ShipYourReptiles.com

[Mooing Tricycle]

Hey Gary, they aren't able to give you any specific info regarding our account, no more than if I called your credit card company and asked for your specific account info, I wouldn't get anything with that either, sorry.

We would love to have your business, 99.9% of shipments are smooth and without any issue at all. Give it a try : )

Robyn, i just got a shipment through your program and it went flawlessly!

 

[jasballs]

maybe you should consider listening to Reptile Radio -- you'd be surprised what kind of really useful information you might pick up.

Yea right!

 

[Gary O]

Thanks Robyn for the reply. I was just worried that if they knew a boa was being shipped they would stop the package and it would sit. Aslong as i can ship snakes I am cool.

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Robyn, I wasn't the only one who asked questions. You and SYR disappointed me considerably just now by ignoring these very direct, very specific questions. As I've said on one other forum (since for some reason you imply multiple forums) I have said numerous times I hope this works out and solution can be provided...I even provided several suggestions. I have also specified numerous times that reptiles of the legged variety should have no problems with this service as it is within UPS guidelines and encouraged the use of SYR for them.

Most of us are just asking what steps are going to be taken to prevent this in the future...If proof can be provided that SYR is exempt from the policy...Maybe a phone number or UPS contact name so that if issues happen UPS can directly handle it...

You are right though, I didn't post what you stated in PM, but I was waiting on an e-mail from Peggy to see if the shipping supplies you sent could be pinpointed with the information you provided. They were, some sort of mix up where someone in the household got them and didn't tell her. I didn't understand, but the box was found. The check however wasn't received, so I can't really say much to that other then it will probably take a couple days. I'm sure it will be received just fine and as soon as I here from Peggy I'll be happy to post.

I really don't know what else to say other then I've tried to be as positive and encouraging on this thread as I could be (considering the situation) and still I'm disappointed with the results. I guess good luck, Robyn. Hopefully something changes with SYR in regards to snake shipping and we can pick it up. It could be a great alternative option.

 

[MikeCurtin]

Robyn-

Is there currently any way for you to guarantee the customer that future packages will not get flagged under this "pilot program". I was planning on using SYR for a snake this Monday, but am concerned with the potential of an issue with violating UPS' TOS.

 

[Dennis Hultman]

So far, we've seen some vague emails from the company about a letter of accord, and packing procedures, and so on. That does nothing to ameliorate the fact that the name of the company is SHIP YOUR REPTILES, and something went very wrong when a customer attempted to SHIP THEIR REPTILES.

So far, there are no straight answers or satisfactory conclusions to either this particular transaction or any clear assurances as to future transactions. Certainly if there is any kind of 'letter of accord', not only should we be able to see the letter itself, but no customer should have to second guess what will happen when they want to ship their reptile, no matter where the glitch occurs. Once one pays money to a shipping service and puts one's reptiles in their hands, they should not have to worry whether or not their customer will receive it.

This is what Robyn posted about a "letter" another site.

Ah, the ignorance of the Counter Clerks around the country : )

UPS has 450,000 employees. A good number of them really have little idea of WHAT UPS DOES. Take the snake shipping out of the equation, as in Sputnik's case, they don't even know that they DO INDEED ship live animals. Insects, amphibians, and certainly REPTILES. (also body parts, human organs, and many other perishables)

But as we address on our site, and at the start of our How To Pack video, many folks are reptile phobic, and that will prevent them from doing their jobs, period.

So what can we do? We can be smarter than them : )

Until UPS changes their tariff, and opens up snake shipping for all, they won't provide any official letter, website link, or 800#.

A letter does indeed exist, specifically addressed to us, but I am not allowed to post it or wave it around (I asked). I think once we show a few months of success, and viability, they will reconsider. They are motivated to ad snakes shipping to their tariff, which opens it to everyone, but it is such a corporate culture, and things can move very slowly. At this time, our account is the only account that has an exception to ship snakes. Of course, lots of other breeders and businesses ship snakes, LOTS of them, and UPS wants to legitimize that business. Hopefully that will happen in 2009.

But people are still reptile phobic, and push against it. Some reptile people ship reptiles in unlined cardboard boxes (I have seen ball pythons shipped free roaming in screened cricket boxes, arriving dead, of course) and those irresponsible shippers REALLY jeopardize it for all of us. So we have to be smarter, find smoother solutions, and give ourselves the best chance of success.

In the meantime, UPS is leaving it up to us to negotiate some of the goofballs in the system. Of course, it IS in the tariff that UPS ships live animals, including non-snake reptiles, and yet there are plenty of ignorant counter employees that still refuse to accept them. As in Sputnik's case. He was told that UPS doesn't ship ANY animals. Ignorance.

But again, we have to get through this on our own. Until the UPS tariff is changed, they are NOT going to send out a memo to half a million employees, and independent franchise UPS Store owners (as in Sputnik's case) and let them know about ONE exception, on ONE account, somewhere in Cowboy Colorado (Denver : )

Even if SYR does monumentally well, our volume is just a spec on the screen of daily shipments. Realistically, we just have to make better choices, OURSELVES.

Fortunately, better choices are available : )

The easiest choice is to find a better drop off point. Every Office Depot and Staples has a UPS counter, and you should meet minimum resistance there.

Many MANY businesses also have a daily pickup. With a SYR booking, your package is prepaid, if you have a relationship with a business that has a daily pickup, you can arrange to leave it with their outgoing daily packages for the driver when he comes by. ZERO resistance there. Lots of small businesses have a daily pickup- YOUR LOCAL VET, PETSMART, bike shops, hardware stores, auto mechanics, auto dealers, once you LOOK for it, you will find it : )

You can schedule a driver pickup from your home or office during the booking process as well. Minimal resistance there.

If you know a UPS driver's basic schedule, he eats lunch every day at this spot at 1pm, he hits the strip mall at 4:45pm, you can be waiting for him and hand him the package directly then.

Try not to be flamboyant. Remember the reptile phobia. Don't go into your drop off spot and talk about the 200 corn snakes you hatched this year. Be smooth, be stealth. What's in the box? Invertebrates.

Speaking of the box- maybe you don't use our boxes...

Our boxes are white, with BRIGHT RED markings. They stand out. Maybe building your own plain brown shipping boxes (that meet our shipping standards!!! at least 3/4" proper insulation!!!) will address your specific need.

A plain brown shipping box is going to look like every other shipping box going through the system, and won't attract the same type of negative attention that one of the white with big red lettering boxes will attract. Kind of a pain in the butt, but it isn't expensive, just a bit time consuming, and if it solves a problem, perhaps worthwhile for you.

The LAST thing you want to do is go up to Super Self Important and All Powerful UPS Employee Billy Just Turned 17 and say "I WANNA SHIP MY SNAKE!". After his phobic butt catches his breath, and stops cycling mental pictures of king cobras and painful death, well, there is no "after" that, the opportunity is blown.

We try to provide as much information and support as we possibly can. We welcome your feedback. No matter the good intentions though, I won't be able to convince every Billy 17 of WHAT UPS ACTUALLY DOES.

Bummer, but I am not afraid, I am creative, and there are simple, and still responsible, ways to address it : )

 

[Dennis Hultman]

Oh, I should have finished reading after your post. I didn't know Robyn replied or even knew of this thread already.

 

[Lucille]

Lucille, Could you post their response here?

Subject
General / General


Response (Lillian G.) 04/30/2009 05:35 AM
Dear Lucille,

Thank you for your response. We do not ship any snakes.

Please contact us if you need any additional assistance.

Lillian G.
UPS Customer Service


Customer (UPS E-mail Communications) 04/30/2009 05:25 AM
A shipping company called Ship Your Reptiles is saying that they have an 'understanding' with you and that they are permitted to ship snakes via UPS. Is this true?




----- Original Message -----
From: "customer service" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 2:20:01 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: General / General [Request: 090429-008138]



UPS Customer Support

SUBJECT
General / General


RESPONSE (LILLIAN G.) 04/30/2009 03:20 AM
Dear Lucille,

Thank you for your question. UPS can accept certain live animals for U.S. domestic transportation, including Alaska and Hawaii, on a limited basis. This service is currently not offered to or from Puerto Rico, or international locations.

Packages containing live animals must be prepared in accordance with specific packaging requirements. This is to ensure the humane care and safety of the animal during transportation. Live animals will only be accepted for transportation when shipped via UPS Next Day Air service, Monday through Thursday, and not on Friday or Saturday.

Live animals that are prohibited from being shipped and are not accepted for transportation include, but are not limited to:

- Any mammal: Examples: dogs, cats, etc.
- Any poisonous, venomous or threatening animal
- Any Threatened or Endangered species
- Arachnids (All): Examples: mites, scorpions, spiders, ticks
- Birds (All)
- Crocodiles (All): Examples: alligators, caimans, gavials
- Obnoxious Insects: Examples: flies, locusts, mosquitoes, roaches, termites, weevils
- Snakes (All): venomous and non-venomous

 

[KJUN]

The last thing we need is Obnoxious Willie waving it in the face of Counter Clerk Jimmy 17 and calling him an idiot, while demanding service. I can understand not wanting that.

Fine. Make a copy, black out your company's name (we all know it is you), and put a big black X over the page that doesn't mask the words unnecessarily. POST THAT! This couldn't be waived in anyone's face since it would look like a "draft" or something, but it would go a LONG way with your credibility. AS is, you are losing it with your unconvincing rhetoric.

KJ

 

[KJUN]

We have shipped over 2000 shipments successfully since launch 6 weeks ago. This is the only incidence of its kind.

What percentage of those are legal? Very few if you are instructing people to mislabel the packages or if you don't actually have such a waiver. I saif IF, and I meant IF.

A letter does exist, it is here on my desk. If you have no faith in our reputation or integrity on this issue, there is nothing more I can do about that.

...and, when I was a kid, my parents told me they had seen Santa Claus. I will say that I HAD faith in your reputation and integrity, but you aren't doing anything to keep that faith. If it is affected me (an unbiased third party), how do you think you are affecting many of the other thousands of people that will eventually read these threads? That's something you should ask about, and many options for proof that don't involved posting a complete letter to the world currently exist.

Send a copy to Lucille OR to the person that answered here! Let that UPS employee come back top Lucille and say, "He does have a waiver - I was wrong!" Correct the UPS employee that says you don't have one. OR, can you not even show a copy of the letter to UPS now?

You seem to intrepret the Lacey Act to say that you MUST label your box in giant red writing LIVE SNAKES. That is not true at all. Labeling like that only RAISES red flags for your package. You can label the box to comply with any labeling guidelines without causing yourself undue attention and trouble. Labeling it simply and plainly is not violating federal law, nor does it imply that we are encouraging folks to violate the law.

Ummmm, she hasn't said that. Your above statements are a lie. She's said it has to be labeled, but it does NOT have to have big giant letters saying "SNAKES" or anything. Trust me when I say her interpretation - as she has written in her e and elsewhere - is correct. OH, and I DO have a waiver with FedEx, and no problems exist when I DO put big letters that say SNAKE. I use green and not red, though....lol. No RED FLAGS with FedEx. If you really do have a waiver, why are red flags even a concern. Stop and think about how you sound and why so many of us are starting to worry that you do not have such a waiver in writing.

It is not an all or nothing situation. You don't HAVE to insist that every employee that touches or sees your box knows that it contains snakes and reptiles. It is fine with me if no one realizes that. I just want the package to get through the system quickly and safely.

You say, " I just want the package to get through the system quickly and safely." Why didn't the word "legally" seem to even enter your mind when you were writing the above paragraph? Just asking since that is how it sounded to me when I read it.

...and YES, it is a requirement that EVERY employee could know it contained live animals just by reading the label on the box. It seems like, although you claim you didn't tell anyone to ship it unlabeled, you come here and do everything you can to make the labels "hidden," vague, or misleading. In essence, you ARE admitting to tell people to break the SPIRIT of the law if not the letter of the law. Whatever - I don't care about that, but I do have to ask why someone who claims to have a waiver is so strongly trying to keep everything as far under the radar as possible. That does concern me.

KJ

 

[snakemom1961]

All I can say is if I ever do purchase a snake on the internet I will make sure the person I purchase my snake from DOES NOT use syr.
Thanks Robyn for making that decision that much easier.

 

[critical bill]

So in a nutshell, if I'm to understand this correctly, this is a pilot program that is using every customer and every animal they ship as guinea pigs.

 

[SPJ]

After the fiasco with Repster, people are concerned with shipping thru someone elses account on faith.
That is totally understandable.
Until people see some proof to ease their minds, the questioning will not end.

 

[StormRose]

This is my first post here, but I've been watching this forum, and now this thread, for awhile. As a noob breeder I was really interested to see the reviews on SYR because getting FedEx certified for the handful of snakes I may be shipping out in the next couple of years seems a little excessive. The ambiguity here is a touch disturbing though.

Robyn, I understand that my very low volume business may not be much of a deal to you, but I personally know there are much higher volume breeders watching this thread as well, many with the same concerns I have. I know you feel you've done all you can for Triple Moons Exotic, but perhaps it would be in your best interest to answer some of these questions for the rest of us.

Not knowing you personally, how am I (we) supposed to take you at your word that shipping snakes through you is in fact not a violation of the UPS TOS when they have stated time and again, to anyone who's inquired, that it is in fact not allowed?

I understand that your success rate has been very high, and that's great. Knowing my luck though, my package would be the one of the few that gets stopped. If it were a video tape or a sweater I was shipping it wouldn't be an issue. This is a live animal though, something that I've cared for all of its life. I'd like to know that when it gets stopped I have the moral high ground, along with a clear course of action to follow to get the issue resolved quickly for the sake of my animals.

I understand that a 100% success rate is unrealistic, however, some proof that shipping though you is in fact not a violation of the UPS TOS would go a long way towards easing my (and many others) concerns.

Thanks

 

[MikeCurtin]

Subject
General / General


Response (Lillian G.) 04/30/2009 05:35 AM
Dear Lucille,

Thank you for your response. We do not ship any snakes.

Please contact us if you need any additional assistance.

Lillian G.
UPS Customer Service


Customer (UPS E-mail Communications) 04/30/2009 05:25 AM
A shipping company called Ship Your Reptiles is saying that they have an 'understanding' with you and that they are permitted to ship snakes via UPS. Is this true?




----- Original Message -----
From: "customer service" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 2:20:01 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: General / General [Request: 090429-008138]



UPS Customer Support

SUBJECT
General / General


RESPONSE (LILLIAN G.) 04/30/2009 03:20 AM
Dear Lucille,

Thank you for your question. UPS can accept certain live animals for U.S. domestic transportation, including Alaska and Hawaii, on a limited basis. This service is currently not offered to or from Puerto Rico, or international locations.

Packages containing live animals must be prepared in accordance with specific packaging requirements. This is to ensure the humane care and safety of the animal during transportation. Live animals will only be accepted for transportation when shipped via UPS Next Day Air service, Monday through Thursday, and not on Friday or Saturday.

Live animals that are prohibited from being shipped and are not accepted for transportation include, but are not limited to:

- Any mammal: Examples: dogs, cats, etc.
- Any poisonous, venomous or threatening animal
- Any Threatened or Endangered species
- Arachnids (All): Examples: mites, scorpions, spiders, ticks
- Birds (All)
- Crocodiles (All): Examples: alligators, caimans, gavials
- Obnoxious Insects: Examples: flies, locusts, mosquitoes, roaches, termites, weevils
- Snakes (All): venomous and non-venomous

FYI - I am also concerned about shipping without having seen an actual waiver, and/or proof that I am not violating UPS' TOS. I have asked about that here, and have chosen not to use SYR until I am satisfied that I can do so without issue.

However, Lucille....that was quite the bonehead move! ProExotics has been around for a long time and has a great reputation. Instead of sitting back and waiting to see if Robyn can resolve this, you're off playing detective and creating the very headache and drama that I'm sure UPS is looking to avoid. We all know Robyn is unwilling or unable to post a specific waiver, so could you please tell me what you accomplished by contacting them about a third party account...you know, other than pissing them off?

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

In Lucille's defense, she's by far not the only one who has contacted UPS about the SYR account. I know of two others who haven't posted about it on any forum that have received the same response (or a slight variation of).

 

[bekers71]

I would imagine if UPS isn't telling any one, flagging the account as "OK" to ship snakes or informing any of it's employees, then how would the people at UPS customer service be able to say "Yes. They have and account here and are allowed to ship snakes." ? They can not give any information on any account due to privacy act laws. Legally the most any one can say is "Yes that company has an account here." and that may even be pushing legal boundaries.

 

[MikeCurtin]

In Lucille's defense, she's by far not the only one who has contacted UPS about the SYR account. I know of two others who haven't posted about it on any forum that have received the same response (or a slight variation of).

This further illustrates my point. Contacting UPS rather than using the information provided by the company shows no forethought at all. All this is going to do is give UPS the impression that SYR is more trouble than they are worth.

As of yet, I have not been satisfied with SYR's ability to guarantee a problem free snake shipment, so I will not use them at this time. I will not, however, bug UPS about what kind of paperwork SYR does or does not have. If they have a waiver and UPS does not want it to be made public at this time, why the HELL would they tell ME about it???

 

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Mike, I'm not arguing with you about it. I understand your point. Becky's probably 100% right that they can't provide detailed information on an account for legal reasons...However, one person from UPS did specifically say that the account a SYR tracking label was created from did not have permission to ship snakes and the label would be refused.

Going to UPS about it isn't helping the situation...But neither is going to SYR...

 

[brandonsthaman]

This further illustrates my point. Contacting UPS rather than using the information provided by the company shows no forethought at all. All this is going to do is give UPS the impression that SYR is more trouble than they are worth.

As of yet, I have not been satisfied with SYR's ability to guarantee a problem free snake shipment, so I will not use them at this time. I will not, however, bug UPS about what kind of paperwork SYR does or does not have. If they have a waiver and UPS does not want it to be made public at this time, why the HELL would they tell ME about it???

Why wouldn't you contact UPS?? UPS is the ones shipping the snakes and they're the ones who have a policy against it. SYR says they can ship snakes through UPS but UPS can't confirm this? UPS is the one who needs to answer this. Many people, including myself, are not willing to take it on faith...