Scargill

UPS – the Worst Delivery Company in the World?

I bought a watch on Kickstarter some time ago – a smart watch, from America and it did well for a while but got some water damage. I was a little annoyed as the watch is supposed to be waterproof but the company (Pebble) were very good about it – they said no problem – we’ll ship you another straight away – you’ll have it in days.

And they chose… UPS. Too late to stop them (the LAST delivery from UPS was an utter and expensive disaster).

On time, Pebble sent me a tracking number – and the parcel would arrive here in Galera on Wednesday. I made sure they had the map link, that they sent the house map link to UPS and I sent a copy to the guy I’d previously spoken to at UPS in Spain. What could go wrong?  Eventually the tracking info updated itself and sure enough – LATE WEDNESDAY ARRIVAL. We were off to the coast for a couple of days (Thurs-Fri) so I let everyone involved know. Early Wednesday afternoon – the tracking information changed – “Incorrect address” – I could not believe my eyes.

I immediately wrote to everyone involved and ensured they knew that my address was correct and that I was ABSOLUTELY NOT going to be around on Thursday or Friday.

Sure enough nothing happened on Wednesday – I sent a stream of correspondence off and we went off on our trip to the coast, with a confirmation from UPS that they’d try again on Monday.

Friday, an email came in on my phone – UPS have DELIVERED YOUR PACKAGE. I was flabbergasted.  The address they delivered to according to the email, was nonsense – 2 letters – and the delivery was to “SOAN L” – not only was the address rubbish – but who on EARTH was “SOAN L” – didn’t really even sound Spanish and it certainly wasn’t English.

So after screwing up the Wednesday delivery, they sent the package on the WRONG day to the WRONG place to the WRONG person.

As it turns out – they’d just resorted to form – and delivered the package to …. Spanish Inland Properties – “SEAN L” a local business in the village – the very helpful chap there and on Saturday I picked up the replacement watch from him.  They simply could not give a SHIT about customer requirements. What if one of my friends had not suggested I contact Sean. What if Sean had said “sorry, I don’t have any parcel”.

All’s well that ends well, but now I feel it is my duty to warn everyone, everywhere – DO NOT USE UPS IN SPAIN AS THEY ARE COMPLETE RUBBISH – Two screwed deliveries in a row and a general feeling from the people here that they just don’t care and will take the easy option.