UPS victorious

[Enidigm]

So i order a new pair of speakers as i'm tired of using headphones on the computer (something i've done, upon reflection, for years and years), on the 5th. I select standard, free UPS shipping from Amazon, because i'm cheap and can afford to wait a couple weeks.

Come home on the 6th, and they're sitting next to the front door. Less than 24 hours. 40$ in rebates, 50$ off on sale. Total cost AR = 30$. No tax. They were priced at around 120$ at the local Best Buy.

UPS ftw!

[Ben Sones]

VM.

;)

[Moggraider]

The Amazon shipping center is near you. Big deal.

[WarrenM]

No, I've seen this many times myself. Choose the cheapest shipping option and it will often arrive in 1 or 2 days anyway, unless you are ordering at xmas or something. If you're willing to "risk" the possibility of it actually taking a week, you'll often score much better.

[Enidigm]

The Amazon shipping center is near you. Big deal.

5 driving hours away (from the address listed as the shipping center on the box) is close? Two or three years ago ording anything from Amazon was an excruciating exercise, with the average turn around time being about 3 weeks. I also recently ordered some books, and while they came fairly promptly it was nothing like this.

[Igor Muravyev]

How lucky. I ordered an item a week ago with free shipping and they haven't even shipped it out yet.

[Fugitive]

UPS loses forever up here just because of the ridiculous customs brokerage fees they charge on any piddling little thing you import.

[Robert Sharp]

You live in Canada. You will find yourself losing in all sorts of ways...every day!

[Shadarr]

I ordered a polarizer for my camera from Toronto (to Victoria) that shipped via Canada Post eXpressPost and arrived in one day. That's a hell of a lot further than five driving hours. Shipping in general has gotten a lot faster, probably thanks to FedEx. It used to always take an extra day for things to get from Vancouver to the island.

[Ben Sones]

Just to add some balance to this thread, I'll say that I ordered some books from Amazon (all in stock) last Monday, and decided to give the regular shipping a try , just to see how fast it would be. The books still haven't arrived, so I checked their status this morning. Where are they? Still at Amazon. The latest (and only) event in the tracking summary is "Carrier notified to pick up package," dated July 11.

USPS: not so victorious.

[WarrenM]

Eh, it varies. If you take the cheapest option, you're taking a gamble. It might be fast or it might be slow. If you want to make sure it gets to you quickly, pony up the extra bucks.

[russellmz00]

i tried to drop off a package at a dropoff box. my box was slightly too big. infact, if the box didn't have some jagged sliders on the bottom of the door, i think i could have shoved it in. screw you ups! ;)

[Kunikos]

You live in Canada. You will find yourself losing in all sorts of ways...every day!

Well, at least the currency is winning! Get ready to see more Canadian tourists abroad. :)

[Lizard_King]

I never had a problem with USPS on Amazon. Delivering to FPO addresses was virtually flawless, within 2 weeks from wherever/US to armpit of Iraq. OTOH, UPS has been all over the place in the continental US. Having briefly had a summer job at Fedex back in the day, I'm not unsympathetic to the travails of delivery services. I'm just pretty far from the day when I will be able to wait on their good graces for new game releases, significant albums, etc. Come to think of it, that goes for the USPS as well, it just would never occur to me to rely on it for 0 day releases.

[Njal]

You live in Canada. You will find yourself losing in all sorts of ways...every day!

Hah you're probably one of those American tourists with a big Canadian flag on your backpack so you dont get fragged overseas.

[Ben]

Thought I'd bump this with something I'm pretty upset about:
Shipment Date: July 20, 2007
Destination: Columbus, OH, United States
Estimated Arrival: July 27, 2007
Date Time Location Event Details
July 21, 2007 07:03:00 AM COLUMBUS OH US Arrival Scan
July 21, 2007 03:39:00 AM MEMPHIS TN US Departure Scan
July 21, 2007 01:09:00 AM MEMPHIS TN US Arrival Scan
July 20, 2007 06:34:00 PM --- Carrier notified to pick up package
July 20, 2007 06:15:00 PM LOS ANGELES CA US Departure Scan
July 20, 2007 04:30:00 PM LOS ANGELES CA US Shipment picked up from seller's facility

[Ben Sones]

That's pretty weird, Ben. I think they are just taunting you. I will say, once the USPS actually picked up the package at Amazon (which I have now received), they got it to me in two days. It was just the week that it spent sitting in Amazon's shipping facility that annoyed me. I'm kind of impatient, and usually spring for the priority shipping.

[MatthewF]

Nothing beats the deal I got on my Westinghouse 42" back in late November. It was a little under $1200 and had free 2 day Fedex. I ordered it Tuesday night and it was there on Thursday morning (a trip from LA to Florida!). When the guy delivered it, he said it actually wasn't scheduled to go out till the next day, but he said "When I saw it, I was thinking, I bet that guy would really like that TV today. So I moved it onto the truck myself."

Awesome.

[Moggraider]

I bet he wanted you to tip him.

[MatthewF]

Nah. He wanted to know where I got it. So yeah not an entirely selfless act but hey.

[bigdruid]

I was pleased that Amazon + UPS was able to drop Harry Potter Book 7 on my doorstep at 10AM on release day. I have no complaints.

[Samurai]

Nah, still pissed off at UPS for taking three business days last week just to pick up a package that I had ordered. Placed the order Monday afternoon, tracking stays at "billing information received" until it finally ships Thursday.

[Ben]

Update- The package was delivered earlier today. But that brings me to my next pet peeve. I was hanging out on my living room couch and the Fedex guy left a small box(which may have contained like jewelry or electronics) on my porch. If he knocked, it was very, very softly and he definitely booked straight from the porch to his truck.

[forgeforsaken]

I'm not really a fan of UPS. They always seem to take the maximum time alloted to make a delivery. If it's three business days, it's going to take three business days even if two of them are with the package sitting at the local sort facility 10 miles from the final destination. I've had this happen on numerous packages.

[Lunch of Kong]

They always seem to take the maximum time alloted to make a delivery.

Fedex does the same thing. If you want 2-day service, you gotta buy 2-day service.

[Moggraider]

I agree that UPS has in the past held up packages seemingly intentionally. However, there have been quite a few times when I got a package faster than expected, as well. I have never noticed Fed Ex holding things up intentionally. And I've used both a lot.

[barstein]

I pre-ordered something from Amazon a year ago and it shipped while I was out of town and not seeing email for a couple of days. When I got back I found that it was headed for my old address via DHL. Amazon told me that DHL would turn it over to USPS and that it would forward on to me but might take a while.

Sure enough it arrives in my town, transfers to USPS and drops into a black hole. USPS and tells me to just hang tight and it will show up eventually. After a week or so, no one seems to know what to do, and the three companies blame one another.

I wait a couple more days until yesterday and Lo!, it resurfaced in a completely different and apparently random city and state (New Castle, DE) five days before despite this not being recorded until now.

Trackers at this point. Amazon:July 18, 2007 04:11:00 AM [MY TOWN] Delivered
July 5, 2007 12:57:00 PM [MY TOWN] Arrival Scan
July 5, 2007 09:12:00 AM [MY TOWN] Arrival Scan
July 4, 2007 01:00:00 AM [SOMEWHERE ON THE WAY] In transit
July 2, 2007 09:40:00 PM ALLENTOWN PA UNITED STATES In transit

DHL:7/18/2007 4:11 am Final Delivery Confirmed.
7/5/2007 12:57 pm Arrived at USPS. [MY TOWN]
9:19 am With delivery courier. [MY TOWN]
9:12 am Arrived at DHL facility. [MY TOWN]
7/4/2007 1:07 am Processed at DHL Location. Wilmington - Clinton Field, OH
7/2/2007 9:40 pm Processed at DHL Location.
9:40 pm In transit.
Shipment Request Acknowledged.

USPS:Label/Receipt Number: H966 0678 0524
Status: Delivered

Your item was delivered at 4:11 AM on July 18, 2007 in NEW CASTLE, DE 19720.

USPS sits on the problem for a couple more days, and then some biter leaves me a message telling me to "call New Castle" but doesn't leave a number or identify the specific office.

I call USPS to inquire about the number and it takes them ten minutes to even understand what I am asking, and then they give me a number that just rings and rings. I call again and spend another ten minutes explaining what I am trying to do, and they give me a different, but also incorrect number that ends with a fast busy signal. Meanwhile their site lists hundreds of numbers for that city and state. I call back a third time, am placed on hold for half an hour, and am then passed to some jerk who says "Hello, my system is currently down, please call back-CLICK".

Amazon volunteered to refund me my money and let me re-order the book and I let them, but I'm still determined to follow the original to the ends of the earth just to justify all the effort I've expended.

[dannimal]

Update- The package was delivered earlier today. But that brings me to my next pet peeve. I was hanging out on my living room couch and the Fedex guy left a small box(which may have contained like jewelry or electronics) on my porch. If he knocked, it was very, very softly and he definitely booked straight from the porch to his truck.

If you want it to need a signature, then have it shipped requiring a signature. Don't ship valuable stuff such that it can just be left on the doorstep.

If I'm a delivery guy with an abover average load, I'm not real interested in ringing every bell and waiting in the middle of the afternoon for packages that don't need signatures.

This goes in the same bin with "I chose 3 day shipping, and it got here in 3 days, but it could have gotten here sooner!"

[MatthewF]

Fedex does the same thing. If you want 2-day service, you gotta buy 2-day service.

Absolutely. The driver that delivered the TV said they had scheduled delivery times. So even if your package arrived after only 1 day, if you bought 3 day, it gets scheduled to go out for delivery on the 3rd day. Otherwise, they're probably thinking that if people order 3 day and it continually gets there in only 1 or 2 days, what's the point of paying extra for 2nd day or next day? They'll always get the cheaper option instead of the more expensive one. From an accounting perspective scheduled deliveries are really their best option.

[barstein]

It turns out that Amazon ships items out of New Castle, which means my situation above was probably a returned-to-sender scenario (forwarding has certain weight constraints).

I'm pissed that Amazon, DHL and USPS were all oblivious to this and to top it off when I called USPS to complain, the moment I uttered the word "complain" the CSR hung up on me.

[Aleck]

It turns out that Amazon ships items out of New Castle, which means my situation above was probably a returned-to-sender scenario (forwarding has certain weight constraints).

I'm pissed that Amazon, DHL and USPS were all oblivious to this and to top it off when I called USPS to complain, the moment I uttered the word "complain" the CSR hung up on me.

I'd definitely ask Amazon to send you a new whatever it is, with free overnight shipping, and ask that they include a gift card or something. Having you waste hours of time (not to mention not having something you pre-ordered for a week!) is way beyond the pale.

[ElGuapo]

UPS not victorious. I have to take work off tomorrow in order to DRIVE TO THEM and pick up my repaired XBox from them. Either that or it's take the whole day off because their delivery hours with signature required . . . is a 12 hour window.

Boo, hiss.

[barstein]

I'd definitely ask Amazon to send you a new whatever it is, with free overnight shipping, and ask that they include a gift card or something. Having you waste hours of time (not to mention not having something you pre-ordered for a week!) is way beyond the pale.Most of the blame lies with the shipping companies in my opinion, but I did direct a complaint toward Amazon and they are giving me a $10 credit toward a future purchase. I don't feel that's adequate considering how much I've spent with them, but all I was able to do was say so and suck it up.