Ups Shipping

I Was Reading The Thread On Shipping And Alot Of People Recommended Ups For Shipping Their Snakes, Now I Went To The Web Site And Opened An Account And All That Good Stuff, Only To Scroll Down To Find That All Snakes Are On The Restricted List. Is There Something Im Missing Or Is This A New Developement? Whats Up!?!? Im Pretty Much Gonna Guarentee My Snakes Safty Myself With Proper Pacaging And Overnight Delivery So If Ups Does Not Provide This Whome Should I Go With ??? Thanks A Bunch You All!!

I had heard that it was illegal to ship through UPS and decided to open a FedEx acct instead. I have never needed to ship any animal at this point, but I plan to breed some of my pet's eventually and may need to ship someday.

..there are also a lot of horror stories from people using UPS .

I ship with Fedex and Delta.

You must get certified to ship thru both beforehand, however, for everything to be in line with the legal departments.

shipping through ups is one of those grey areas people do it and get away with it most ups hubs have a don't ask don't tell kind of deal if you go in right before they close with a overnight shipping label already printed and the box already to go and just place it on the counter and act like you know the drill they won't ask but i found out that the only two ways to ship snakes legally is fed-ex and delta-dash now that is what my fed-ex rep told me while i was becoming verified through fed-ex so i may be wrong but i was already becoming verified so she had nothing to gain by lying to me. i also called ups and they informed me that they DO NOT ship snakes harmless or not NO snakes.hope this helps.

Glades Herp, one of the biggest reptile dealers in the world uses UPS. So there has to be a legal way to get set up with UPS.

Take Care,

Mike Welker
Ocotillo Herpetofauna & Invertebrates
El Paso, TX

I know it is against the UPS TOS but what law covers this?
Most of the snakes I have ever received via a shipper have been sent through UPS. My UPS driver Frank always asks what I am getting this time and I have always been open and honest with him even showing him a few of the snakes. He once mentioned that shipping snakes via UPS was not allowed but to date no action seems to have been taken against any of the persons I have purchased from.

As previously stated by someone you can get away with shipping snakes UPS. You do this by simply not saying exactly what is being shipped or outright lying about what is in the package but they do not set up accounts for shipping snakes.

IMO, The best bet is to set up an account via Fed X. I can't say that they are any better or worse in the service they provide but doing so is more honest.

As for Delta, IMO they are only good for someone who lives near an airport both shipper and receiver. In my case it would mean a 2 hour drive each way which is not practical. I passed on one really great deal because of the shipper not being willing to use anything but Delta, my loss I am sure, but 4 hours driving late at night... not worth the hassle.

John E Dove

It is NOT illegal to ship snakes via UPS. It is expressly against their TOS however. Where the legality comes into play is in labeling the shipment. Those that ship through UPS are , obviously, prevented from properly labeling their shipments i.e the scientific and common names of the contents as is laid out in the Lacey Act. Violating the Lacey Act has penalties that carry some serious teeth if you were to be prosecuted.

In short, set up a FedEx account. They are the only major carrier that permits the open shipping of snakes.

Yeah, I would strongly suggest anyone using UPS to get certified with FedEx NOW rather than waiting for someone at UPS to blow the whistle on you. I had a UPS rep come here, take photos, check with his supervisor, the whole nine yards a while back and was using them for my shipping needs for a year, thinking everything was okey-dokey. Then without the slightest warning they pulled the rug out from under me. The driver here just told me that he got word that he could no longer pick up shipments here. Best I can figure some UPS employee in the carolinas somewhere LIED saying that snakes had escaped from one of my boxes and terrorized the depot. Of course, none of my customers told me anything was amiss with their shipments when I contacted each and every one of them. One did comment that he had to pick up his box at the depot because of snow, and the guy at the counter seemed a little surly, but that was it. When this all hit the fan, I tried HARD to get to the bottom of it, even through an attorney, and never did get a response from UPS about it.

So my shipping was down for a month or so while I scrambled to get a FedEx account. It was EXTREMELY fortunate for me that FedEx had just changed their policy to even accept snakes at all. I will probably ALWAYS carry a chip on my shoulder towards UPS because of that incident.

And yes, I have heard that UPS knowingly accepts shipments of live snakes from some of the bigger shippers, so they are blatantly engaging in preferential treatment based on volume.

So yeah, you may be getting away with using UPS for now, but why sweat it every time you ship out a box, worrying that you will get CAUGHT and have you box stopped midway somewhere? Or you have a half dozen shipments to go out and have the UPS driver show up and tell you "Sorry, I can't take those packages....". Screw that. Just not worth it.

FedEx has been good to me. So maybe things just turned out for the best anyway.