Date:         Sun, 7 Jan 2001 14:36:30 -0700
Reply-To:     Sean Reifschneider <jafo@TUMMY.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Sean Reifschneider <jafo@TUMMY.COM>
Subject:      Re: [Syncro] Re: Why I hate UPS (was: Vendors and shipping)
Comments: To: Lawrence Johnson <LARRY_AVERY.JOHNSON@SYMPATICO.CA>
Comments: cc: 1980 VW Westfalia Pokey <pokey@VANAGON.ORG>,
          "Syncro@egroups.com" <Syncro@egroups.com>,
          urabus <subaruvanagon@egroups.com>
In-Reply-To:  <3A588109.D8AA524B@sympatico.ca>; from
              LARRY_AVERY.JOHNSON@SYMPATICO.CA on Sun, Jan 07,
              2001 at 09:45:29AM -0500
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Sun, Jan 07, 2001 at 09:45:29AM -0500, Lawrence Johnson wrote:
>I wish you had posted this last week. UPS is in the process of screwing me out
>of over $100 more than it would have cost with the postal service. And if that

You say that like UPS is any better at delivering US-to-US...  I ALWAYS go
with FedEx whenever possible because of the numerous times that UPS has
failed.  I can live with some failure, but their failures are always so
spectacular...

Usually, when something fails to get delivered, they have absolutely NO
idea where it is ("We think it's somwhere in Texas", "We think it's somwhere
in Tenessee" -- both things we've heard with different packages).  Also,
they won't really talk to the recipient, only the shipper.  If the shipper
is too busy to be calling UPS all the time to try to track down your
package, tough luck.

UPS has shipped "priority" packages (with the red sticker and everything)
via ground, completely lost packages, required 6+ weeks to deliver ground
packages, and more.  They never seem to feel that they should compensate
you for it either.  Took nearly two weeks to deliver a priority package?
And you want to be credited the difference between priority and ground?
As if...

Our worse experience with FedEx has been that one day their database was
down, so we couldn't look up the tracking information on the web on one
particular important package.  We called them and they couldn't tell us
where it was.  The package arrived on-time but they credited us all
shipping fees because they couldn't tell us where it was.

I just wish more vendors offered FedEx.  Usually, FedEx is something around
15% more expensive than UPS for priority packages, and on computer equipment
I usually want it priority and it's often not very heavy/expensive to ship
priority.  Shipping an engine probably isn't best done by FedEx, though they
do have a new Freight setup.

I've heard good things about that shipping place that starts with a D
(DRL, DHL, something like that) for handling international shipments.

Sean
--
 "All I'm saying is that when I'm around you I find myself showing off,
 which is the idiots version of being interesting."  -- _LA_Story_
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo@tummy.com>
tummy.com - Linux Consulting since 1995. Qmail, KRUD, Firewalls, Python