Problems with UPS

Over at Iowa Geek, Jody has her war story of dealing with UPS. Some of you may remember when I received my shipment of black powder I had to go out to UPS to pick it up. There is a reason why. UPS is NOT allowed to leave anything at my house for any reason.

In 2001, I ordered my Musket from Dixie Gun Works. I spent a nice chunk of change to get the exact musket I wanted, including manufacturer and accessories. I remember the day it arrived, vividly. I had to work late that day, and it wasn’t uncommon for my wife to call me regarding something trivial, be it dinner or what. When the phone at my desk rang and I saw, it was her number I wasn’t too surprised. She starts the conversation with, “Hey guess what? Your musket arrived today. UPS just left it sitting out on the front porch.” Okay, I was pissed. A nearly $1,000.00 firearm, albeit black powder, and bayonet was left sitting out on my front porch where everyone could see it. I was more then a little miffed. I also sold swords at the time and they would leave those as well. I finally changed the delivery point for the swords to my parent’s home where someone was home all day.

I called UPS and explained, heatedly but in a polite manner, that I did not want any packages left on my front porch anymore under any circumstances. I also explained to them that we have had a rash of packages stolen off porches in the neighborhood. It was some juvenile punks being an annoyance to society. The local delivery supervisor stated she would put a signature required on my house. That meant that any time a package was delivered to my address, they needed a signature to leave it.

A couple of weeks later I come home from work, there is a package on my front porch. I call UPS again. I start going off on my problem again. The supervisor states there is a signature required, she will check with the driver as to why it was overridden and it wouldn’t happen again.

A couple of weeks later, I’m walking through my living room and I see a UPS driver walking out of my driveway. I go to leave my front door and there is a package blocking the door. I yell out to the driver that she is not supposed to be leaving packages on my front porch. She states she leaves them all the time in this neighborhood. I advise her there is a signature required on THIS ADDRESS! I go off on the fact she didn’t even ring the bell/knock on the door. She claims she did, but if she did, I didn’t hear it. She then gets snippy about having to carry a package to my door then walk back to the truck with it. She also brings up she knows it has to do with the delivery of the musket, that it’s okay to do that with black powder, and they do that all the time. So I advised her I was contacting an attorney and I was going to have a restraining order put against UPS and their affiliates. I did not want their company making any more deliveries to my house. She was left rather indignantly.

I call UPS and demand to speak with a regional manager. I was passed around for a while until I received the regional VP for UPS. I explained the whole situation and told him that I no longer wanted anyone from his company delivering anything to my house and that I was no longer going to use UPS to make deliveries for me. He asked, very politely, if he could check into this and call me back after investigating, I agreed.
He calls me back and says that yes, there is a signature required on the house, he can see where the driver was just overriding the signature and he would deal with it. He asked me what solution I would like. I told him, if they deliver a package, and I’m not home leave a note. I will then call and have it put on hold so I can go pick it up. He agreed that would be acceptable. He then gave me his direct line to call if there were any further problems.

I made sure nothing was shipped to my by UPS for months, I went out of my way to use other companies, even if it cost me more. After a couple of months, I finally ran into a situation where I had to use UPS. Can you guess what happened? That’s right, another package left on my front porch. I call the regional VP. Remind him who I am, and explain this is the first time I’ve had something delivered by UPS since the last time we talked, and they left it on my porch. The next words out of his mouth made me smile and decide I like this man. He said to me, “Well I guess that driver doesn’t want a job anymore.”

I should mention in the time that this happened I know that we had four different UPS drivers. The guy we have now is doing a great job, although I think he hates me. When I’ve been home when he makes a delivery he always looks like he’s not happy. The people that work on the depot know me on site. The regular girl that works the desk even has my address memorized.

I will note that I only detailed the important confrontations, there where others due to this spanning 9 months. To this day UPS is not allowed to leave anything at my house. I’ve even tried to work with them to not even try and deliver it, but to send me an e-mail notification. Apparently, their system is not that advanced yet.

I still have a special hatred of UPS and try to ship any other company when ever possible.