Theatre Lighting Design, Technical Direction and Consulting

Charles R. Kaiser
Aurora, Ontario CANADA

Why UPS Sucks!

I ordered a new CPAP mask on Tuesday as my old one is desperately in need of replacement and our new insurance carrier will actually pay for a replacement (unlike our old one!).

Anyway, the company that I ordered it from shipped it via UPS for next day delivery to my home. On Wednesday, I get a call from the UPS driver asking where my house is. Turns out that the shipper put the wrong Postal Code on the package and the driver is not even in the right city! Not really UPS's fault at this point. The driver tells me that he will have to reroute the package and that I will get it on Thursday. This is a bit of a problem, as we are not talking about a shipment to another province or state, just a rerouting of a box across town! But ok, they have to send it to a different UPS shipping centre.

At any rate, Thursday comes and goes with no package. When I call UPS in the evening, they inform me that rerouting the package will add an extra day to the shipment, and that the driver should have known this! The package will arrive on Friday (Keep in mind that we are talking about a distance that can easily be driven in less than an hour here)! The UPS customer service rep tells me to call on Friday morning to make sure that the package is "out for delivery." I do this at 10:00am. I am told by the UPS rep on the phone that the package is on a truck and on its way to me. No worries!

At 5:00pm Friday I still have not seen the package. I check the tracking and don't see that it it "out for delivery." In fact, I see a notation "THE PACKAGE WAS LEFT IN A UPS FACILITY CAUSING THIS DELAY; FORWARDED TO THE FACILITY IN THE DESTINATION CITY"! When I call UPS, I am told that the package never made it on to the truck, and I will see the package on Monday!

At this point, I ask where the package is so that I can go and pick it up myself. I am told that they will try and find it. An hour goes by with no phone call, so I call back to find out that the package is "on a trailer in, or on its way to, Toronto."

I guess I will maybe see my package on Monday, or perhaps Tuesday. So much for next day delivery. In hindsight, even with the price of gas at over a buck a litre, I should have just driven to Mississauga and picked the damn mask up myself!