I wanted to wait a little to see if my opinion changed because I feel terrible about doing this to small businesses- and frankly, this is the closest shipping place to be house by about 10 minutes. However, the owner's actions effected MY small business too.
I used PostNet to ship a laptop to a new employee. I understand more then anyone that mistakes happen, however, what I experienced here was absolutely uncalled for and it is how these mistakes are handled that make all the difference.
I went to ship a laptop with a week to spare, only to have my new employee track the laptop to Lovettsville, VA- It was supposed to go to Fort Worth TEXAS. I learned from the person who received it, that Postnet shipped him something from his CEO the same day- so clearly, wires were crossed. I ended up having to drive to Lovettsville to retrieve the laptop, and pay $250+ to overnight it to UPS the next day- not only did this take 2 hours of my time, but it cost me a ton of money and the only thing I got in return was a refund from Postnet after being humiliated and treated like a criminal in the store.
The owner really handled the situation extremely negligently and poorly. When I came to Postnet to ask them if they could figure out what happened, and if they could locate my now missing item, while we were trying to track down my item, he insisted they review the footage on the security camera to essentially exonerate them from blame (who has time for that?)- FYI, when people need something done, they don't care who's fault it is, they want a solution. Not to mention, as you'll read below, this was not a situation where I was to blame. Additionally, if he were to review the footage, he would have seen me jot down an address on a piece of paper for his employee FOR A TEXAS ADDRESS. This piece of paper clearly wasn't used. He also laughed at and mocked me for shipping using USPS vs Fedex or UPS- saying "why would I ship something so important via USPS?" I thought he must be kidding... because that is not how you de-escalate a situation. To add insult to injury, once I was able to calm down a little and move into problem solving mode after being blatantly insulted and mistreated, I started asking questions to which he played dumb- He said he didn't know who it went to, who rang me up, or how to reach that person. All this information was on the receipt that he tried to play keep-away from me once I handed it over. What this boils down to, is that receipt would have forced him to accept blame, and he just was not willing to do that. He also printed two SEPARATE shipping labels with the address in Lovettsville, the first one didn't have my return address- he ripped that out of my hands and replaced it with one that did have my address- to this day, I'm not sure if he literally made up the second label in another attempt to pass off blame. The person who received my laptop had a very similar name to the individual who was supposed to receive mine. Again, mistakes happen but how this was handled was incredibly unacceptable.
Simply put, you do not treat people this way- especially someone who has paid to patronize your business. I was in hysterics near tears from the experience and I hope I can keep someone else from experiencing this as well. read more