Why I Don't Use UPS If I Can Help It

Two UPS "Info Notice" stickies were on the door to my apartment building yesterday. One on top of the other. And they both looked like this: 100% blank.

Now, if this notice was stuck on the outside door of your apartment building, would you have any reason to believe there's a package for you?

Is there anything in the "Date' box? The "To" box?

Is there any writing at all on this info notice?

If your eyes see what my eyes see, the answer is a resounding, "NO!"

This "Info Notice" needs another name. It should be named the "Don't Use UPS" notice. Or how about the, "Fire the Extremely Trifling UPS Driver" notice?

Yeah, I like that second option and here's why:

The UPS drivers who come to my neighborhood regularly do things like not bother to ring the bell. They just stick the notice up without ringing. And they'll mark down that it's the final delivery attempt even when no other delivery attempts have been made.

There was a little fiasco back in October when we were waiting and waiting for a package, called the company we'd ordered from, and found out the package had been returned for non-delivery. And we'd received zero notices from UPS.

And then of course there was the time that I was waiting for something else, called UPS customer service, told them that I'd gotten a 3rd attempt notice, no other notices and besides I'd been home ALL DAY...and I got told that the drivers operate on a tight schedule and maybe he hadn't had time to leave a notice. Talk about the essence of "we want to lose you as a customer" responses right there.

Then I got told that the delivery would be made by 6 PM...and the driver showed up after 8:00 with an attitude.

Need some more reasons to skip UPS? Well, how about my sister sent me an item and she had an employee at the UPS store pack it. Said item was broken when it got here and we had to go through major rigmarole to get her $40 shipping and handling money refunded. Of course, they left out refunding actual purchase price of the item that was broken.

So given all this I pulled both notices down and called their 800 number. I figured I'd check and see who in my building these packages were for. First I had to go through five annoying minutes of an automated phone stuff that left me wanting to yell profanities into the phone. Then I was on hold for about ten minutes.

Finally I got a guy on the phone, explained the situation to him and gave him the tracking number off the first slip. All I wanted to know was if it was package for my address. And no, it was for someone a good THREE blocks away. So what the heck was it doing stuck on my door?

I almost didn't ask about the second notice, the one hidden directly underneath the first notice on the door. After all, that was probably for that other address as well, right?

WRONG!

I went ahead and gave the tracking number...and guess what, the package was for me and the driver claimed that this was a second attempt and no one had been home. I asked what time the delivery attempts were made and sure enough, both times a delivery had supposedly been attempted were two times I'd been home. Besides, I don't know what's in the package! Maybe a birthday present for me???

Someone is supposed to be calling me tomorrow to discuss this with me and I am definitely looking forward to the conversation. I don't want to be mean, but the level of ineptness is ridiculous.

Really, I'm sorry if you happen to be reading this and also work at UPS, but I'm not a fan of your people. Quite frankly, I'd rather go stand in line at the post office or pay more for FedEx than waste any time or money with UPS.