This store is great (friendly, clean, etc.) until your guaranteed package does not arrive on time. Then, good luck getting a refund. You call UPS national and they say that the refund is not their responsibility because you were actually dealing with a franchisee, NOT UPS. UPS can only send you a PART of the refund....even though the package was GUARANTEED. Eventually, they did send us a PARTIAL refund, and advised us to go to the store to get the balance--if we could "talk the store owner into it." The agent actually told us not to call the store owner to get a refund. The agent emphasized that we had to go in person and show the receipt to the store owner and check to see "if they will refund you any of this amount." She said, "They really don't have to at all." They repeatedly "explained" that the local stores are independent business---not really UPS-owned stores. Therefore, UPS could only give us a partial refund for its HORRIBLE delivery performance. I believe the public has the right to know that these stores are only franchises even though the sign and everything else has the UPS logo on it.
I will forever go to FedEx in the future. Besides that, the packaging is FREE at FEDEX, and not at UPS stores (that are not really UPS).
You ship here at your own risk. Friendly is great, but I would rather get a refund when the service doesn't work. It took UPS a week to deliver a package that was GUARANTEED to be there in three days. So, BUYER BEWARE. Just know that you are taking a risk every time you ship with one of these franchise stores.
UPDATE: I just read the store owner's remarks. They make no sense. We NEVER spoke to the store owner about this issue. We spoke to the national office repeatedly, and they had to "find' where the package was. After all of those conversations, we just chalked it up to "lesson learned." We accepted the partial refund (totally unfair & disgusting), and wanted to be done with the whole thing. We dropped it at that point. We were NOT going to spend time going to the store, personally, and throw ourselves on the mercy of the store owner to "see if he would refund anything" ( UPS agent's words). It was not enough money to do anything that onerous. It was not just the money. It was the principle of the matter. We paid for a service that we did not receive. We spent HOURS on the phone with UPS and the frantic employee trying to rectify the situation....which, of course, was a fruitless activity. The trade show presentation was completely ruined when the package never arrived until everyone had gone back home.
If the box (fairly large) hadn't been totally lost for a while, we never would have known about the flakey UPS refund process, and the fact that the stores are just franchises.
The store owner must have us confused with someone else. I don't even know if they knew about the debacle. My husband never spoke to them, either, about the lost/ very late package OR the partial refund. BTW, the package was sent to a trade show, and arrived when the show was over, and the person had checked out of the hotel. It was difficult to have it returned. It became our responsibility. We had to work it out with the Hotel manager, who really didn't want to bother with it. UPS refused to accept responsibility to get it back to us. It was a completely "twilight zone" experience. HUGE amount of time, effort and AGGRAVATION.
FedEx, in our experience, is VERY different once a problem occurs. Both FedEx and USPS ( and other less well known carriers) have always given a TOTAL refund when they fail to get things delivered on time. AND, they get the package back to you in this kind of circumstance. read more