He says that he is already working on new rings. “I really hope this doesn’t happen again, and that UPS will treat further cases in a more prompt and proactive way!” he wrote to Consumerist. Yes, anyone who shops online or ships merchandise most hope for that.

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