Posts: 6,763
Threads: 1,804
Joined: May 2025
Reputation:
0
I've been trying to contact UPS on a package for the last 24 hours.
I'm old enough to remember when you could dial the 800 number and be talking to a UPS rep in less than a minute.
Now it is some kind of automated hell where the AI can't make out your tracking number no matter how you enter it .. and they won't connect you with a "live agent" without a tracking number. Two tries on the tracking number and the whole thing hangs up on you.
Posts: 40,656
Threads: 1,025
Joined: May 2025
Seems like FedEx and UPS sold their souls down at the crossroads. I imagine, Amazon is in possession of them.
Posts: 32,462
Threads: 3,127
Joined: Apr 2025
Reputation:
0
Everything about their logistics dictates procedure over adaptation. Customer service is the victim. And I never ship anything I can’t afford to throw away unless there’s a lot of insurance on it to overcome the financial loss. I once shipped something UPS ruined, and blamed me for how it was packaged. Not one iota of acknowledgement for their role in crushing the box en route.
Posts: 7,575
Threads: 123
Joined: May 2025
Reputation:
2
FedEx (I think) you can still call and just say representative and get connected.
But yes, UPS is a ****ing nightmare to get a real person on the phone.
They delivered my package to the wrong address (it went to a Home Depot 40-ish miles away) and even after entering the tracking number, you need some magic to get a hold of a real person.
At least once I did get a real person on the phone, I did get a call back from the local hub, but they just tell you what you want to hear. "A driver will go pick up the package and re-deliver it". Um, yea right, a Home Depot employee either put that package in returns and it got re-stocked or whatever Home Depot does (since it was a product they sell), or an employee took it home...
After the 2nd time of going through that, I gave up since I'd gotten a "credit" from the "seller" (btw, Mercari's customer service also sucks in this situation, eBay would have given me a refund, but Mercari just gave me "store credit" that had to be used in 90 days).
Posts: 13,418
Threads: 602
Joined: May 2025
Reputation:
0
The drivers have the local numbers to the distribution centers. Whether they will give them to you is another story, but as a business customer I was able to get it. I only use it for absolute emergencies, you don't want to get on their bad side.
Posts: 24,633
Threads: 1,093
Joined: May 2025
Gone are the days when I had my UPS drivers home number (pre-cell phone days)... and if something was REALLY amiss, he could get me on the right track.
In the 8-10 years he was my UPS driver, I only had to call him ONCE... it was a firearms shipment that "disappeared", and he got me on the phone to exactly the right person - the person that was investigating some missing firearms shipments!
It mysteriously showed up two days later.
Posts: 9,996
Threads: 393
Joined: Apr 2022
Reputation:
0
I was able to get through to a human with the old "say 'agent' over and over again at each prompt" trick just a few weeks ago.
Posts: 6,763
Threads: 1,804
Joined: May 2025
Reputation:
0
I bet I said "agent" 50-75 times this morning alone.
"I understand you want to talk to an agent but please enter your tracking number ..." (Enter number)
"I didn't get that. Call back when you have a tracking number."
Click.
