UPS efficiency

[OVerLoRDI]

What may seem like an unnecessary route is likely the route of a full big rig truck. Full big rigs taking a longer route are way more efficient than fleets of smaller trucks taking the shortest route. Tack on the cost of drivers, maintence, insurance, and administration of smaller trucks and that big rig going 1900 miles vs. 700 starts to make a bit more sense.

 

[SunnyD]

I've had a package bounce back and forth between Atlanta and Syracuse 3 times in a day before.

 

[chusteczka]

wonders what kind of paperwork takes a week to complete, it takes less than an hour to do paperwork for buying a house...lol

• Credit Application - To allow the customs broker to pay customs and later charge the shipper.
• Power of Attorney - To allow the customs broker to represent the shipper for customs.
• Addendum - To declare my business structure; General Partnership, Manager Managed LLC, Member Managed LLC, Sole Manager LLC, and list the members.
• ISF - Importer Security Filing: List manufacturers, freight, Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) Codes for all pieces of shipment. This allows customs to determine tariff fees.
• ISF Tier 1 - Rate Agreement with a list of many possible charges.

Researching some of these takes a day or two. Back and forth communication and processing takes another day or two. Then it takes a day or two for UPS to send the freight pickup to the source location. Then it takes the source location 3-4 days to pickup the freight. By this time, at least a week has gone by.

All the paperwork should be completed before the freight is ready to pickup, not after. This is called planning ahead. The manufacturer then has to store the freight and secure it from theft during the time it takes UPS to finally pickup the freight.

none huh?
http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/freight/
https://www.ups-scs.com/transportation/expresscritical_form.html
http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/freight/road_freight.html
http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/time/service/freight/index.html

Exactly, none. What you see is superficial and not useful for contacting the "right department". You have not had to work with that brief amount of information they provide. It sure looks good until someone needs to use it.

They have a link to "Learn More About UPS Preferred LCL Ocean Freight". This provides a useless marketing advertisement that does nothing to help.

I need the Ocean Freight but it took me a long time to figure that out. They have so many different types of freight options that a new user does not know where to start. They do not have a New User Portal or anything useful to teach a person how to use their site.

Here is the Ocean Freight page.

The Ocean Freight page provides a link to Request Ocean Freight Quote.

I submitted a quote request when I placed the manufacturing order, 3 months before it was needed. They provided a nice quote ($250 more than Panalpina.com, but hey, I already have a brokerage account with UPS.), I called the phone number, they told to to call back when the freight was ready. They were not interested in any preparatory work, like making sure the paperwork was all in proper order.

I called back when the freight was ready. They told me all was good, they would contact my manufacturer to pickup the freight. They contacted my manufacturer. Four days later my manufacturer is asking me why the freight has not been picked up yet. I call the same UPS number provided in the quote and they lost all records for my freight pickup request. Three days later, I finally somehow found a person in the right department?!?! This person told me my previous contact must not have been in the Ocean Freight department. That is not my fault. I contacted them through their web form to request an "Ocean Freight Quote" and pickup request. I should not be held liable for internal UPS problems.

This Ocean Freight Department finally assigns me an account manager even though it is now my fourth time using them and I am ready to pull my hair out by the roots, they process the paperwork, the account manager remarks he is impressed to see a small business so well organized and ready with the necessary information, and schedule the freight pickup. By the time this has completed, it is now three weeks since the freight was ready and my manufacturer is upset for having to hold the freight for so long a time.

Then when I ask my UPS contacts, including my account manager, to teach me how to work with them, they remain quiet and do not answer. The UPS workers have too much work with not enough staff to properly handle their customers.

I stand by my previous statements. UPS cannot be trusted. They do not plan ahead. Their inner system processes do not carry the data from one "department" to the next so that data and information is lost along with customer pickup requests.

 

[roguerower]

Wow, don't know what kind of jacked up shit you're trying to ship, but I haven't had any personal issues with UPS as a consumer and from a professional standpoint they've always done well. From FOB to shipping contracts and submittals, it all arrives on time and as ordered.

What kind of freight was this that seems to be the exception to everyone else's experiences?

 

[chusteczka]

I do not think it is what I am shipping. They are just machined brass pieces. A few in large quantities of 10,000; and a few design prototypes. Nothing special and nothing hazardous.

I honestly think that I fell through the cracks of their system, somehow. My first three shipments, the manufacturer handled and put them on the ship. This meant I was responsible to get the shipment to the Chicago Customs port, and through customs. UPS Customs Brokerage helped me with this.

However, I had problems tracking down the paperwork for the freight during these shipments; not knowing who had the Bill of Lading, ISF, and official Invoice. From the problems tracking down the paperwork, I decided this last time to handle the whole shipment myself, Door To Door, instead of Freight On Board (FOB).

I think UPS did not have an account for my freight pickup request to be assigned to, to be sent to the wrong department and then lost.

But I am left not knowing how to proceed in the future. What the proper method is to contact UPS and get them to pickup my freight.

I tried to plan ahead but do not know how to work with UPS's internal processes.

EDIT:
It is reassuring to hear that UPS freight services works well for people and that maybe I have just had bad luck.