Caution: Read this only if you enjoy stories about delivery service misadventures. Or if you enjoy stories that come under of the heading of what I call "How did this species ever survive?" This is copied from a series I posted at dpreview.
Last night about 6:00 pm: My K10D arrived in Phoenix at 6:13 am on Monday. For nearly 36 hours nothing was done with it. Then last night it was sent to Tempe (right next to Phoenix) for delivery today to my office address. The tracking page showed it as being "out for delivery" at 4:18 am. I waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, at 4:35 pm, I called UPS, went through and around the prompts, and got a nice woman. I explained that it needed to be delivered in the next 25 minutes, because the office closes at 5. She said that she would call the driver immediately and asked me to hold. Naturally, after several minutes of holding, I was disconnected. So I went through the hoops to reach a person again. At 4:53 I reached a nice lady, who took down the information and told me that apparently UPS had added an incorrect address label. The address from Adorama was correct. I have seen UPS do this before--add another address label for no apparent reason. It is a prescription for mistakes. I told the nice lady that I would like to pick the package up that evening. She told me to expect a call in an hour. So in an hour a nice local woman called and told me that apparently my parcel is lost. Or at least it was not on the truck it was supposed to be on. She is looking for it. Now UPS's tracking site shows " SAME DAY WILL CALL;DRIVER WILL MAKE A SAME DAY REDELIVERY ATTEMPT." Uh, Earth calling UPS: There's no one at the office after 5. Plus you have the wrong address. Plus you think you've lost the package. The Tempe, Arizona, office of UPS seems particularly bad. I've had problems like this with them before. Not again. I will place my next order with B&H to avoid UPS. Now I don't know when I'll get my K10D. ----- Last night about 9:15 pm: The last fellow who called me from UPS, about 7:00 pm, said that a local person would call me to let me know if the package could be picked up this evening. He said that I would get the call within 20 minutes. After 90 minutes went by I called the UPS national number again. Now a fellow says that the package was held out for me to pick up by 8:30 this evening--closed 45 minutes ago. His records show that the local employee tried to call me. This is a lie. The phone was next to me all evening and it did not ring. So now their records show that I can pick it up any time until next Thursday. Want to guess what glitches may lie ahead? ----- This morning about 8:00 am: Update 11/30 AM. The adventure continues. Last night UPS told me that the package would be held for me to pick up. Today, before heading to UPS, I thought I had better check. Sure enough, it is not being held. It is on the truck. After I complain yet again, a local woman calls and says they will take it off the truck for me to pick up. Then she calls back and says that the shipper won't let me pick it up. I've picked up orders from Adorama before when UPS screwed up the delivery. Then she said, wait and she would double check. I'm still waiting. I may just have to cancel this order and see if I can find one locally in the Phoenix area. Apparently UPS cannot accomplish a simple delivery. ----- Update this morning about 11:00 am: Update 11:00 am. After being told that I was not allowed to pick it up (this after being told that I could pick it up, after being told that it was lost, after being told that it had the wrong address), a local UPS woman called me back and said that I could come get it. I headed right over. I gave my tracking number to a young twit. We'll call her Twit A. She disappeared into the back of the facility. I waited, and waited, and waited. Twit A did not reappear. In the meantime, two people who had been in line behind me got their packages. So I asked another young twit (we'll call him Twit B), to find Twit A for me. He disappeared, then came back and said that she had my package and was coming out. I waited and waited and Twit A did not appear. So I asked Twit B again to look for her. Again he did, and came back to say that she was right behind the door with my package. At that point I asked if she could actually bring the package to me, rather than staying behind the door with it. Finally I got it. In a few days I need to send a small parcel to the UK. Guess which shipping service I won't be using? ----- Penultimate post: P.S. Adorama for some reason taped my invoice to the box with cheap tape. So pulling off the tape also pulled off part of the ink on the box. So much for reselling this as new if I decide to send it back. Then, deeper in the package, I found that Adorama just put the camera box in the bottom of the shipping box with no padding between them. I sure hope the camera still works. If the camera had arrived yesterday, when scheduled, I would have spent last night playing with it. As it is, today I am tied up all day and evening. I won't get to do anything with it until tomorrow. I did take it out of the box, and am charging the battery now. The first thing I noticed is that the 4-way rocker switch feels really cheesy compared to the one on my D. I don't understand why Pentax uses this joystick instead of four buttons, which would be much easier to use. ----- Final post: This is not the first problem I've had with an Adorama order shipped through UPS. Last spring I waited at home all day for an item to be delivered. About 5 pm I saw the UPS truck enter my complex, drive around, and make several deliveries. I waited for the knock on my door, but it never came. After a few minutes I saw the truck leave. I checked UPS's tracking web page, and it said that delivery was attempted but no one was home. This was simply a lie.They guy was there and could have delivered it. At my main home in New Mexico, UPS is not great but usually they come through. I think there is a systematic problem in the Tempe, Arizona, facility, which processed these two deliveries. I finally got the package today, and found that UPS had a put a new label on it with the wrong address. Why do they do that? Adorama put a correct address label on it. Two weeks ago when I got my DA 70 from Adorama, UPS did the same thing and the package almost didn't get to me. ----- If anyone has read this far, please don't insult me and the rest of the list by moralizing about how UPS usually delivers as promised and I really must expect an occastional glitch. Joe -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
