Subject: OT: Rant about UPS...

From: David Woyciesjes <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 13 08:47:00 2003

I'm sure you guys will enjoy the humor in this...

	I went to the shipping counter at the UPS hub here, with a box that has
an Atari 800, disk drive, and software. The guy at the counter asked
what I was shipping...

"Oh, just some software, and an old computer and disk drive."
"Copmuter? It that the original packing?"
"Huh? Uh, no. It's an _old_ Atari copmuter."
(Confused glance from him at the mention of the word 'Atari')
"Well, uh, lets take a look...What's this?"
"Umm, A disk drive..."
"Well, uh, we can't ship it like this. It has to be in the original box"
"Really. Since this computer is about 20 years old, I highly doubt that
the original boxes still even exists in this world. So now what am I
supposed to do?"
(Blank look from him)"Well, let me tape this box back up for you"

	As I take the box to the FedEx hub next door, I wonder where this guy
has been in the 80's. He has to be at least 30 years old...

--
---   Dave Woyciesjes
---   ICQ# 905818

---

From: Chad Fernandez <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 13 23:20:00 2003

The lady at my local UPS Depot tries to pull that original packing 
garbage on me too.  She always questions me on exactly how I boxed it, 
and acts like she's doing me a big favor when she accepts it.  It really 
bugs me.  The last few times I've used Fedex, since they're cheaper, and 
don't hassle me about boxes.  Hmm, lets see, maybe I'll purposely 
package this poorly, so I can go through more hassle by failing a claim? 
  Yeah right!!

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA

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From: Marvin Johnston <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 13 23:56:01 2003

> and acts like she's doing me a big favor when she accepts it.  It really

Have you every tried questioning here "credentials" as to knowing proper
packaging techniques? I've never had a problem with USPS, UPS, or FedEx.
But I am also accused of packaging to survive a nuclear explosion :).

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From: "Erik S. Klein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 14 00:39:00 2003

There is a reason UPS wears brown. . .

   Erik Klein
   www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum
   The Vintage Computer Forum

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Chad Fernandez
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 9:15 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: OT: Rant about UPS...

  Yeah right!!

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA

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From: "TeoZ" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 14 00:45:01 2003

Some people cant pack an item to save their lives. I had somebody send me a
zip drive and he packed it in a larger box with no packing and the thing
just bounced around all the way from california to ohio. Of cousre the
plastic bezel broke ( I glued it, unit works fine).

Fortunatly all the computer system I had sent to me were overpacked and
nothing ever got messed up.

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From: Chad Fernandez <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 14 02:24:00 2003

Marvin Johnston wrote:
> packaging techniques?

That seems piontless..... she works for UPS, I'm sure that gives her all 
the credentails she needs in her mind.  Besides, I don't think making 
her mad would help.

> I've never had a problem with USPS, UPS, or FedEx.

Yes, I pack them pretty well too, even heavy items.  I double box, build 
crush zones, use plenty of tape, and so on, but it needs to be in the 
original box, because only the OEM really knows how to pack a box!

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA

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From: Marvin Johnston <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 14 08:50:00 2003

> the credentails she needs in her mind.  Besides, I don't think making

Does irritating you help? If it doesn't bother you, then who cares. If
it does, then say something :)!

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From: "Rob O'Donnell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 14 09:00:01 2003

Well, assuming you get them to accept the parcel, that's only half the 
battle.  If you have web access, check out a thread currently running on 
ebid.co.uk (a UK based FREE auction site we've been selling a lot of [non 
CC-related] stuff on) - initially about our "good ol'" Royal Mail, but thrn 
about the rough treatment given packages by pretty much all the carriers.

http://sumo.ebid.co.uk/community/viewtopic.php?t=793

Basically, pack anything to withstand a nuclear explosion, because that's 
not much sort of what it'll experience...

Rob.

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From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 14 11:29:01 2003

> the credentails she needs in her mind.  Besides, I don't think making

As others have mentioned, Fedex Ground is usually cheaper.

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

---

From: John Lawson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 14 12:24:00 2003

> As others have mentioned, Fedex Ground is usually cheaper.

   This is a perennial thread here; and with good reason - a lot of us
recieve items and have occasion to ship Stuff.

  I dislike UPS - they've mangled their share of my Stuff, and always seem
to have a whiff of 'tude.

  OTOH, I have a FedEx Ground account. It's free, and I just put in the
particulars of whats going where - the system prints out a barcoded label,
and I'm good to go.  I have to take the box(es) to the FedEx folk, since
one of the reasons Ground is cheap is that they don't provide pick-up
service - but since FedEx locations are easy to find, this has not been a
problem for me.  My account charges my credit card directly for the
shipping costs, and, since eveything's pre-labelled, the Stuff goes right
on the conveyor and that's that.

   The Ground Account pages then track all my shipments automatically for
me on one summary page, which is nice if one doea a lot of eBay work -
I'll sometimes have 10 or 12 boxes in transit to various corners of the
planet.

  And it don't take half a brain to figure out that it's the job of a
carrier to get your parcel to it's destination - it's *your* job to pack
it so it gets there in the condition you intended it to.  I don't see
what's so hard about that.  Like Chad, I bubble-wrap and double-box, use
crushed-up newspaper, plastic wrap -  I've never had a problem, so far.

  YMMV

John

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From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Sat Jun 14 17:30:43 2003

> plastic bezel broke ( I glued it, unit works fine).

I once had a CRT (just the glass thing, I don't mean a complete monitor) 
sent to me by Parcelforce (AKA Parcelfarce), who are also well known for 
wrecking parcels [1]

The idiot who sent it put the CRT in a large box with no packing, no 
protection round the pins or sealing tube, or anything.

Now what amazes me is how it all arrived in one piece and working (!)....

[1] I was cent an HP9830. HP stuff of that vintage is _solid_. It still 
arrived with the metal case dented, several keycaps off, and the 
keyboard bezel broken into several pieces...

-tony

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From: steve <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat Jun 14 21:30:00 2003

> on the conveyor and that's that.
Oh, I had one of those lovely FedEx accounts, great
until one day I open my monthly statement and it looks
like this

$23.42
$18.23
$42.98
$42.98
$32.45
$32.45
$7.80
$7.80

get the picture? For some reason Fedex decided to
start double charging each of my shipments, so a phone
call to Fedex and half an hour later I get them
removed, no problem. 

Next month the same thing happens, FedEx ramdomly
double charging some shipments, so I call again and
this time I get some moron on the phone who doesn't
know how to log in to account system, he forwards me
to some head account manager who instantly accuses me
of not wanting to pay my bills! She said "See the
statement, thats what you are supposed to pay, don't
you understand the concept of an invoice?" 

It got worse after that, but safe to say, that card is
gone and I am back to old manual "pay at the counter"
way of shipping via USP and USPS.

On another related issue, how many people here use
services like stamps.com? I looked into them, but
there is always a catch, they don't work well with
international shipments (20% of my shipping) or if
they do you still have to bring the item to the USPS
counter because of the customs forms (instead of
leaving it at your curbside postal box for pickup like
you can with domestic shipments).