UPS seems to be extremely confused with parcel delivery to my apartment address.
About half the time, they deliver parcels properly.
The rest of the time, they screw everything up. Some examples:
- A few years ago, they delivered a package when I wasn’t here. Rather than leave it with my apartment manager’s office (who is authorized to sign for, receive, and securely store parcels on behalf of residents), they left it outside, in the rain, for three days until I got home. Fortunately, the contents weren’t damaged by the rain during this time. When I called to complain and ask them to deliver to the manager if I’m not available, they somehow misunderstood and marked my address as “DO NOT DELIVER” in their system and refused to deliver packages (though I could pick them up at the local UPS facility) for about a year until repeated phone calls finally cleared things up.
- On several occasions, they’ve attempted to deliver packages when I’m not here, and just take it back to the local facility rather than delivering to the apartment manager. (On one attempt, the manager’s office was closed and I was out, so they just took it back to the facility after leaving a note. That’s fine.)
- On a few other occasions, they just leave packages, including “signature required” ones, at my apartment doorstep.
- Finally, today, they left the package with my neighbor (who, while an amiable person who says “hello” whenever we run into each other, is not someone who is authorized to receive parcels on my behalf).
Is it really that hard for UPS to understand the simple procedure:
- If I, the recipient, am there, deliver package to me. Get signature from me if required.
- If I am not there, deliver package to apartment manager’s office. Leave a note on my door. This is SOP for this apartment, and UPS, FedEx, DHL, and the USPS usually know this.
- If neither I nor the apartment manager is there, leave a note and take the package back to the local UPS facility. I’ll come by that night to pick it up.
- Under no circumstances should packages be left in the rain, on my doorstep, or with unauthorized neighbors.
Easy, huh? Evidently it confounds UPS.
Don’t even get me started with the US Postal Service, though. When I file a “hold mail” request, that applies to all mail, not just letters. They should also hold any packages until I return to collect the mail, rather than repeatedly attempt to deliver the packages, fill my mailbox with “We attempted to deliver this package, but it’s too big for your box. We’ll try again.” and “We’ve attempted to deliver this package. Since we’ve been unsuccessful at delivering it (even though the mailboxes are attached to the wall of the apartment manager’s office -AR), we’ll be returning it to the sender.” notices, and eventually return the parcels to the befuddled sender.
I swear, my apartment complex appears to be located at some sort of weird nexus of package delivery suck. The only things that seem to get through without any hassle are letters and compact, heavy packages labeled as hazmat/ORM-D (e.g. ammo), probably because the latter scares the driver a bit.