Erci and I like wine. We like wine from several places, but we are particularly fond of wines from Bonny Doon Vineyard in the mountains over Santa Cruz, California. We like Bonnie Doon wines so much that we tried to join DEWN (their wine of the month club) way back when it was illegal to ship wines via mail-order into Virginia. We did a little research and discovered that the reason it was illegal was because the big alcohol distributers did not want to give up their monopoly, and that this retarded law (written by alcohol distributer lobbyists, and passed by Virginia’s notoriously retarded legislature) was hurting Virginia wine makers and small out-of-state wine makers alike.
We joined the “Free the Grapes” campaign which took a while but eventually got the stupid law repealed and now it is legal to mail-order wines both to and from Virginia, much to the delight of everyone except the monopolistic alcohol distributers… they may find my lack of sympathy disturbing. We were finally able to join DEWN and try some of Bonnie Doon’s eclectic wines about every other month.
UPS has very attractive repeat shipping rates for small businesses, so attractive that many small businesses will only use UPS for all their shipping. It is simpler and cost-effective, and I applaud both the small businesses and UPS for a generally good arrangement. However, it does limit choice; and I’ll get to how that can be a problem later.
There is another law, designed to protect minors from getting their hands on alcohol, that states that none of the shipping companies can leave packages with alcohol without the signature of an adult of drinking age. It’s a pretty strictly enforced law, and I blame none of the shippers and carriers for following it, the penalties are rediculously high for violations.
Erci and I are both professionals who work in office buildings, pretty long hours. The chances of any delivery catching us at home are next to negligable. We simply are not home that often. in a perfect world this would be no problem, we could notify the shipping companies that we are never home, that they can save themselves a trip and simply call us when a package comes in and we can stop by the warehouse on our way home (it literally is on the way home for UPS, Fedex, USPS, and DHL) and sign for packages. Fedex and USPS both do this routinely when the shipper says signature is required and provides our phone number. For some reason the Chantilly branch of UPS is not able to do this simple and time/effort saving trick.
Chantilly UPS insists on putting the package of alcohol, clearly marked with our phone number and the fact that we are almost never home during the day, on their delivery truck. Invariably they leave a sticker on our door with a phone number to call UPS and warning us they will only try twice more to deliver and that after that it will be held at warehouse for only 5 days. Annoying, but we can deal with that. We call UPS’s 800 number, go through voice menu hell for 10 minutes, and instruct them to hold the package at the warehouse for customer pickup. Warehouse is on the way, and warehouse hours are much better than delivery hours.
Every two months the shipment comes in from Bonnie Doon. Every two months we get three successive days of stickers on our front door (they ignore the phone calls and keep trying to deliver). Every two months I call and go to the warehouse, only to find that they have continued to try to deliver and the package is not there for me. It would be funny if it happened once. Every two months makes me an incoherent ball of rage. This last time takes the cake:
Thursday: 2/8 come home to find sticker, call UPS 800 number and instruct them to hold package.
Friday: 2/9 go to UPS warehouse Chantilly… they do not have package, it’s “on the truck” again, sure enough - sticker on door with “2nd notice” on it
bastards
Monday: 2/12 I don’t bother going by warehouse, and sure enough we get 3rd sticker marked “Final notice” - I call again anyway and instruct them to hold at warehouse for customer pickup
Tuesday: 2/13 - snow day, astonishingly I am working from home all day!!! No UPS delivery truck. Great - they finally are holding it at warehouse…
Wednesday: 2/14 - second snow day, again home. UPS truck goes through neighborhood, stops at three neighbor’s houses (I was shoveling) and not at ours - great, package must be at warehouse.
Thursday: 2/15 - more important errand
Friday: 2/16 - I go to warehouse to pick up package, guess where it is…. On the #&*%&A%$ truck!!!
To hell with Chantilly UPS, they can take the wine and shove it. I call Bonnie Doon and reluctantly cancel the standing order because they can’t switch to another carrier and UPS Chantilly are a pack of idiots.
{ 7 } Comments
Sorry you had a bad experience with wine shipping. It is tough on everyone because alcohol is treated so diffently than other products. See firstinwine dot com for the full version of my thoughts on this matter. Distributors or rather distribu-leggers cause this problem in nearly every state. There are now over 4,000 wineries in the US with many of them too small you use distributors. People want to buy freely from the wide selection but the archaic laws make it expensive or not possible.
Concerning your wine of the month shipments. UPS offers a better rate if things are shipped to businesses. Probably because there will be a better chance of catching someone there to sign for the shipment. That my be a solution for you. If it okay with your employer, of course.
this is a ups driver. ship it to your work!!!! We hate delivering the wine because of the sig req. I am suprised it went back on the package car after being post carded. It should have been sent back to the shipper. Again if you can ship it to your work where you know you will be it would make it less of a hassle. Good luck.
Your lack of common sense is just utterly astounding. You know you have to be there to receive the package. What I don’t get is why you don’t just ship the wine to your office where you are during the day and can have an adult sign for the package?
snolan!!! I’ve just had an amazingly similar experience, and despite the two moron UPS/former UPS people who posted in the comments, UPS is apparently completely incompetent in the area of wine delivery! It’s funny, I was looking for info on UPS Chantilly and your blog post was near the top of the Google results.
Here’s my story:
Monday: Order wine from Rockbridge Vineyard in central VA (good stuff)
Tuesday: Come home to find notice on door. I live in an apartment complex and the rental office, staffed by adults over the age of 21, are authorized in writing to sign for my packages. The wine I ordered a month previously was delivered, by UPS, to the rental office, no problem. This time, delivery person leaves a note indicating “adult signature required” and indicating a second delivery attempt would be made (also during the day). I write in the comments on the note “pls leave package with rental office” and sign it.
Wednesday: Come home to find 2nd notice on the door. Infuriated, I call UPS customer service. Rep is boggled that delivery did not take the package to the rental office, as instructed. Promises to send “urgent message” to delivery center to instruct the delivery person to take package to rental office. I write on the 2nd notice the same instructions as before - “deliver to rental office” - and tape it to the center of my door, with the 1st notice.
Thursday (today): Come home to find 3rd/final notice on the door. Am enraged at this point. Call customer service, ask why their delivery person is unable to follow directions. Am told “sorry” about a dozen times and she offers to let me pick it up at the warehouse. She takes my number and tells me the warehouse will call me back within an hour. They call me back (within about 30 minutes) and indicate that the package will be there (at the warehouse) after 7pm, so I’m going to go pick it up. I asked why the delivery person ignored 2 notes on my door indicating that the package was to be delivered to the rental office and was told “I don’t know, but we’ll talk to the deliver person to make sure that issue is corrected.”
I’ll let you know if things continue downhill. BTW, in anticipation of any nimrod UPS people who might see this and comment: UPS has delivered wine to the rental office for me in the past (as his FedEx). I left written notice *twice* instructing delivering to go to the rental office. Customer service (2x) and the warehouse both confirmed that delivering should have been made to the rental office. Therefore, this driver is clueless. I won’t get into the time last summer when the driver left a package outside my apartment while I was on vacation - a package that disappeared - again, because the delivery was not made to the rental office, which has written authorization to receive packages on my behalf. :S
UPS Chantilly, and only UPS Chantilly continues to be a complete disaster. With no more wine deliveries I thought my problems would be over, but UPS Chantilly inconsistently continues to screw up deliveries of computer gear, books, CDs, and everything else. Though not all the time… sometimes delivery is excellent… sometimes they leave a 3rd and final notice on the first ever visit to my house.
UPS has been excellent everywhere else I have lived.
USPS (post office) also has issues where I live, packages left at the end of my driveway in the rain, and in random locations around the front of my house. I routinely get random neighbors’ mail, and they routinely get mine.
I am simply insisting that my mail order comes through FedEX or DHL. FedEX manages to put it on the front porch, which is sheltered from the rain, every time.
I live in Safety Harbor, Florida. Same issue with UPS and wine delivery. I took special steps to go to the distribution and get the phone number of the dispatcher for my area. Called her and was told they would try to deliver the package after 5pm and if it could not be accomodated they would call. No call no delivery. Had to go pick it up as usual, wasting my $3.50/gallon gas and 1 hour of my time. I have put up with this for 2 years. No more, I instructed the winery, Pine Ridge, Napa, to use FedX from now on. As for delivery to my business, I work in a facillity of 3000 people. The guys on the dock don’t care if I get my wine or not.
I am having a similar experience right now. Two days ago I ordered something on Zappos.com. They overnighted it. Yesterday, UPS rang the doorbell. By the time I got to the door, he had left the package and was almost back at his truck. I brought it in and that was that.
Yesterday, I ordered something on Zappos.com. Again, they overnighted it. Today, while I was out, UPS tried to deliver it. But unlike yesterday, they didn’t leave it–nor did they even leave an Info Notice. I only found out it had been put in the “Exception” box because I went online to track it. Can someone please tell me why the same size box from Zappos can be left just fine one day (when I happen to be home) and NOT left the very NEXT day (when I am out because I assumed they’d leave it since they left it yesterday)?!?!?!?
And, btw FedEx Chantilly is no better. Scott’s log above is almost EXACTLY what I went through with them trying to get my Mom’s Mother’s Day present in time this year (it didn’t happen). Word of advice to those reading this and considering intercepting your package: DON’T DO IT!!!!! EVER!!!! No matter how tempted you are, all that’s going to happen is that your package will always be in the opposite place you’ll be. It will take you 5 extra days to get it, trust me. Just let them deliver it the next business day. You’ll get it faster that way, and it will save you a million frustrating phone calls working your way through automated labyrinths and unhelpful agents who won’t enter your new delivery instructions on the computer anyway.
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