I just navigated a long and stupid phone menu (which had no proper way of failing if you can’t give a phone number that matches your address except to wait for a long time and finally transfer you to customer service) and several customer service representatives who transferred me to yet another representative, with the accompanying hold times, only to try talking to an extremely rude customer service representative who would not explain why my “attempted delivery” notice did not say that I would have to be at home in person to sign for and receive the item I ordered (the 2WG bag, which is coming from Canada).
The delivery notice was placed April 8th. It was placed, first of all, in my mailbox instead of on my door, which is both unusual and frankly kind of silly, because packages aren’t delivered to my mailbox so I don’t expect to find anything about them there. UPS puts them on the door. On the other hand it’s my own fault I don’t check my mail every day.
Second, it didn’t bear any marking showing that a signature was required at the time of delivery. I carefully followed the directions to request redelivery, including signing where designated only to get the notice stuck back in the mailbox (again) with a notation that I had to sign and fill out the address in a place that the instructions definitely did NOT say I had to sign and fill out.
I did, and the notice was picked up Monday. No indication that anything was wrong. But when I called them, I got (beyond the usual “Your package has notice left status.” “Yes. I know. I’m calling because I want to know what happened to it after I returned the notice.” “Oh, well then I have to transfer you to [other department]. Please hold.”) this woman who was extremely rude to me, as if I was the stupidest person in the world not to know that I had to be present for delivery, and who when I asked her why this was not made clear on the notice, left a short silence and then said very curtly “Do you want to schedule a redelivery on this package?”
A: “First I want to know why the notice didn’t tell me I would have to be home to receive it.”
USPS: “Please tell me if you want to schedule a redelivery on this package.”
A: “I would like to know why the notice didn’t tell me —
USPS: “Please tell me if you want to schedule a redelivery on this package.”
A: “I do, but I also want to know why–
USPS: “Well then please hold.”
She did schedule a redelivery, eventually, at which point I just wanted to get the thing done. Throughout the entire thing she was extremely curt.
I called back to register a complaint about her rudeness, and even though I wasn’t able to get her name or ID number, they were able to find out who it was by looking at who scheduled the delivery. So, a complaint will be registered. Which makes me feel a bit better, at least. The rest of the people I talked to were fine, it was just this one.
The postal service screwed this one up by not being clear. Just admit it, apologize, and offer, politely, to fix it. There really is nothing wrong with just saying “I don’t know exactly why this happened, but maybe the postal delivery employee did not realize that this package could not be left at the door or forgot to indicate that on the slip. I/we apologize for any inconvenience. Let’s schedule a redelivery so you can get your package at the best time for you. When would you like it to be redelivered?”
Update: Even better — I got home and said package was waiting for me on the doorstep!
It’s probably churlish to file a further complaint about this, but seriously — that woman was completely wrong, and furthermore, doesn’t the post office know when trackable packages go out for delivery, so shouldn’t they have told me that it was on its way? Instead of making me go through this entire rigmarole?