UPS strikes again!

[srwatters]

On my recommendation, a co-worker who is heading to Europe on Thursday, ordered a Canon Rebel XTi and lens from B&H. It shipped on time and was due to arrive today. When she checked tracking, she was greeted with a status that the box showed up in Mesquite as empty or destroyed and no merchandise will be delivered. B&H will only ship her a new order if she pays for it again and won't issue a credit until UPS finishes a trace initiated by them.

This totally sucks for her and I know it's not really B&H's fault, but now she is going to have to buy one at retail and pay sales tax to get it in time for her flight on Thursday.

Canon buyers, where should she go? She is starting with the cheap 55-200mm USM-II zoom.

[princessmocha]

wow, . that sucks!!!I am sorry to hear that. Tell her to check out Best Buy. The price might be a little bit higher, but they are offering 12 month no interest plan. Do you think this will help?

[Ahh!]

Camera Stop in Plano has pretty good pricing, too.

[srwatters]

I just checked Circuit City has the XTi body only for $615. Close to the B&H price $595. The lens is $60 more, but at least she'll get one.

I'll have to call Jeff over at Camera Stop.

[Cope]

One time I used fedEx next day air to ship a sealed carton of custom shipping manifests to one of our terminals. The box had a FedEx sticker with the shipping weight right next to the label. The box arrived right on time, empty! We were reimbursed for the product, shipping and also shipping for a replacement, but our IT guy wasted his time going there. A month or so later, FedEx returned about 20% of the forms, but wouldn't say where they found them

[CaptainTom]

Ever see the movie "Castaway" ? That explains alot about Fedex and lost shipments.

[Russell]

Try Competitive Camera in Downtown Big-D. Those guys are awesome!

[andyz]

I had a UPS delivery that didn't happen once. Started the UPS paperwork and the next day a neighbor, same house number, different street four blocks over, brought my package to me. That also happened one Christmas.

[srwatters]

Andy, I wish for my co-worker that this was the issue. Unfortunately it is theft in this case. The box was scanned when it arrived in Mesquite and sometime over the weekend it became 'empty'. UPS was quite clear that there was no contents to be found. What sucks is that in most cases it's just a matter of waiting for resolution, but this time it's impacting someone's first European visit. I'd loan her my D200 if she would take it, but she isn't comfortable taking that responsibility...

[rott]

I accidentally put in 78728 instead of 78758 on an order once. Sure enough, UPS delivered it... apparently to whomever was next alphabetically in their database and had a 78728 zip. Weird. UPS gave me the delivery address and I had to go track down the woman who received and signed for the package myself. It didn't make any sense to me.

[steve817]

Sounds like a UPS employee got themself a new camera.

[Coelus]

I worked on some conveyor systems for a UPS hub in here in Houston several years ago. I'm surprised anything make it through any of these shipping companies. I found all kinds of interesting things stuck in the frames; golf tee's, clothing of various sorts, batteries, and the best- a good handful of 9mm ammo.
I was working in there one morning and a golf ball landed next to me. I looked up and saw a couple of the workers I knew laughing and pointing so I thought they threw it down next to me from the mezzanine playing around. Next thing I know it was raining golf balls. A package had caught and broken open a good 15 feet over my head that was full of golf balls.
The next week they had a truck come in from the northeast where someone had the bright idea of ground tranporting a cooler full of live lobster. They didn't make it through the southern summer in the trailer (probably reached about 150f inside at times) and they stunk to high heaven when they made it in. The worst part is the damaged goods area is in the middle of the building so the whole building smelled like rotten lobster until they could process it through.

[srwatters]

I believe they call the folks who load the trucks 'mother huckers'. At least according to a girlfriend I had who worked there. The faster you got the truck loaded for your routes, the sooner you could go home...

[srwatters]

BTW, happy ending to the story. I took her to Camera Stop in Plano and she bought her camera, bag, and got a few other accessories. She is somewhere in the air between DFW and Frankfurt as I post this.

Thanks for the help and stories!