UPS used to be a reliable means of shipment but service has deteriorated badly. As the deliveree I usually have no choice in selection of the carrier, but my hope is that senders will read this and take it to heart. I've been a recipient of a UPS delivery half a dozen times or more in the past few months, rarely without a problem. Problems have included:
1. Driver will leave a note without any apparent attempt to deliver the package.
2. Driver will buzz me without allowing me time to respond, and leave, taking the package with him or just throwing it over the gate.
3. On one occasion after problem 1 or 2 above, the sender complained and the local dispatcher phoned me to promise definitely that (despite their usual policy) a re-delivery would be made the same day, between 2 and 5 pm. Since this was a legal financial document I waited around, at some inconvenience, but no one arrived. I finally received the delivery after the intervening holiday, 3 days later.
4. UPS's own notification slip is invariably incomplete or worse (see point #5 below). The fields for both the name of the sender and the expected time frame for next day's re-delivery are invariably omitted.
5. The driver will actually lie on the notification slip. More than once the driver has indicated that the sender required my signature, when this was not in fact the case. For another example, see #8 (a) below.
6. A notification slip may be found on the ground (If at all). This is probably again the fault of the driver, who on a windy day will attach the slip to brick instead of the equally accessible smooth metal.
7. It is impossible for me to inquire of the UPS local office about any of the above non-deliveries, since the UPS call center will not release that phone number. Only if I indicate that I wish to file a complaint will I be told that they'll have the local office phone me. The call center is apparently unable to identify the sender, even though that information should have been provided on the UPS "InfoNotice."
8 (a). On the most recent occasion, when the local office phoned me following my complaint, the person who called treated me like a nuisance -- even though she admitted that it was the first (not final) delivery and that the driver had omitted the identification of the sender and invented the sender's supposed demand for my signature. On a third issue, she said the InfoNotice was on the ground because UPS does not use good adhesive. When I asked whether she could convey to management my suggestion that the adhesive be made stronger, she said she's not the president of the company, and I could file a written complaint if I felt like it. She promised the package would be delivered the next day (Friday).
8 (b). Friday came and went and I did not have the package, or any further communication from UPS -- and on Monday my repost of UPS's InfoNotice was still where I'd left it Thursday night. When I called, UPS amazed me by telling me the package had been delivered! -- on Friday, to my neighbor. When I retrieved the package from my neighbor I found to my astonishment that UPS had also left an unrelated delivery at the same time, with absolutely no notice to me. read more