Philip's "vent" is a much more serious one since it affects his health. Mine vent is just frustrating... My brothers are in Hawaii now. "The Dragon" needed his spare binoculars since his other one broke. And since it was almost Christmas I decided to send them a treat... a cake made with Kumquats from his tree. The harbor does not accept packages from the US Postal Service, you must either use FedEx or UPS. So... on Monday Dec. 16 I go to the UPS Store. Asked how much it would cost and how fast could I get it there. First price they gave me almost sent me into shock and she said it could be there by Thursday. I started thinking to myself... do I pay the price or go home and take out the cake. Before I made up my mind, the girl says... or we can send it for about $30 less but I can't guarantee the delivery date but it should be Friday or Monday. Okay... let's do that. A couple of days later I notice on the receipt that the delivery date she mentioned was for the following Friday, Dec. 27th. Yikes! I don't know if the cake would still be okay, even though it was in an air-tight container. Oh well... he could just feed it to the fishies. So I finally got curious and tracked the package online on Saturday the 28th. It shows that it's been in Dallas TX since Dec. 19th and hasn't moved! So I call UPS and they can't find the tracking number, said it's supposed to start with 1Z. I said it doesn't. They say, call the store that you shipped it from. Girl remembers me because of the additional addressing we had to do. She can't find it by the tracking number either. Then she says... oh, we sent it through the US Postal Service, and once we do that, we can't track it. SAY WHAT???!!! After a "little bit" of yelling at her, she gets her manager on the phone. He says... we ALWAYS tell our customers what service we're using. I loudly insist that no one told me they were going to use the postal service. If I wanted to use the postal service I would have went to the post office! So after giving him an ear-full, I said... look it's already shipped, that's problem #1. Problem #2... where is the package and when will it be delivered? He gave me the number to the postal service. He got another ear-full and I hung up. I call postal service, give them the tracking number. Guy says we show it should be delivered by Dec. 31st. I say the website says the 27th. He says no it doesn't. "Okay, whatever. So the package has been sitting in Dallas all this time and it's still expected to be in Hawaii by Tuesday?" Yes, it will go by boat. "Even if the package was on the west coast loaded on a boat and the boat is leaving the dock...how in the hell can it be in Hawaii in just a couple of days?" That's what the paperwork says. "AAARRRGGHHH!" So, I email my brother and tell him the screw-up and that he'd better let the harbor master know. He says, If he wasn't so hungry for that cake, it would be funny. I told him that cake is probably nothing but a big mound of mold and to not even throw it to the fishies! He said next time, send the package through FedEx who will probably send it to the UPS Store who will then send it through the postal service who will ship it back to FedEX who will put it on the fastest boat in the universe. Glad he thinks it's funny! :twisted:
I had the same kind of issue recently with something I ordered online, so I can understand your frustration. I ordered 2 items online from British Columbia on Black Friday, Novemeber 29th. I was told upon purchase that it would be sent via Canada Post expedited 4 day delivery. I do a lot of shopping online and I am used to getting the "your item has shipped" email. After 10 days not getting that email or the expected delivery, I called them. The woman there told me that the two items had already shipped separately and that she would call me later with tracking numbers. 2 days later I had to call back, and they still insisted that the orders had shipped and they would be there by the end of the week. The first item arrived on the 13th with a postmark of December 9th. A third call on the 17th made no furter progress ... they still could not give me a tracking number. I decided to wait until after the holidays and if the package still hadn't arrived I was going to cancel the order with my credit card company. Guess what? The package arrived December 28th - with a postmark of December 17th! So it appears the people I spoke to during those 3 calls lied to me because in each case, the package was still not sent when they told me it was. SO annoying! I hope your brother gets his cake and is able to eat it
I ordered a package from Amazon Nov. 4th. It arrived Dec 27th. Almost two month to get here. They did not tell me it was coming from Singapore.
Oh boy,..Cheryl,..Netty and Donna,..i was frustrated reading your three posts,..it makes one feel like exploding at the simple task of posting and delivering being made into such a complicated task and NOBODY can tell you exactly when it went and where it is nor when will it get there.
Looking back on the whole thing (and doing ALOT of venting and not just here), I can now laugh like my brother did. I'm not sure how expensive his binoculars were, but they can be replaced. The cake? Only worth a few bucks in ingredients. His magazines and junk mail. Not important. Postage... well... we won't go there! I'm just happy his boat registration and insurance renewal stuff arrived too late to put in that package. I mailed them a few days later in a regular old envelope through the post office using just a few stamps and they arrived safely on the promised date. Tomorrow is D-Day (delivery date) and the website still shows that package sitting in Dallas. I'm now having visions of that cake turning into some sort of mold-monster and attacking some poor postal worker.
Good thing you didn't add that important paperwork into the cake package Cherylad, it's like you KNEW something was going to happen! I did a lot of online shopping this year, and this was the only one that didn't arrive within a few days. I wasn't as mad about the packages being late as I was about being lied to. The first package to arrive was a Christmas gift and at least it arrived on time. Will I order from this company again? NO
What a bummer for all the late and lied to recipients. I ordered a part for my sons car many weeks ago...like in the spring and was thankful to get it within a few weeks since it was coming from China. I was actually surprised it came as quickly as it did when I found out where it was coming from. I thought it would sit in customs for weeks.
We ordered a new door bell (one that actually works!) and were given a FedEx delivery date. Fortunately, it had a tracking number, and FedEx said it had been delivered to the "final point of delivery service", which is the post office (surprise, surprise!). When it didn't arrive at our house in a week, we asked our rural carrier to look into it. It arrived the next day. He had to get on the sorter's case to get the package handed to him to deliver to us. If he hadn't made a fuss, we might still have neighbors yelling "Ding dong" real loud (thanks for the idea, Toni!). By the way, first class postage is going up to 49 cents on January 26, 2014.
Wow! What horror stories. I did a lot of shopping for my family online since they're all in a different state. Used Amazon for most of it and everything arrived in good shape and on-time. You're stories are making me count my blessings for that.
