[Elecraft] Shipping via UPS - A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

[Julia Tuttle]

UPS and FedEx have both done pickups at my residential address, and also I
thought you could create a shipment on ups.com and then drop it off at a
UPS store?

On Mon, Apr 11, 2022, 18:49 Joe Subich, W4TV <lists at subich.com> wrote:

> On 2022-04-11 6:29 PM, edauer at aya.yale.edu wrote:
>  >
> > The UPS Store does not charge real UPS rates.  They have UPS in their
> > name. They use a logo indistinguishable from the UPS logo. Their
> > counter clerks wear UPS Brown.  There was a standar UPS truck parked
> > in front of the shop. There was NOTHING visible to me in the store
> > that indicated it wasn't a UPS shop.
>
> For those reasons as well as that neither FedEx nor UPS will make
> a pick-up at a residential address (only if an established commercial
> customer issues a pick-up ticket), I have used good old US Postal
> Service for all of my shipping for the past 15 years plus.
>
> USPS on-line rates ("click-n-ship") were regularly better than those
> from either UPS or FedEX (corporate on-line), the USPS carrier will
> pick up packages (if scheduled on-line the day before) and the nearest
> Post Office is closer than either "The UPS Store" or "FedEx Office".
>
> 73,
>
>     ... Joe, W4TV
>
>
> On 2022-04-11 6:29 PM, edauer at aya.yale.edu wrote:
> > I just shipped some of my Elecraft gear to someone who had purchased it
> from
> > me.  The agreement was that I would ship it and they would bear the
> shipping
> > expense.  The buyer was OK with my using UPS.
> >
> >
> >
> > So I packed it up and took it to "The UPS Store."  There are about 30 of
> > them in the Denver metro area and about a dozen in the city itself.
> Before
> > taking the package there I looked at UPS on-line to see what insurance
> would
> > cost.  The UPS site said $1.05 per hundred dollars in excess of the $100
> > included in the shipping rate.  When I arrived at the UPS Store they
> charged
> > me $4.50 per $100.  That difference times the value of what I was
> shipping
> > came to well over $100.  When I questioned it (more accurately, when I
> > complained about it) they told me that UPS and The UPS Store are
> different
> > entities.  The latter, they said, is a network of franchises independent
> of
> > the real UPS that "works with" UPS for retail shipping and receiving.  So
> > what I had seen on the UPS website was what UPS charges, not the grossly
> > inflated premium The UPS Store charges.  OK, I asked, how can I ship this
> > via UPS itself?  The answer was a 90 minute round-trip drive to the
> nearest
> > real UPS terminal.
> >
> >
> >
> > The UPS Store does not charge real UPS rates.  They have UPS in their
> name.
> > They use a logo indistinguishable from the UPS logo.  Their counter
> clerks
> > wear UPS Brown.  There was a standar UPS truck parked in front of the
> shop.
> > There was NOTHING visible to me in the store that indicated it wasn't a
> UPS
> > shop.  Maybe everyone on this reflector already knows about this.  Until
> > this morning I didn't.
> >
> >
> >
> > There's an old maxim that a happy customer tells one other person about
> > their experience.  An unhappy customer tells ten other people.
> >
> >
> >
> > Ted, KN1CBR
> >
>
>
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