UPS Ireland suck
I’m waiting for a replacement battery from Dell, covered under warranty. Dell service have been great, but UPS, not so much…
On Monday (25th June), after a little back-and-forth to establish that the battery was faulty, I got a mail from Dell saying:
The Part (Battery) will be with you tomorrow pre 17:00 (Next Business Day). Please note that you will require to return the faulty part at the same point of time, the courier person would not be delivering the part until you return the defective part.
Great! That’s good warranty service. I’m happy.
So I wait… and wait. Finally, 2 days later, today (Wednesday 27th), at 17:45, a courier appears to pick up the faulty part. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the replacement with him.
I go online to see what’s up via online tracking, and see this:
| Location | Date | Local Time | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| DUBLIN, IE | 27/06/2007 | 16:41 | A CORRECT STREET NAME IS NEEDED FOR DELIVERY. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION |
| 27/06/2007 | 4:13 | IN-TRANSIT SCAN | |
| 27/06/2007 | 4:12 | IMPORT SCAN | |
| DUBLIN, IE | 26/06/2007 | 18:31 | IMPORT SCAN |
| 26/06/2007 | 5:59 | IMPORT SCAN | |
| 26/06/2007 | 5:58 | OUT FOR DELIVERY | |
| 26/06/2007 | 3:59 | ARRIVAL SCAN | |
| KOELN (COLOGNE), DE | 26/06/2007 | 4:39 | DEPARTURE SCAN |
| 26/06/2007 | 4:14 | DEPARTURE SCAN | |
| HERKENBOSCH, NL | 25/06/2007 | 10:09 | ORIGIN SCAN |
| NL | 25/06/2007 | 14:02 | BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED |
So, what, the street name is “INCORRECT” despite one UPS driver having no problem? I suspect someone just couldn’t be arsed.
I rang up UPS, provided a hint, and it seems the delivery is now rescheduled for Friday. So much for “next business day” delivery! Lucky the laptop works on AC without the battery, otherwise I’d be quite annoyed.
I wonder if I can provide feedback to Dell about this? There’s a possibility they might switch courier company if they get enough complaints about crappy service. It also makes me wonder if there’s any decent international parcel delivery service in Ireland. At least UPS haven’t yet required me to schlep over to a “local” depot 5 miles away to pick up the package myself, like An Post does…
Tags: an-post, couriers, delivery, ireland, post, postage, suckage, ups, ups-suck
Simon said,
June 27, 2007 @ 8:40 pm
Watch out for the closely related “Business not listed in Building Directory”. The driver who eventually delivered my memory on day four couldn’t work it out since he’s delivered lots of packages with no trouble. Phoning up and presupplying them with my phone number and clear directions was no help either :(
Paul Browne - Technology in plain English said,
June 27, 2007 @ 9:59 pm
At least you got delivery via UPS.
When I needed a replacement Hard Drive from Dell, it got sent via An Post. Was I surprised when it didn’t arrive? A 200 quid non-tracked bit of kit disappearing in the post?
Laptop was out of action for 2 weeks until Dell acknowledged the problem and sent a replacement. Not good.
Daryl C. W. O'Shea said,
June 28, 2007 @ 10:48 am
I don’t think Dell will be changing delivery companies any time soon since UPS handles (global) logistics for them too. I wouldn’t be surprised if UPS actually does some of Dell’s repairs also, like they do for a number of computer/electronics companies.
Oddly enough, anything I get from Dell comes via the UPS hub in Mississauga Ontario, gets shipped to Purolator (Canada Post in disguise) somewhere in the Mississauga/Toronto area, and then arrives via Purolator usually within about 5 minutes of the UPS guy’s second of his twice daily visits. I think any attempts to make sense of Dell’s delivery methods will be futile.
Justin said,
June 28, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
The Dell support guy mailed me this morning and asked if the case could be closed. I informed him that the replacement battery hadn’t arrived yet — to his surprise, since the delivery was listed as complete in his system… so apparently he’s chasing it up on his side, for what good that’ll do.
Daryl: ‘Purolator’? what a bizarre name for a courier company! sounds like a dog food ;)
Daryl C. W. O'Shea said,
June 28, 2007 @ 6:33 pm
Yeah, a little odd. I always thought the name had French roots (since my French vocabulary sucks) but it appears that it dates to the 60’s when the Purolator Filter Company of the US bought Trans Canadian Couriers.