UPS Driver Refused To Redirect Package?!
1Short story long, we were sent a bottle of wine to rat which was shipped to our home address. I am a UPS MyChoice subscriber exclusively to redirect wine shipments for pickup as no one would be home for the delivery. I redirected the shipment at 5:30am on Wednesday while it was still being processed at the local UPS sort facility and it was out for delivery at 9:30am. The driver attempted to deliver to my home, and I thought I just didn’t catch it in time for the redirect. The driver attempted to deliver to my home again on Thursday and which point I logged into UPS, I saw the following message for both attempted deliveries:
Unable to deliver to UPS Access Point™; will reattempt delivery to UPS Access Point™ the next business day
So the system thought the package was being delivered to the access point, not my home.
Finally on Friday, I happened to be home for lunch when the driver attempted delivery a third time. I mentioned to him the package was suppose to be redirected to an access point, to which he replied, “You can’t do that, it is illegal.” Confused, I let him know I redirect wine shipments many times per year, and he said, “I do not know who you spoke with to do that, but it is illegal to redirect a package with alcohol which needs a signature.” I replied I didn’t speak to anyone, I logged into my MyChoice account online and redirected to an access point. He replied the package has to be signed for and can’t be dropped off anywhere else. I informed him the access point requires signature, this is a service UPS provides, and I have had 3 packages this year redirected. He knew he was correct and I didn’t know what I was talking about, so I just accepted the package and went back to my lunch.
Looking at the package, the redirect label was attached over my address as usual, but the driver scribbled out all of the information. It seems to me this driver went rogue and just didn’t want to go by the access point.
My question to everyone here, has anyone else experienced something similar? Is this actually a new policy where alcohol cannot be redirected? If this is the case, I need to cancel my membership and figure out some other way to receive wine from Casemates…
- 6 comments, 3 replies
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Not experienced anything like that - I also have UPS MyChoice and redirect to a UPS Access Point™ all the time without any issues (fingers crossed).
@ctmariner This was a first for me, but it hasn’t been my regular driver. Hopefully it’s just temporary!
copied from UPS website moments ago
‘Wine shipments can be redirected to UPS Access Point locations with the ability to accept restricted goods.’
@wineRussell Good to know I’m not crazy and it’s just a training issue with a new driver I suppose. Thanks for the quote, I should have searched myself but I had another delivery (not signiture required) with one package never arriving, so not a great week for the people in brown!
I’ve been waiting 2 days in a row for my shipment, and they just breeze by and don’t stop. I don’t even want to order anymore because the delivery situation is so horrible.
It might have been their policy many years ago, as pre covid i tried to go online and redirect a shipment to my nephews home, as i wasn’t going to be home. It would not let me do it, so i called the local UPS number (not the 800#) & Wa-La, it showed up at nephew’s. Right after covid was winding down and we could travel with restrictions, I was in Athens and got a email that a case had shipped early and was going to arrive before my return, so again i called local UPS, asked that the driver to go ahead & sign for it and put it inside garage or house, (not leave it outside) as I was in Greece. She was a little surprised I called from there but a few days later when i got home, there was my wine.
Rural Iowa drivers are more friendly/helpful than other states, or in cities and yes a lot of houses are unlocked.
Ok, one more UPS story, in small town Iowa, drivers are usually known, by everyone as everyone knows every one, golf together, go to church, or school when we were young, etc. a classmate had married and her husband had recentally retired and we were at their house, he was telling UPS stories. Seems his truck broke down, and the place he was at told him, to take their pickup and load remaining packages into it, so he could finish his route. Which he did.
Twice, I tried redirecting wine to the closest UPS store. MyChoice accepted the change, but both times I got 3 days in a row of “Business closed or customer not home”. I never did figure out if it was the driver refusing to drop it there or the UPS store refusing to accept it. Brown sucks.
@chipgreen I’ve had UPS claim they tried to deliver but the truck never came here. They seem to have re-enabled the driver tracking function on the website, though, so you can get a better sense of whether/when they actually will show up.
My last 2 shipments from CM arrived without any in-transit notices, other than when the waybill was created. Not from CM or UPS. For the first order we were home so NBD. The second time we were out, so we got the sticky on the door, “will try again next business day”. Still no “out for delivery” email the next day, but by tracking number we found the delivery window was all day and we planned to be out afternoon and evening. We know who our regular driver is and happened to see him in the neighborhood in the morning while taking a walk. We flagged him down and he said delivery would be 5-6 pm. When we said we would not be home then, he volunteered to make the delivery in 10 minutes, enough time for us to walk home. So points for the driver, but none for CM or UPS corporate.