Bottom line, without having to read the details: DON'T RENT A BOX THERE - they raise rates by outrageous multiples every year once they think they've roped you in! There are MANY more economical and reliable options in the area, including, believe it or not, the Hartford USPS Main center with 24-hour staffed access. There were other issues with them as well; details follow:
We had, until recently, been customers for many years, renting a box at the Boulevard UPS Store #2591, since the late 1990s. While they weren't exceptional, they weren't terrible either, until perhaps 3 or 4 years ago (around 2016), when their customer service and management started to go downhill.
They used to be located at 1028 Boulevard, but for whatever reason, in 2016, they moved to a slightly smaller location a few stores down at 1022 Boulevard. They provided little notice of the move (a note in the box a few weeks before, which, since we rarely use it, if no one had gone by, we'd never have known about the move), and no means in the new 1022 store to retrieve mail after-hours, which was one of the main reasons why we chose the store at since the inception of service.
After speaking with Kevin, we were "as a courtesy", given two extra months of service, which we felt wasn't all too generous for reasons which are beyond the scope of this post, but after years of problem-free service, we figured it was just a minor blip due to the move on the otherwise steady and reliable levels of service we had experienced in the past.
This proved to be wishful thinking, unfortunately! In the 4 years since the move, things have gone steadily downhill. Many of the reviews here seem to encapsulate the same problems which we had (which in some ways is nice to know that it wasn't just us! :) ), but there were a number of cases where packages were received and tracked to the UPS Store, and staff there (Shane, and later on, the manager, Angie) claimed that it was not received. On one occasion in 2017, they repeatedly denied having received a given package, until we provided them with a number of different forms of proof that they did indeed receive it, after which they story suddenly changed from "We never, ever received it!" to "Oh yes, we did, but it wasn't addressed properly" (even though it was from a shipper who sent something every 4 months for a number of years and used the same name on the address!). Basically, they messed up, and instead of taking responsibility for their mistake and the time we wasted to correct it, they just made up excuses until it became too obvious to deny, and they offered us no apology or recompense for the time we wasted.
There were a number of other cases like this, but the other reviews seem to summarize similar ones nicely, so suffice it to say that this should have been a sign in 2017 that the store and the service was going downhill!
Then, in 2018, they raised the rates by 180% (no, no that's not a typo, that's almost DOUBLE), and we had to call them up and ask, as if this was some sort of Middle Eastern bazar, for a lower rate, which is demeaning for customers such ourselves who had been with them since the 1990s. Angie offered a rate "concession" of a 25% increase, even though the rate of inflation then was closer to 2%. Clearly just a money grab.
This year (2020), they wanted ANOTHER 20% increase, during a viral epidemic, when inflation was/is flat, and there was no way for anyone to obtain an alternate store, and when we asked them to maintain the current rate until someone could travel there, they ignored the request and we never heard back from them (even though our correspondence was faxed, twice, and they received it both times). Follow up letters via postal mail were also ignored, and UPS's Corporate office refused to get involved in franchisee billing and rate practices.
There are many other mailbox alternatives in the area, including the USPS with 24-hour staffed access, and significantly lower rates, so they may prove a more viable alternative, and more generally, since UPS Corporate doesn't get involved in policing pricing practices of their stores, perhaps consider avoiding the UPS Store altogether wherever you are and find a provider with non-gouging practices. read more