Warning, rant ahead! I don’t like posting such, but UPS is making my life miserable often enough that I feel I have to.

Anyway, I purchased a product recently which the company shipped via UPS with a signature required. I’d rather they have used someone else, but it wasn’t a choice I saw available. Since I work and my wife is visiting relatives this week no one is available to accept the package, and my work currently does not have a receptionist but does have a locked door, so no deliveries there.

So the only way I can get it delivered is to pick it up at the UPS customer “service” center. This is where my days get very bad.

What to expect from trying to pick up a UPS package:

1. You will stand in line for hours while waiting to get your package. (Today was 2 hours in line and 1 hour travel time wasted. I needed to be getting actual work done, mowing the yard, anything else but using 1/4 tank of gas and standing around).

2. You will not be able to actually pick up the package, even though you have called and scheduled a will-call pickup and been guaranteed that the package will be available between such and such times. So far UPS has had a package for me about 1 out of 10 times. That’s so f’n bad it’s not even funny. FedEx and DHL have a 100% rate as best I can recall.

3. You will have no recourse, and will be completely unable to get any contact information or a phone # in order to try and resolve the issue. Their attitude is “too bad, try again”. Today there were a dozen people in my situation, which is completely unacceptable. All but a few had called ahead to get a guaranteed will-call pickup arranged, and we had all gotten the ‘confirmation’ callback.

I often have to pick up packages because no one will be home to accept the package. Incredibly, with UPS the situation is even worse because they seem to never be able to find my work space. They claim “the office doesn’t exist”, and are totally flabbergasted that FedEx and DHL can (or could in DHL’s case) find it without any problem. So, every time I have to literally fight with UPS to get my ^R*&^W#%$*^& package.

I’m going to have to call and cancel this order because I can’t figure out how to actually accept the package meaning it’s going to be returned to the merchant. I simply will not waste another three (3) hours standing in line (and driving time) to be told the same old “we don’t know what happened to your package” story by incompetent UPS employees anymore.

This will cost the company shipping (because, of course, UPS isn’t going to own up and cover their costs!) and other misc. fees.

BOTTOM LINE: if you are going to ship a package, don’t use UPS!

Of note, my company (Ideas From the Deep) long ago stopped using UPS to send our customers orders because a) they could not meet express mail guaranteed times, b) lost packages, c) damaged packages and d) were costing us a lot of money in refunds, bogus shipping fees (I consider a shipping fee bogus if the package never arrives or arrives past the guaranteed date).