Posted on 11/17/2001 4:40:42 PM PST by wwjdn
The United Parcel Service (UPS) has found a new way to eliminate competition, they are now making you pay double if you make a mistake on a package and send through a third party vendor (i.e. Mail Boxes Etc.).
I recently tried to send a birthday present to my daughter, so I mailed the box full of presents from Mail Boxes Etc. Little did I know this would cost me more than I bargained for. It seems that I made a mistake on the zip code for the parcel. All other fields were correct.
UPS noticed my mistake the next day and was kind enough to return the package to Mail Boxes Etc. for me free of charge. Therein lies the problem. The cost for returning a package at no charge ends up costing me double the original cost, because they refuse to ship the parcel now.
My costs have now doubled because if I wish to send my daughter a present I have to re-address the parcel and re-send it through UPS. When I contacted UPS to see of this was a mistake I was informed the following:
Thank you for your inquiry. Commercial Counters and Authorized Shipping Outlets are independently owned shipping outlets that provide service to customers shipping packages. They are not UPS owned facilities. Please note, the Authorized Shipping Outlet is responsible for all aspects of the shipment transaction; you do not deal directly with UPS. Thank you for using UPS Internet Services.
In my simple understanding of this message I am now to understand that had I used UPS directly without using an inferior second rate service, this would not have cost me double.
How do the rest of you feel about this? I am quite simply outraged. I will never use UPS again. There are plenty of "customer friendly" companies out there that care about the customer and some even allow for a simple mistake in addressing occasionally.
Please let me know your thoughts and pass the word that if you like UPS, then don't use a second rate intermediary.
That world is gone now. I want it back. I want Christian values. Like I said it cost them money and time to ship it back to me.
Until UPS has some real competition, I don't expect UPS to get nice. They don't need any new or return customers. UPS really hammers the people that ship with them. They know that there aren't a lot of reasonable alternatives. They got better when Roadway first started, but Roadway screwed that up. And UPS just got worse.
Also, if 3rd party shippers ate every package charge that was messed up, they wouldn't survive.
the address, city and State are there to be read by the scanner AFTER the package has been sent to the ZIP CODE. If your zip was incorrect, your item never even made it to the correct state.
Let me tell you this one thing, and then no more: if YOUR making a mistake causes you to feel some of the things you have posted on this thread, and also causes you to blow this whole MISTAKE YOU MADE so much out of proportion, then I hope to God you never have something REALLY horrible happen to you. You won't make it.
You made a mistake; get over it.
Mailboxes, Etc. is owned by UPS.
Like McDonald's, though, it's a franchise business. The location you did business with may be independently owned, but their franchise was purchased from UPS.
That said, though, you are the one responsible for giving them a correct address. And their entire system of distribution is set up to serve zip codes. So, if you have to pay double to get it to the right place, it's your tough luck.
On the other hand, it would've been no big deal for a UPS employee to recognize the problem when the driver returned the package, investigate the address, correct the zip code and re-direct the package. I once worked with UPS and can assure you that this very thing happens thousands of times a day.
Your experience was the exception that proves the rule. But it's still going to cost you...
Why should UPS pay for your mistake?
Undoubtedly, when YOUR incorrectly addressed package arrived at THEIR distribution center, their sorting equipment OR personnel determined that YOUR incorrectly noted ZIP CODE did not match with the USA ZIP CODES for that state or city.
YOU obviously prefer that USP stop their sorting/routing system, have a clerk making $____ and hour, take the package to some table area where they can look up the REAL ZIP CODE for that address OR perhaps they could look up the REAL ADDRESS for that ZIP CODE!!!
In all likelihood, when YOUR package was dumped from their sorting/routing sytem, it was stuck back on the truck's bin for the truck that PICKS UP AND DELIVERS TO Mail Boxes, Etc.
Would you have preferred 'they' just assume a fact not in evidence and have your package shipped from one location to another to another while your daughter awaits delivery and y'all start the 'checking for lost packages' routine?
Come on, now, and answer true....would you have been so thrilled with Customer Service that you would have come on Free Republic and written a vanity if the UPS clerk, when trying to figure out what YOU screwed up, would have called you up for the proper addressing, with UPS, of course, paying for both the clerk's time and the phone call?
I have no idea if what I suggested happened is in fact what happened; don't particularly care...I do object to a very mis-leading Title AND to someone who'd rather whine and blame someone else rather than think about what 'may' have happened and take full responsibility themselves.....you act as though UPS exists to MAKE YOU HAPPY.
What a silly waste of time posting this...
The title of your thread makes this appear to be a business story. Instead, it's a moron's story.
__________
*The answer may be here:
Incompetents don't know they are incompetent
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_400895.html
Ananova
A psychologist who has studied incompetent people says they are the least likely to realise how useless they are. He reckons the skills needed for competence are the same ones needed to recognise it. The findings may explain why people with a poor sense of humour insist on telling bad jokes. Dr David Dunning studied dozens of poor students, many of them confident in their abilities, before reaching his conclusions. Dunning's assistant, graduate student Justin Kruger, says: "Not only do incompetents reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realise it." The study is published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Story filed: 15:53 Monday 17th September 2001
How dare you tell someone it's *their* fault. How rude. How condescending. It's always someone elses' fault, don't you know that by now? (.../sarcasm)
How utterly refreshing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.