Just what I needed... ANGER

Anger, frustration, all of the above and more!!! UPS has screwed me over once again with their lack of professionalism - I made a purchase Monday, shipping was done as overnight for a Wednesday morning arrival by 10:30am.

I waited.

I called at 10:30, "where is my package?" Well, the tracking info said it was IN TRANSIT and on the truck out for delivery.

I waited again.

I called at 12 noon, "where is my package? I called earlier. Are there any delays?"

"No, sir. There were no weather delays at all, it still reads your package is en route."

Well, obviously, I paid OVERNIGHT, so what's the problem?

"Sir, let me send your regional office a memo to label it urgent delivery. Should be there today."

Ok. I wait some more.

2PM --> "Sir, we want to aplogize for the waiting of your overnight package. We are unable to locate where it is, but what we know is it has not been delivered."

Well you're darn right it hasn't been delivered otherwise you wouldn't be calling?!

"We know it will be delivered by the end of the day, however."

I have live reptiles in there, time sensitive materials. What is the point of shipping overnight when the carrier won't consider it a priority? And the worse part is, I can't even do anything about it right now but wait. Someone has it in the truck, but they don't know who. Unbelievable.

OH! And whaddaya know?! They just arrived - it is 3:30PM, that is 5 HOURS LATE!!! Sorry for the complaint here... I just checked them, they are alive indeed. I had the driver stay for me to inspect them in case of the worst case scenario...

Ahh... what a relief. I'll post pix later... for now, how about some more horror shipping stories?

I've shipped a lot of packages with the major carriers. You're going to have an issue every now and then with that many packages going from coast to coast overnight. With proper packaging most reptiles will be fine in the box for a few days (I've had them delayed as much as 3 days and have heard stories about people shipping via ground service and them still arriving alive (this was Florida to California)).

5 Hours while stressfull when your waiting is really not a life threatening issue especially in a mild temperature (at least in the winter) as Bakersfield.

Join the club pete. This has probly happend to a lot of people. what where you haveing shipped? Once I had some leos being sent to me , and they where misrouted to miami and I am on the west coast of florida gotta look at the bright side, at least they got there alive.

How about this one? The Fedex driver walking up to my door BOUNCING the box up in the air like it's a ball! And when I holler at her that it's fragile, she just looks at the box, smarts back that it's not marked fragile, and bounces it again. GRRRR...!

I recently had the pleasure of trying to track a package that was marked "delivered" and "left at front door". mind you it wasn't my front door, it was 45 degrees and raining cats and dogs. I'm sure you can imagine those phone calls, LOL

(I've had them delayed as much as 3 days and have heard stories about people shipping via ground service and them still arriving alive (this was Florida to California)).

Yup. I had 1.1 Children's Pythons and 1.1 Stimson's Pythons delivered to me by UPS Ground (7 days in transit) from Florida to Colorado in mid-summer heat.

Damn those snakes are tough. All four are alive and well to this day.

Indeed Vince, the bright side of it all is they made it alive. I had a 1.1 pair of BCI's (holdbacks I think) from Eddie Holtz' collection he bred himself, great seller by the way.

I opened up the box in front of the driver, he asked, "snakes are in the box?!" when I asked him to stay until I opened up the package in case of I received dead reptiles... he was surprised, but glad they were fine and alive. I rehoused them as soon as they arrived, and boy were they feisty once they warmed up. I figured, ok, well they'll get over it once they've calmed down. I don't blame them for being angry for their late arrival, and yes both bit me as I rehoused them, considering both are no more than 1 year old I hope their only reason for being feisty, hissy and biteful is due to the stress incurred during travel.

Boy, you all make me feel really bad about complaining to UPS when comparing other stories of a much worse outcome.

Just wanted to share of few of the things we have gone through and still go through to get these little buggers on their way and into our hands with as little stress as possible.

As some of you might know ms_terese and I live way out in the sticks. I mean....take the country road until it turns to dirt..keep going another 3 miles and then take a right on the dirt foot path (the bridge will support the weight of the truck, I swear), go through the brush, and then take the rope ladder up to the canopy where we live.

Ok, not THAT bad, but we're 45 mins from 'civilization'. Needless to say our UPS driver doesn't LIKE coming to our house because of the amount of time it takes him off his route and so we kept having packages delayed...packages not delivered...*nothing* delivered before the end of the day....etc etc.

To ease up on this poor man and the animals we started to have packages sent "Hold For Customer" so we could pick them up as soon as the Customer Counter opened their doors at 8am. It's a little over an hours drive there but it was well worth it for our peace of mind.

Shipping was done the same way. We boxed everything up, filled everything out, we'd get there and crack open the heat packs / cold packs at 5:45 and get it done last thing before they closed up shop and filled the trucks to then head to the airport.

Well, after some time of doing that we had the luck of having a Mail place open up in town (45 mins away) that were partnered with FedEx. Well, we went through the motions of getting verified with FedEx, got all that taken care of after which we went to the mail place and told them that we were shipping and receiving reptiles. After a little talk to explain how everything was handled, packaged, dealt with, etc etc they agreed to be our go-between. Now we package everything up, do all the billing and labelling online, drop the boxes off near the end of the day on shipping day where we're sure they will stay safe and warm, and we pick our animals up there. The gentleman that runs it has let us get a PO box just in case we want to receive mail or something special but using them is an advantage to us because it is a place of business and the address reflects that and not a PO box.

Well, longer story short, I happen to meet the driver one day who had been curious to meet the people receiving reptiles all the time and I cracked open the box for him and showed him a shipment we'd gotten in. After some time of talking and letting him hold a Blood he went on his merry way and we are now the first stop for him from the main FedEx hub when there is something for Jungle Mist. A little PR goes a long way some times.

But here are a few hints that you can take or leave from our experiences with courier services:

- Have different size heat packs. Get some 8 - 10 hour ones and some 40 hours ones. When you are shipping from a colder climate to another use the 40 hour packs. If your shipment is delayed at least you'll have that extra time of heat in the box. They are only a few cents more per pack from the 20 or even 10 hours - I say spring for it. Check under your couch cushions and you'll find enough there to make up the difference.

- If you are planning on being home when your shipment comes in - plan on just going to the customer counter that day! It's easy and saves time AND money. Call FedEx/UPS and ask them where your main customer counter is. This is where packages go before getting loaded up on the delivery trucks. Take that address and give it to your shipper and have him mark "HOLD FOR CUSTOMER - {YOUR NAME}" on it. It saves on time - great for hot or cold days - and saves you money because you can then have the shipper send it Next Day Air - Saver. I know that's an option for UPS, don't know about FedEx. You won't have to pay the extra money on early morning delivery. It's on the same plane, gets to the customer counter on the same truck and at the same time.

- Get to your know courier flight routes! At some point you'll be able to tell as soon as something is amiss. Checking the tracking numbers online will show you where your packages travel. If the main stop is Memphis (one of our main stops before things get here) jot down the time your package left Memphis. After a few times you'll see a pattern. When the pattern breaks ('normally it's left Memphis by 3 am...it's now 7 am and it doesn't show that') you'll know right away something is wrong and you can start doing your calling around (which doesn't help, btw. I'm sure they just do that fake writing in the air thing when you are telling them - the stuff you do when a telemarketer calls and you are writing down a contact number to call them back at).

- PLEASE make sure you outline everything with the shipper before you pay for anything. When you make your payment (especially PayPal) make sure you note it on there. It's simple to just put, in the notes section, "Billy-Bob - Here is the full amount for the 1 Year Old Super Tiger het For Bloodshot Eyes male Ball Python totalling $445. $400 for the animal and $45 for shipping UPS Overnight Air by noon." When you talk to the shipper prior ask him questions about how he ships. Ask him what he uses for packing material. Ask him what size box he'll be using. Ask him how many hours the heat packs are good for. If nothing else you'll at least be able to tell if he knows the right answers to those questions.

- Use Fauna BOI! If you get a shipment in and it was sent USPS overnight/two day for snakes, or sent UPS ground, or shipped in a manner that was not agreed to prior to payment please post that on the BOI. You don't have to make it a negative post (you're allowed to just post your dealings with a person, you know..?..) but it might just spark up one or two more "hey, same thing happened to me with this person" posts. We've had the pleasure of being the recipients of "Well, the UPS place was closed when I got there and I know I told you I'd ship today so I ran to USPS and was going to overnight it but ended up having to send it second-day but you'll still get it and I hope they get there ok and let me know and.."blah blah blah. Whatever.

Well, this post got a little out of hand so I'll shut up now. If you've read this far let me know and send me a SASE. I'll send you a sticker or something for keeping with me this long.

*clicks Post Quick Reply*

You got any cool snake stickers, dude?!

I've had problems with all three of the overnight carriers at one point or another. It's a fact of shipping reptiles.
I once had a shipment sent on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It was misrouted to Texas, and due to the holiday weekend it didn't arrive at my house until the following Monday. The snakes survived though despite the length of time and temperatures.
One package I shipped was delivered to the correct address, in the wrong town. Very fortunate for me the town was only 45 minutes from the actual destintion and the person who did receive it called the receiver's number from the package and told them they had it. All worked out fine and the customer was great about it despite the inconvienence.
The point is, if you are involved in the shipping of reptiles delays and such will occur, but with proper shipping procedures deaths are rare.

As a side note, telling UPS that there were reptiles in the box was risky, and having the driver wait until you inspected the animals served no real purpose since UPS wouldn't have done anything at all if they had died anyway. They have no live arrival guarantee in any form.