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August 10, 2009

"Delivery Intercept" ()

by fluffy at 7:53 AM
So when I ordered my new phone, I brainfarted and used my home address instead of my work address for delivery. As soon as I realized this (within minutes) I called T-Mobile and asked them to change the shipping address, and they were happy to oblige — but because of their ordering process the tracking number and the like had already been produced and sent to UPS.

No big deal, though, as they were able to send a "delivery intercept" to UPS immediately to change the shipping address. UPS listed this as such before the item had even left the origin.

Fast forward to the following Monday, when I was really hoping to get my new phone since I've been without phone service since Friday, and I'm greeted with the following message from UPS:

THE DELIVERY INTERCEPT REQUEST FOR THIS PACKAGE WAS SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED / THE ADDRESS HAS BEEN CORRECTED. THE DELIVERY HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED
What does this mean? Are they going to delay the package for a day because it has been "corrected" even though the new address is only a few miles from the original address, and even though they already had the new address at the beginning? Hopefully it means they've "rescheduled" it to a different truck in San Francisco on the same day, and the fact I don't currently have a delivery date isn't a problem, seeing as how both home and work are serviced from the same UPS sorting facility.

I really hope I get my new phone today, because there is a lot going on for me right now and I'm expecting some pretty important phone calls. I really hope this is just a stupid boilerplate thing of theirs and a bad process. Of course, if someone had to get their package shipped to an entirely different city, does this mean that the package, even if it could have been rerouted before it left the building, would end up going to the original city and then get reshipped to the new city only after it arrives?

I realize that package logistics are a pretty complex thing, especially when dealing with 15 million packages every day, but it seems like there's still a lot of opportunity to fix things before it becomes a problem later.

Of course, T-Mobile could have just canceled the first shipment and replaced it with an entirely new one. Better yet, I could have just not been an idiot to begin with.

Comments

#12312 08/10/2009 11:10 am
Oh, and before this morning it showed a scheduled delivery time of today - but then this morning the "intercept" "completed" and as a result the delivery time is just "exception." There has been no "out for delivery" notice which makes me think I won't be getting my phone today.

I'm expecting some important calls, too. This is aggravating.
#12313 08/10/2009 11:15 am
That's something I've been wondering about... how do you get packages delivered to you? Is Sony funny about accepting personal packages at the office (the way some companies are)? What if it's a large package? What if you order something from some random site and don't know how they'll ship it?

I live in a doorman building now, and that's really the ideal solution, since I can just ship stuff to my home address and the doorman takes care of it. Everywhere else, I've had a hell of a time with packages.
#12314 08/10/2009 11:23 am
We get packages delivered to work all the time. It's no problem. The office is small enough that we don't have a mailroom or anything.
#12315 08/10/2009 03:37 pm
So UPS refused to let me specify the suite number over the phone and required that T-Mobile change it, and they were surly bastards to me.

So I called T-Mobile and they were very helpful and pleasant and said that they had most definitely given UPS the floor number (which should have been enough), but just in case they added the company name as well (in case UPS was all "oh 4th floor there are TWO DOORS there and one doesn't have a company behind it WHAT DO I DO") and the like. Unfortunately, UPS won't attempt to redeliver until tomorrow, and T-Mobile has no way of setting up voicemail except from the phone itself (so I can't even check my messages, which I'm expecting a few important ones of). To make up for that last bit (and the porting timing issue) they sent me a free 4GB memory card for the phone, at least.

Hopefully UPS will be able to deliver my dang phone tomorrow, and hopefully I won't miss out on any very important time-sensitive voicemails in the meantime. Meh.

Anyway, T-Mobile is very helpful and courteous and friendly and understanding about all this, which is definitely not anything I ever got from AT&T. So even with this momentary aggravation, it was definitely well worth switching.

The only real ding against T-Mobile is that they didn't warn me about the porting timing issue on the web order. When I ordered I assumed the account wouldn't be activated until I first used the phone, rather than it happening immediately, and the CSR said that this was a definite problem with the web-based ordering process (since human sales people are required to point that out).

But anyway, for T-Mobile's part they're making good on it with the 4GB memory card (the CSR mentioned a whole bunch of different accessories I might be interested in but really the memory card is the only thing I was meaning to get anyway) and so I'm satisfied, even though I'm still phoneless for at least another day.
#12316 08/10/2009 04:00 pm
Neill: at least one person here had a TV delivered to the office. Size doesn't matter. Smile
#12317 08/10/2009 04:07 pm
Yeah, r343l had that 32" thing delivered here, and I think there have been other bigger ones. And don't forget Todd's giant speakers.
#12318 08/10/2009 05:35 pm
Oops, turns out the myTouch already comes with a 4GB memory card. Guess I should have chosen some other accessory, like a charging dock or something. Oh well.
#12376 09/08/2009 07:42 am
fluffy:
So UPS refused to let me specify the suite number over the phone and required that T-Mobile change it, and they were surly bastards to me.


yeah, i've always had that sort of problem when dealing with ups. surly bastards, indeed.
-bill