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Thread: UPS

  1. #1
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    UPS

    Ordered a wine bottle vacuum pump kit for $10 (total weight 1 pound) & it was shipped 10/12 via UPS $7.50 shipping charge. Just got word from UPS arrival is expected here the 21st.
    WTF!
    The post office would have had it here in 5 days for $5.

  2. #2
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    Yeah, I only use "other than USPS" for odd shaped packages USPS charges more for.
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  3. #3
    Orca Whisperer W3WN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kc7jty View Post
    Ordered a wine bottle vacuum pump kit for $10 (total weight 1 pound) & it was shipped 10/12 via UPS $7.50 shipping charge. Just got word from UPS arrival is expected here the 21st.
    WTF!
    The post office would have had it here in 5 days for $5.
    That's Brown for you.

    They actually manage to make the Postal Service look good by comparison. Now THAT is scary.
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  4. #4
    Forum Addict w3bny's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kc7jty View Post
    Ordered a wine bottle vacuum pump kit for $10 (total weight 1 pound) & it was shipped 10/12 via UPS $7.50 shipping charge. Just got word from UPS arrival is expected here the 21st.
    WTF!
    The post office would have had it here in 5 days for $5.
    A "wine bottle vacuum pump"...from Sweden perhaps....groovy baby.
    Yeah...I'm a furry...Deal with it!

  5. #5
    Orca Whisperer W3WN's Avatar
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    I've always wondered...

    If you order one of, ah, those items, and they're damaged while being delivered... does someone actually have the nerve to report it and submit the package & contents for insurance inspection?
    “Nobody is going to feel sorry for us. 90% of the people don’t care, the other 10% are glad it happened.” — Clint Hurdle, 2019

    BAN THE DH!

    Fudd's First Law of Opposition: If you push something hard enough, it WILL fall down.
    Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's Law: It goes in, it must go out.

    Just remember: Abraham Lincoln didn't die in vain. He died in Washington, DC

    Cutch 300!!!!!

    “Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfed.” — Bernie Sanders

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  6. #6
    Forum Addict n6hcm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by W3WN View Post
    I've always wondered...

    If you order one of, ah, those items, and they're damaged while being delivered... does someone actually have the nerve to report it and submit the package & contents for insurance inspection?
    hell, yah. it's only stuff.

    similarly, i occasionally had to bring mac systems owned by one of my clients (a pr0n production company) to the apple store for support/repair. i just give the engineer a heads-up that the contents are not work-safe and the clue light came on.

    having been on the other side of this picture (the sender of such materials) i can say we regularly had requests to minimize the impact if the package was opened inappropriately ... so we'd ship the dvds in small stiff white envelopes instead of the usual dvd case with the artwork. not sure how well that ever worked for the recipients.
    "... and another thing about you democrats ... you all believe in science!" -- denny crane

  7. #7
    Orca Whisperer n2ize's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by W3WN View Post
    That's Brown for you.

    They actually manage to make the Postal Service look good by comparison. Now THAT is scary.
    Actually the post office is pretty efficient considering some of the people who run things. Their on line tracking stinks but the service is generally quite good. Most shipments get here faster than the service I get from UPS, FedEx, etc.
    I keep my 2 feet on the ground, and my head in the twilight zone.

  8. #8
    Snarky Dick ka8ncr's Avatar
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    USPS flat rate shipping kicks butt. And when I sell my books on Amazon at the end of a semester, the media mail is usually about $4 a book.

    I tried to ship a $80,000 portable microwave transmitter by FedEx last summer. My boss gets a call from the FBI asking about me and what I might have tried to ship via FedEx in a large black case on wheels, and why it was over next to the entrance at Ford Field. He had no idea what I had shipped, but the FBI said that they were going to take it out to the airport and "open it" (I enjoy the little irony that the emergency plan here is to take suspected explosives TO the airport).

    They finally get in touch with someone at work who looks up the shipping record (I'm in class, no way to read me as my phone is off) and sees where it's going. The FBI is reassured it's not going to go *poof*, opens it and then gets all worked up over the helically wound antenna and feed assembly (it looks like it could be a nice sized white pipe bomb). My boss assures them that it's no big deal, they'll send someone over to pick it up.

    What happened is that the FedEx driver picked this up in the afternoon, drove around Detroit all day with it and at one of the stops, removed it to restack the truck. And left it or had it stolen. Knowing that no pawn shop in the world was going to buy this stuff, the person who acquired it ditched the whole kit next to Ford Field. FedEx's response was, "oh, sorry" and still tried to bill us for the whole adventure. Two days later, a bunch of Apple gear shows up via FedEx completely trashed. Gotta love 'em too.

  9. #9
    Conch Master N7RJD's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ka8ncr View Post
    FedEx's response was, "oh, sorry" and still tried to bill us for the whole adventure.
    FedEx Freight always tried to charge me over $200 if their driver used a lift gate during delivery.
    They never collected but kept trying. I always found it a bit odd that I should pay that kind of
    money for them using a common piece of machinery that makes delivery easier on their driver,
    saving their hourly paid employee time and reducing risk of injury caused by breaking pallets
    down and having to reach up and pull heavy items down from over their head to stack on the
    ground and take in by hand truck.

    I understand if we required them to do something outside the norm but considering that it had
    nothing to do with our convenience and everything to do with theirs it seemed a bit out there.

  10. #10
    Orca Whisperer W3WN's Avatar
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    The local UPS drivers have a nasty habit of simply leaving the "we tried to deliver" note on the door. They pulled that as recently as earlier this summer, when my Omni VI+ showed up on a day my wife was home. When I called and raised cain, the driver was sent back... in an earlier time frame than when we were told he'd be there... and left another note.

    Fortunately, I know where the local depot is, so I went that evening to get it myself. Not exactly the best part of town, and they now have the former "customer service" area fenced off. You have to go to the security guard and explain why you're there. Nice.

    FedEx freight is as bad in their own way. About 2 years ago at work, we were awaiting delivery of a rack-sized AC unit for our server room. The truck pulls up in the alley alongside the building, instead of pulling in the back by the loading area. Driver is asked to pull around back. Instead, he loads the crate onto the liftgate, carts it down the alley, and deposits it in front of the building -- uncrated. And leaves. KB3ERQ & I had loads of fun uncrating the thing with the few tools we had on hand (and I made a trip to Depot that night and bought what we had needed so we wouldn't get caught like THAT again!)

    FedEx Freight refused to refund the cost charged for the driver to uncrate the unit, and tried to bill us for the driver using the liftgate.

    I'd rather pay more upfront and get good service in return, but this is the price of cutting costs.
    “Nobody is going to feel sorry for us. 90% of the people don’t care, the other 10% are glad it happened.” — Clint Hurdle, 2019

    BAN THE DH!

    Fudd's First Law of Opposition: If you push something hard enough, it WILL fall down.
    Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's Law: It goes in, it must go out.

    Just remember: Abraham Lincoln didn't die in vain. He died in Washington, DC

    Cutch 300!!!!!

    “Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfed.” — Bernie Sanders

    Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati


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