 |
|
|
|
|||||||||||
Let me introduce the protagonists; UPS you all know - but please get to know Fed-Ex or DHL better; John Haverly, a US Citizen and eBay seller and me, Angela Crossley, a British eBay purchaser.
In late November 2005 I bid for and won an aviation GPS owned by John Haverly. On November 28 John shipped the item via UPS to my home in the UK. The five day service cost me $104. John gave me a tracking number and I waited excitedly for my purchase to arrive; only it didn't. I could see from the tracking history (below) that the Unacceptable Parcel Service people had scanned it and it was in their system. Eventually I got a letter asking me to contact the Unacceptable Parcel Service in the UK. I duly did so, only to find that all they were concerned about was customs duties due on my parcel. I found a telephone number for the UK branch of said Unacceptable Parcel Service and phoned to enquire the whereabouts of my parcel.
I phoned daily; I was told it was in the UK; I was told it was in America; I was told it was lost; I was told it wasn't lost. I was told as the parcel receiver I had no rights and just had to wait for it to be delivered. This was from the Unacceptable Parcel Service of America - UPS to you and me!
|
|||||
What would you have done? I decided to ask for the help of the eBay seller, John Haverly.
I wondered how helpful he might be as he had his money and he had shipped the parcel. All I could expect of him he had done already. However, I struck GOLD! John proved to be the man you want in your corner. He was superb; he hassled the Unacceptable Parcel Service almost daily for two months. Along the way he was told the parcel had been delivered, but it hadn't. He was told that it was in transit; it wasn't. And finally, to add insult to injury he was asked to prove the worth of the parcel. When posting John had declared the customs value to be $1200.
Many, many more phone calls later UPS offered $150 compensation! Before compensation could be argued over, the Unacceptable Parcel Service of America phoned John to tell him they had found the item, after 2 months! They asked what he wanted done with it. Well, polite man he is, he asked for it to be delivered. And eventually, after being charged customs and a UPS collection fee, the parcel arrived. No apology, nor refund of fee was offered by the said Unacceptable Parcel Service.
Now, I'm not so daft that I don't realize that sometime things go wrong, and people or systems screw-up. But any company pretending to be a global player really ought to have ways of saying sorry for all the hard work, worry and hassle they have caused. John spent hours on the phone, talking to automatons and trying to find a parcel lost in a nightmare system.
UPS - you stink and I recommend anyone not to use your service but choose Fed-Ex or DHL, or for that matter, anyone EXCEPT bloody UPS!!
John Haverly, let me publicly say thanks for the very hard work you put in on my behalf. Any ebay user reading this and thinking of buying something from John, go straight ahead, he is one of the good guys!!
AC 2 Feb 2006
