Group order - Neptune's Cove. Order Complete...All went well!

[klee888]

Hi everyone, last one died and disintegrated. Looks like all 5 are DOA. This is depressing!
-klee888

[Fingerling]

Ouch. I've just read this whole thread and I feel really bad for you folks.

I'm an unknown here as I never did get any water into a tank since I joined (I'm about to sell my two unused tanks, with sadness) so I don't know if anyone's ever posted anything about their experiences with UPS. But I want to share a few things with you which hopefully might help in the future.

The first is that in the 90s I became good friends with a gal who worked for UPS, and what she told me did not surprise me in the least. You see, I had had my computer system shipped to Holland (not by UPS, of course) when I went to live there for a time, and when it finally arrived a month late, the delivery guy insisted on getting my signature at the door, even though he had dropped the boxes onto the floor instead of bending down to place them carefully. This put me between a rock and a hard place, because if I didn't sign, he would just take them away, and I needed it to finish a job I was doing and had already tried the patience of the company I was doing it for to the max on account of the delay. And besides, he was not about to wait for me to set it up to confirm it wasn't broken.

So when she told me NOT to write "Fragile" on anything because the other UPS employees had "extra" fun with those boxes, I took her seriously. She said that on slow days they would play catch with them!

Also, UPS is one of the world's largest package delivery companies. As such, there is no accountability or recourse without an enormous amount of effort on the part of the shipper or consignee after the fact.

Lastly, (although I wouldn't suggest that this has any bearing on individual experiences) UPS tried to sue Canada for US$160 million in 2000 under NAFTA. Finally, 7 years and a pile of Canadian taxpayers' money to fight it later, they lost.

All in all, not a company you want to give your business to, IMHO.

[Atomikk]

Originally Posted by Fingerling

Ouch. I've just read this whole thread and I feel really bad for you folks.

I'm an unknown here as I never did get any water into a tank since I joined (I'm about to sell my two unused tanks, with sadness) so I don't know if anyone's ever posted anything about their experiences with UPS. But I want to share a few things with you which hopefully might help in the future.

The first is that in the 90s I became good friends with a gal who worked for UPS, and what she told me did not surprise me in the least. You see, I had had my computer system shipped to Holland (not by UPS, of course) when I went to live there for a time, and when it finally arrived a month late, the delivery guy insisted on getting my signature at the door, even though he had dropped the boxes onto the floor instead of bending down to place them carefully. This put me between a rock and a hard place, because if I didn't sign, he would just take them away, and I needed it to finish a job I was doing and had already tried the patience of the company I was doing it for to the max on account of the delay. And besides, he was not about to wait for me to set it up to confirm it wasn't broken.

So when she told me NOT to write "Fragile" on anything because the other UPS employees had "extra" fun with those boxes, I took her seriously. She said that on slow days they would play catch with them!

Also, UPS is one of the world's largest package delivery companies. As such, there is no accountability or recourse without an enormous amount of effort on the part of the shipper or consignee after the fact.

Lastly, (although I wouldn't suggest that this has any bearing on individual experiences) UPS tried to sue Canada for US$160 million in 2000 under NAFTA. Finally, 7 years and a pile of Canadian taxpayers' money to fight it later, they lost.

All in all, not a company you want to give your business to, IMHO.

UPS is the worst shipping company in the world. I never use it, especially with a similar fiasco. But I have to clear up a myth. There is not a single penny that goes from the taxpayer to Canada Post. CPC is a corporation, therefore it functions as a profit taking entity. So it is not subsidized by the taxpayer, like previously done.

[Fingerling]

Originally Posted by Atomikk

UPS is the worst shipping company in the world. I never use it, especially with a similar fiasco. But I have to clear up a myth. There is not a single penny that goes from the taxpayer to Canada Post. CPC is a corporation, therefore it functions as a profit taking entity. So it is not subsidized by the taxpayer, like previously done.

You are right about Canada Post, and they've actually done a pretty decent job financially, with a profit for the last 15 years, although 2009 was tough and it will continue to be so. And I think it's important that people know where their taxes go, so thanks for bringing that up.

The part I meant about taxpayers though is that as I understand it, it was the Government of Canada they sued, not Canada Post, and as government, including their lawyers, is paid for by taxpayers, the costs of fighting that suit would have been borne by them.

Personally, that issue would figure into my choice of carrier if I had a company that was in need of cross-border freight transportation, even if they didn't have a reputation for poor service delivery. Here's just one of many reports out there - 5 pages of complaints:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/deliv...el_service.htm

[piusma]

A little UPS shipping story for all of you. At work, we ship machines to repair shops and UPS is THE choice as per our policies and we are not supposed to spend any exra $$ on insurance.

No matter how well I package these machines they ALWAYS arrived broken. I would pack the machine in a box and then put it in another box with extra padding and they would still arrive broken. After many shipments we decided that we might just put insurance on one shipment and see what happens. To our surprise the unit came back in one piece, no damage. We have tried quite a few more shipments with insurance after that. The trick is you could insure the package for as little as $100 value and they will handle the packages carefully. I have since learned to put very little insurance on packages to make sure they would arrive in one piece. Not every ups driver are evil as I've know quite a few good guys, it's their system that is broken.
Steven

[Fingerling]

Originally Posted by piusma

ANot every ups driver are evil as I've know quite a few good guys, it's their system that is broken.
Steven

That could be said of all the people in any industry or govt dept - there are ignorant, lazy individuals and careful, conscientious individuals in every organization.

But when it's a system itself which is broken, it tends to attract ignorant, lazy employees in greater numbers than careful, conscientious ones. The former know via the jobs-grapevine that they can get away with a ton of stuff, and since their primary objective is to have a "cushy" job where supervision is minimal, they apply and then further spread the rot. The more the former are hired, the more the latter flee when they can see that their efforts mean less than nothing, making the system worse daily.

UPS is entrenched system-wide in lack of accountability, from the bottom to the top.

[cdp]

This group order has now come to a happy ending! After all the stupidity with UPS things were set right. For those that don't want to read the back discussion, basically UPS screwed up supreme and took 5 days to deliver an over night package. Obviously most everything died . However, Bill (at Neptune's Cove), being the stand up guy that he is, got a refund on the shipping from UPS and decided to resend the entire zoa/paly overpolyped and at no cost. The shipment arrived successfully a day later (using UPS) and everything looks great. Thanks to Bill for coming through for us and UPS for doing their job.

So I'd have to say things went well in the end and I suggest anyone considering a group order look into Neptune's Cove for some of those hard to find pieces.

C

[Leah]

Wow, that is great to hear...do not find many vendors that would do that. Glad to see this had a happy ending. Way to go Neptune's Cove.

[muck]

So.... let see the pics then people!!

[Marlin65]

I will post a few when I get time but they are still adjusting for me right now not fully expanded and the color needs a bit of time to fill in.
I have to give a thumbs up for Neptune as well nice to see a vendor back up their product like that.
I will order from them again.