On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 15:33:17 -0700, mp wrote:

I avoid these kinds of issues by avoiding UPS whenever possible.

Whenever a vendor offers me a choice, I choose someone other than UPS. By
"choice", I include those vendors who carelessly leave a text box
available for me to include additional instructions.

I simply tell them that I get poor service to my address and that if they
can't ship via some other carrier, to cancel the order. UPS acts like I
live in a crack neighborhood and won't even leave a pkg. in between my
storm door and my main door. This causes me to make a 12 mile round trip
to the UPS facility that 'services' my address ... located in a GENUINE
crack neighborhood. (I used to be a teacher about 100 yards away from
their depot.) There is another UPS facility located about 4 miles closer
to me and directly on my way home from work, but it doesn't handle my
address. As far as I am concerned, neither UPS facility handles my address.

The UPS guy wouldn't leave a small box of tomato seeds in my front door
.... much less anything that would need to be left outside of it (the view
from the street is blocked by evergreen foundation plantings -- the
package would only be visible to people already on the porch), but the
Fedex guy delivered a printer to my side door. The UPS guy leaves a note
telling me that I wasn't home and that the merchandise will be shipped
back to the merchant if I don't come get it. The Fedex guy leaves a note,
too. His note reads "Your package is by your side door, sign where
indicated and leave this note where you found it so I can pick it up
tomorrow."

UPS has this fancy package tracking service. That means that I could
follow the computer I sent my son in Minnesota (from Detroit) as it made
its way to Chicago (twice), Cleveland (once) Grand Rapids (twice),
Portland, Or (once) and Bismarck, ND before finally being dropped off,
crushed, on his porch.

UPS refused to honor the insurance I had bought because I wasn't a
company, just an individual. (That didn't stop them from collecting the
premium, though.) The shipping box had been lined with a plastic
bag, the computer had been wrapped in a plastic bag and then the whole
rest of the box was packed with foam-in-place urethane. You know the
stuff ... like the aerosol "Great Stuff" that seals around pipes going to
the outside of your house. The box was rigid, the computer was well
cushioned. Had the parcel simply gone to St. Paul early in the saga, my
son would have had the computer he needed for school. Instead, all he got
was a box that rattled from the glass of the broken monitor. Even the
motherboard was cracked from some impact along the way.

It was bad enough that they trashed that computer but it was salt in the
wound when they refused to honor their insurance contract. I'll NEVER
willingly do business with them again. Because they didn't honor that
contract, I wasn't able to even send my son the money to buy a computer
locally. (I was unemployed at the time and hadn't a dime to spare.) That
was just "wrong" on so many levels that I just don't care to deal with
that company again. The sour taste is still there.

Bill