Rant: UPS are useless
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007I’m going to take a page out of Damien’s book and rant about some terrible service I’ve been enduring lately.
A week or so ago my iPod shuffle kicked the bucket having worked perfectly up until then. I did the usual troubleshooting recommended by the Apple site and got nowhere so decided to get it replaced (as it’s still in warranty).
Apple’s return/repair service was extremely easy to use and I have no complaints there. I ordered the repair in minutes and was impressed to find that they actually send you a replacement iPod first and ask you to send back the faulty one afterwards - rather than the other way around. The package arrived a day after putting the order through and enclosed was a pre-paid envelope for a UPS collection so I could send my faulty iPod back in the box the new one came in.
So far, so good. I rang UPS straight away and booked in a collection for my faulty iPod. I was told it would be collected between 2:30 and 5:30pm on Friday 1st June and to ensure I was at home - they took my home phone number too.
Friday came and went with no collection and when I rang UPS after 6pm their offices were closed. I rang again on Saturday morning and was asked if I was there at 3pm on Friday, to which I answered in the positive.
Apparently the driver had said they called to the house at that time and there was no answer. I was in the house all day (didn’t even go out the back), had the house phone with me at all times (it’s cordless!), the doorbell is working fine and there was no “we missed you” note left in my letterbox. So if the driver did knock they didn’t use the doorbell, they knocked very gently on the door once and they didn’t even try to ring the house or leave notice of their attempt to reach me. Frankly, I knew they didn’t come and put it down to the fact that the driver was an incompetent person working on the Friday of a bank holiday weekend.
Back to Saturday’s phone call. I told the polite woman all of the above and she put a complaint through and re-scheduled collection for Tuesday 5th, again between 2:30 and 5:30pm.
This has come and is now gone with no sign of a UPS van, but today I took the precaution of ringing UPS slightly earlier to check the progress of the collection.
So I ring just after 5pm and am told, coincidently, that the collection van was here at 3pm and there was no answer.
Bullshit.
Again, I was here all day (and so was someone else). Again, I was by the phone all day. Again, there was no phone call. Again, there was no note.
Again the polite lady (I think it was the same one) offered to put a complaint through on my behalf and while I wasn’t going to have a go at her because some lazy moron of a driver can’t do their job I let her know just how pissed off I was at the whole situation. I also pointed out that the claim of the driver today was exactly the same as the one on Friday and yet again no-one tried to contact me, they just left it up to me to chase them for information.
I also told her that as far as I was concerned no-one from UPS had knocked at my door on either Friday or today. I can’t see it any other way as they have the right address and had no trouble finding it to deliver the package in the first place.
I’m pissed off enough that I had to wait at home all day on two separate occassions for these bastards, but that’s not what’s really concerning me. You see, while Apple are nice enough to send me a new iPod first rather than have me wait for a week or so without one while they check my faulty model, they’re also not stupid.
As part of the repair agreement, as some of you may know, you give credit card details and agree to be charged for the cost of the product plus delivery (over €90 in this case) if you fail to return the faulty item within 10 days of receiving the replacement… basically after that point they’ll assume there is no faulty item and you’ve just bought a second one - and that’s fair enough.
What that means for me now is that despite doing what I needed to do and getting collection organised in a timely fashion I may now have to try and convince Apple that I’m not trying to rip them off - and all because UPS is staffed by lazy and incompetent drivers. I’m not sure exactly how I can do this but something tells me that UPS aren’t going to be very helpful in proving that the fault lays at their door - I’ll do my best to make them though.
Oh, and if I do get charged €90+ for a replacement iPod I’ll be billing UPS for it. I sincerely hope that my phone calls to them so far have been recorded because I made it clear today that I stand to lose money because of their idiocy and I’ll continue to make it clear that I’ll be looking for it back from them should worst come to worst.
I don’t use companies like these that often, but this is unacceptable. I did use DHL once when I was moving to Wolverhampton for a year and they did a great job. If only Apple allowed me to chose what company carried my replacement iPod - that’s about the only bad thing I can say about their service overall.
Blogs elsewhere
June 5th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
They’re pretty much the exact same in America, if my dealings with them are anything to go by.
That said, your contract is not with UPS, it is with Apple. Ring Apple and explain this to them, maybe even throw a bit of a strop.
Make sure you put it in these terms, they are the ones with the contract with UPS. UPS are not fulfilling their contract with Apple, therefore Apple are not fulfilling their contract with you, as per the terms of you warranty.
Put this to them, you can be as annoyed as you like with UPS, but why bother? You’re not paying them any money, take it to their “employer”, for want of a better word, Apple.
June 7th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
I used to work for customer service for Apple and 90% of customer problems were down to, you guessed it, UPS.
Basically, when working there, i was hearing similar stories to yours 30 times a day.
Us, customer service reps, complained again and again to Apple management about this. We noted customer complaints and took it to the managers.
The managers got onto UPS due to the HUGE amount of unhappiness of the customers and employees of Apple who had to deal with the screw ups of a different company 30 times a day.
UPS sorted themselves out for a week and then went back to their good old selves.
Complaining to Apple will do nothing, many times i’ve had it out with UPS after a customer has complained and they don’t listen to us either.
Sorry for your troubles, im glad i don’t have to deal with UPS anymore
June 7th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Thanks for the comment LS, and to CW for the suggestion.
Thankfully UPS came yesterday evening and took the box - Apple sent me a mail today to tell me they received it so everything is sorted and I don’t have to pay any penalty (no thanks to UPS, of course).
Less learned from the whole thing, Apple have a very customer friendly system, UPS do not!
June 8th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
I work for ups and have you ever thought the driver was busy.Calling them lazy and incompetent is not on. Some drivers have a very wide area to cover and as it was the bank holiday would have been very busy with regular deliveries/pick ups etc. Maybe he hadnt got time to get by your place to pick up the package. Customer care will just tell you he was around because they dont have a clue whats its like out on the road, they just sit behind their computer.
June 8th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
The driver was busy? Then why was I told on two occassions that one claimed to knock at 3PM?
If they couldn’t make it to my house (and there’s no reason, I’m in a reasonably central location in Dublin) both times, why couldn’t they just say so?
And am I supposed to believe that a company as big as UPS don’t make their drivers report back on failed collections and status of packages? I’m supposed to believe the office staff just make it up for no reason (I mean, it’s not like they have any reason to cover their arses).
I know someone who worked in a rubbish collection call centre and the drivers there often claimed to have visited streets on their round, despite everyone there saying they had their rubbish out on time but it wasn’t collected. UPS aren’t unique in having incompetent drivers and I doubt all of them are bad - I’d never make that assumption - but I certainly bore the brunt of some of their poorer staff.
July 5th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
[…] read Cian Ginty’s negative interaction with Dell tech support and having had my own trouble with their courier of choice, UPS, I braced myself for the worst when the power adaptor on my [10 month old] Vostro 1000 kicked the […]
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:53 am
Ah good old UPS! If only their delivery services was as good as their billing. Ever notice they have no issues delivery their invoices?
July 30th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Ahhhh yeah… the old ‘nobody was home’ BS. They pull that all the time… if the driver is falling behind schedule they just pull that one out as much as needed to get ‘caught up’ and be done on time. So lame, but so predictable for UPS. FedEx, DHL, or even regular USPS is far better here in the states than that scam outfit UPS.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:25 am
And dont you love it when they deliver your package to the wrong house and wrong state, and then refuse to correct theyre mistake and say its YOUR fault, im in a war with them right now saying its not the drivers fault for delivering my package to the wrong house, its my fault…..bullshit to hell.