Three weeks ago, I walked into this UPS location to ship a graphic novel to my brother, a Marine currently stationed in Hawaii. My brother had to pay to rent a space at a UPS drop-off location (he informed me that the cost was approximately $25.00 per month to do so) in order to receive packages from UPS. I gave the individual working at the counter, Erich, the address for the drop-off point and told him that I did not care when it would arrive. He informed that the cost for all of this would be $12.93, at which point I paid for the service, collected my receipt, and left the store. A few days later, my brother informed me that the book had not yet arrived. I looked into the matter and discovered that the job had been subcontracted out to the Postal Service, which could not deliver the book to my brother's drop point, which could only accept packages from UPS and Fed-Ex. The UPS customer service department informed me that I would have to take the matter up with the individual store, so I returned a few days later and informed Erich about the issue. I also asked for a refund and for the book to be sent again free of charge, which, assuming the cost the second time would have been the same as the cost the first time, would have amounted to $25.86 in net losses to the store. Erich refused, saying that he would send the book free of charge, but only refund me half the amount for the original service. I stated my belief that when a customer walks into a UPS store, he or she has the responsibility to (1) provide a valid address at which UPS packages can be delivered and (2) communicate when he or she would like the package to arrive. If a customer has properly done both of these things, which I did, then the rest is on the UPS store. I told Erich that because the package had not been delivered, I felt that the UPS store had violated its end of the implicit contract that had been entered into by me and the store when I paid for the service in the first place. Erich disagreed and rather rudely said to me, "You realize you are arguing over $5.00?" I responded, "No, I am arguing over the principle of the matter." He grew rather curt and asked if I would like to speak to the owner, to which I responded that I would. He quickly wrote down the store number, as well as the hours during which the owner is in, and handed the paper to me in a brusque manner, after which I left the store. I returned the following day during the time frame Erich had communicated to me, at which point he told me that the owner was out. He told me that he would be returning within the hour, so I returned 45 minutes later, only to find that the owner was still gone. I wrote down my number, gave it to Erich, and asked him to ask the owner to call me. Later that day, the store owner (I believe his name was Steven) reached out to me and asked me to come into the store later that week, in order to discuss the matter. I returned to the store today near the close of business, during which time Steven informed me that he would be willing to ship the package free of charge at a cost of approximately $30.00 to him, but not refund me anything for the original transaction. I again protested, but Steven refused to budge, even after I mentioned that nowhere on the receipt did it explicitly state that the Postal Service would be delivering the package. He said that he had his employee giving one opinion and me giving another. I asked, "Whatever happened to, "The customer is always right?"" His response: "The customer is not always right." By this point, I had become so irritated with everything that I asked for a refund for the original transaction and nothing more. Steven gave me the refund and I left the store. To be frank, this has been one of the worst, if not the worst, customer service experience I have had in my entire life. Before today, I did not have a Yelp account. I created it solely to review this UPS store and tell of my experience. All in all, I found the customer service to be utterly atrocious. I have worked as a waiter, as a soda jerk, and as a grocery clerk at different points in my life. I would never consider it appropriate to deal with a customer in the way Erich and Steven dealt with me. I would never tell a customer at my restaurant, "You realize you are arguing over $5.00?" or, "The customer is not always right." If I did, I would, at best, be chewed-out by my boss and, at worst, fired, even if I was in fact completely right and the customer was completely wrong. The staff at this UPS store obviously do not care very much about customer service. What is more, they did not value the potential for future business with me or the people they anticipated I would tell this story to at more than $30.00, which seems rather unwise from a purely financial standpoint. I am now making alternative plans to get my brother his book and will never utilize this UPS store ever again. read more
