UPS blues

[emike123]

Carl got me to switch from US Postal Service so I've been shipping UPS Ground.  4 bad experiences in the past year have convinced me that the US postal service on a relative basis may be pretty good:

1) Shipped RedBob here a 7" Brooke.  Per tracking it got two UPS stations down the line then disappeared from the planet.  I sent pictures and exact weight and they found nothing.  Got $100 back and my shipping costs refunded
2) At the same time I shipped an 8" cannon ball to a guy in Washington state.  It made it as far as RedBob's Brooke did too, then vanished from the planet too.  Got another $100 from UPS.
3) Fellow shipped me his artillery collection.  14 of 15 boxes arrived.  15th was a nice marked 8" ball that left the planet and has not been seen.  Even though box 9 of 15 was the missing one and all the others were labelled with UPS labels 1 of 15, 2 of 15, etc., UPS had no records of it and we got $0
4)  Today, I was to receive a dug trunion strap, and when it didn't show I looked up on the tracking system and got this lovely note (my underlining) after a bunch of clicks:

[emike123]

...so whatever we hear about the US Postal Service, my experience over the last year with UPS has been much worse.  I really don't ship a lot and to have 4 total losses in so short a time is incredible.

If misery loves company, I apparently am not alone:

https://redditblog.com/2015/11/13/ups-lost-this-guys-package-then-he-found-it-on-ebay-being-auctioned-by-ups/

Similar to his one of 4 engine my shells are pretty distinctive and I had their weights and pictures for UPS.  Either they have so many lost 7" Brooke shells that they can't figure out which one is which, or they aren't trying at all.  If anyone knows where UPS' lost stuff goes for sale, there is some nice Civil War artillery to be had.

[redbob]

After the Great Brooke Disaster, I no longer look at UPS the same  way and someone at UPS is amassing quite an ordnance collection. BTW, I'll always appreciate the stand up manner in which the Brooke Crapstorm was handled.

[pipedreamer65]

Ups sucks.  Seems like if your shipped item passes through the wrong employees hands it will disappear.   I have a 15" shell frag out there some place.

I purchased a $3000 telescope a few years back and had it UPS shipped to my place of work so it wouldn't be sitting on my porch all day.   They dumped it off in an open garage bay and left.  One of the boxes had a huge stab hole in it, and all 3 boxes were soaking wet.

I like USPS ok.  Only had 2 minor items go missing out of hundreds of items shipped to and fro over the last several years.

[pipedreamer65]

And I am sorry for your loss.  That's a real pisser reading that an accident happened and your item was discarded.  Makes me sick and I have no skin in the game.

[CarlS]

I've had USPS problems and no UPS problems so I guess they all have issues.  I wondered about FedEx and found:
    https://www.ajc.com/news/business/fedex-delivery-delays-frustrate-customers/VVV4QCFVE5FLPA3VPKD2R7TJRY/
where their on time delivery went from 1st to last among the 3 services.   And here is a whole site for complaining about FedEx:
    http://fedex-sucks.net/
Where I work we get 2 deliveries of UPS and one of FedEx each day.  I've not heard of any issues with lost packages or long delays with either.  We tend to not ship via USPS so I can't comment on that.

I blame it all on Amazon cluttering the shipping channels with junk.  Then the pandemic on top of that is making a mess of it all.  Mike's experiences have made it where I won't ship UPS or USPS without full insurance and I'll take pictures of the contents beforehand like Mike had.

[pipedreamer65]

Yea, I read a couple of weeks ago that USPS couldn't handle the heavier package load since covid19 because their business model is predicated on handling letters, business mail and paper items mostly.  My carrier told me that many days she makes a trip back to the P.O. to pick up boxes she couldn't fit in her vehicle on her first trip out.  Said it nearly triples her time spent delivering mail dealing with Amazon boxes.  So, I guess Amazon packages slows everything down.  I imagine it affects ups as well.