For the record, there's nothing in life more irritating than the UPS system in Las Vegas. Nationally, they're not so bad, but the Vegas division is full of idiots. Just needed to vent that.
Need to vent
- Thread starter TylerStewart
- Start date
Sporkthedork
New Member
I hope you didn't lose any animals on their account.
Time will tell, I'm still waiting for the overnight package I shipped to myself on Wednesday...
LaserGecko
New Member
Any word on the animals, Tyler?
UPS really sucks in Las Vegas. I know a guy who's lost five RC transmitters because of them. They just throw it and run despite the "signature required" and the notes on the door.
FedEx rocks, though. (If FedEx Ground provided free boxes, I would never use Priority Mail, either.) My freaking mailman refuses to pickup the boxes.
UPS really sucks in Las Vegas. I know a guy who's lost five RC transmitters because of them. They just throw it and run despite the "signature required" and the notes on the door.
FedEx rocks, though. (If FedEx Ground provided free boxes, I would never use Priority Mail, either.) My freaking mailman refuses to pickup the boxes.
Vegas Chad
Avid Member
Long Story...
Basically what has happened is that I've been shipping more and more over the past 2 months (tortoises mostly), so I started negotiating Next Day Air with FedEx, UPS, etc about pricing, and got better deals from UPS, who I used anyways. One of their major hubs isn't too far from my office where I ship everything from, but it's in a bad part of town and I absolutely hate driving down there (especially since my driver's license is still suspended, and there's lots of police down there LOL). So I schedule pickups. To have them come pick up costs me $4 per package. To have an automatic daily pickup costs me $7 per week, where they come daily (it's more if you're not shipping as much). So if I'm shipping 6 or 8 packages a week, I save alot of money by having a daily pickup. I'm one of the last stops they have, since I'm near the hub, and they usually come by at about 4:00PM. I pack packages and label stuff up around 3PM in case they come early. I'm off at 3:30PM, leaving the packages up front with our receptionist till they come get them at 4. Packages have to be at that hub by about 5 to make the Next Day Air flight out of Las Vegas that day.
The problem is, the driver fails to come by about once a week. So on Wednesday of last week, I'm shipping a pair of snakes to Chris Anderson in Tampa that I was trying to sell in Daytona for $8,000 (for the pair). Not really something you want lost in the mail, especially since they don't insure live animals. Well, guess which day he decides not to show up? Yeah, Wednesday. I get a call from our receptionist at a little after 5 saying they had never come. By then I'm already home about to take an afternoon dirtbike ride. So I call UPS and throw another big fit (I throw a fit to them about once a week). You can't call into the Vegas hub, so you have to call 1800 Pick UPS and go through a 3rd person to get anything done. They tell me a rep from Vegas will call me within the hour. I don't have an hour, they need to go out like 10 minutes ago. So anyways, by the time I get a call back it was like 7PM and I figured I'd either try to ship Thursday for Friday delivery (which I hate doing), or try to check it or smuggle it on the plane somehow... The airline threw a fit about the idea of checking reptiles, so I didn't go there.
So the next morning at 6AM, I get to work and the boxes are gone. Turns out, the driver came back at 6-something PM on Wednesday and the mechanics here helped him get into the office to get my packages.... But then he obviously missed the Next Day Air flight out of Vegas. So the long and short of it, the packages sat in a warehouse in Vegas between Wednesday evening until Thursday evening when they finally left town, and there was nothing I could do to retrieve them. Ice packs don't last 48 hours, barely 24. Fortunately, it's been a very mild summer here in Vegas, but temps pushing 105 don't sit well with my tree snakes that have never seen a temperature above 85 since the day they were born in 2004. It's still an $8K package with no insurance (as well as a baby tortoise going to PA the same day, in the same situation). So I flew into Tampa Thursday night/Friday morning and waited with Chris for the package to arrive. Fortunately, all was well... But I was sick to my stomach for those 48 hours as I'm sure anyone could imagine.
In the meantime, I'm doing my best to get a new driver to cover my area or at least me. It's one thing for them not to come pick up a cage, or any other ground shipment, but when it's 98% Next Day Air live animal shipments, I need them there daily whether I have anything or not. They did this same thing a month or so ago when I requested a pickup they randomly were a few hours late (after my phone call) and again had missed the flight out of Vegas. UPS had a booth in Daytona where they were trying to get their name out there as a shipper of live animals, and I ran through this story with the girl at the booth. She picked up her cell phone to call the Vegas Rep, but I stopped her (I had already made a big enough deal out of it). She ended up taking my business card and was going to look into it this week.
Sorry for the story, it all had to be told in order to make sense...
Basically what has happened is that I've been shipping more and more over the past 2 months (tortoises mostly), so I started negotiating Next Day Air with FedEx, UPS, etc about pricing, and got better deals from UPS, who I used anyways. One of their major hubs isn't too far from my office where I ship everything from, but it's in a bad part of town and I absolutely hate driving down there (especially since my driver's license is still suspended, and there's lots of police down there LOL). So I schedule pickups. To have them come pick up costs me $4 per package. To have an automatic daily pickup costs me $7 per week, where they come daily (it's more if you're not shipping as much). So if I'm shipping 6 or 8 packages a week, I save alot of money by having a daily pickup. I'm one of the last stops they have, since I'm near the hub, and they usually come by at about 4:00PM. I pack packages and label stuff up around 3PM in case they come early. I'm off at 3:30PM, leaving the packages up front with our receptionist till they come get them at 4. Packages have to be at that hub by about 5 to make the Next Day Air flight out of Las Vegas that day.
The problem is, the driver fails to come by about once a week. So on Wednesday of last week, I'm shipping a pair of snakes to Chris Anderson in Tampa that I was trying to sell in Daytona for $8,000 (for the pair). Not really something you want lost in the mail, especially since they don't insure live animals. Well, guess which day he decides not to show up? Yeah, Wednesday. I get a call from our receptionist at a little after 5 saying they had never come. By then I'm already home about to take an afternoon dirtbike ride. So I call UPS and throw another big fit (I throw a fit to them about once a week). You can't call into the Vegas hub, so you have to call 1800 Pick UPS and go through a 3rd person to get anything done. They tell me a rep from Vegas will call me within the hour. I don't have an hour, they need to go out like 10 minutes ago. So anyways, by the time I get a call back it was like 7PM and I figured I'd either try to ship Thursday for Friday delivery (which I hate doing), or try to check it or smuggle it on the plane somehow... The airline threw a fit about the idea of checking reptiles, so I didn't go there.
So the next morning at 6AM, I get to work and the boxes are gone. Turns out, the driver came back at 6-something PM on Wednesday and the mechanics here helped him get into the office to get my packages.... But then he obviously missed the Next Day Air flight out of Vegas. So the long and short of it, the packages sat in a warehouse in Vegas between Wednesday evening until Thursday evening when they finally left town, and there was nothing I could do to retrieve them. Ice packs don't last 48 hours, barely 24. Fortunately, it's been a very mild summer here in Vegas, but temps pushing 105 don't sit well with my tree snakes that have never seen a temperature above 85 since the day they were born in 2004. It's still an $8K package with no insurance (as well as a baby tortoise going to PA the same day, in the same situation). So I flew into Tampa Thursday night/Friday morning and waited with Chris for the package to arrive. Fortunately, all was well... But I was sick to my stomach for those 48 hours as I'm sure anyone could imagine.
In the meantime, I'm doing my best to get a new driver to cover my area or at least me. It's one thing for them not to come pick up a cage, or any other ground shipment, but when it's 98% Next Day Air live animal shipments, I need them there daily whether I have anything or not. They did this same thing a month or so ago when I requested a pickup they randomly were a few hours late (after my phone call) and again had missed the flight out of Vegas. UPS had a booth in Daytona where they were trying to get their name out there as a shipper of live animals, and I ran through this story with the girl at the booth. She picked up her cell phone to call the Vegas Rep, but I stopped her (I had already made a big enough deal out of it). She ended up taking my business card and was going to look into it this week.
Sorry for the story, it all had to be told in order to make sense...
Nicodemayo
Avid Member
so bottom line after all the stress and chaos did the pair get sold?
We don't really wanna talk about that LOL... No, they didn't sell, but it's ok... I hoped they would, but I wasn't going to lower it by much to move them. I ended up trying to get $7,000 for them on Sunday, but wasn't gonna take much less. They'll be breedable in the next 6 months or so and I could potentially could make much more money from them, but I could use a quick buck so I thought I'd try. I'll leave them on Kingsnake and probably take them to Pomona and try again in January.
Dankmeleon
New Member
snakes on a plane
I've snuck snakes on before, but that was when they were pocket sized... These two were 3 and 4 feet long.
Nicodemayo
Avid Member
just put them in your boxers and if the x-ray dude asks any questions just call him a pervert
Vegas Chad
Avid Member
Is that a snake in your pants sir???? "Why yes. Yes it is..." *wink*
Delta does insure them somewhat, but I have yet to read through the fine print. With UPS rates rising, Delta Dash could soon be the way to ship animals. Shipments of large tortoises or anything needing a decent sized box is cheapest if you ship Delta Dash. For me to ship my animals (the snakes and a few torts I picked up) home from Daytona in a 15x15x18" box Next Day Air was $132 (because of the box size, it was only like 8 pounds but they charge for 21lbs because of dimentional weight)! Delta would have been cheaper and SAME DAY AIR instead of overnight, but it's a more involved process to set up the account. It takes 6 weeks, as well as an inspection of your facility to make sure your animals all look decent.
It's hard to get ahead in this when you spend all your time and income on shipping and marketing.... On that note, the new Bluebeast t-shirts look great!
