UPS Lost My Passport

By Lee | December 13th, 2007 | 3 Comments »

Last Monday, December 3rd, I sent out my passport with UPS, along with a $116 money order and my visa application to the Consulate General of Suriname in Miami. I was obviously applying for my Suriname visa for my upcoming trip there. This Tuesday, I called the Consulate asking why I hadn’t received back my passport and visa because I had overnighted the UPS package. They told me they never received my application which meant they never got the package. So then I called UPS with the tracking number of my package.

They basically told me that they have no idea where my package is and they would launch an investigation. This apparently consists of them calling their lost and found facility and calling the last place where my package was scanned which apparently was their hub in South Carolina somewhere, from which it was to be sent to Miami. It was scanned in South Carolina but clearly never made it to Miami and still hasn’t turned up in the lost and found. So since it has not yet been 8 business days which is the allotted amount of time they give themselves to finish their thorough investigation; they won’t declare it lost so I can simply accept the fact that they lost one of my most valuable possessions.

Additionally, I still need a new passport and visa to enter Suriname as I have already bought a non refundable ticket down there. So yesterday I had the fun and certainly not cheap task of going through the passport expediting process so I can get my new passport back ASAP and then still send it down to Miami to get my Suriname visa. The problem for me is, even if it magically appears within the 8 days, I won’t have enough time to get my visa before my trip so I would be screwed either way. So I had to make the executive and very hard decision to report my passport as lost and apply for a new one.

As a result of me being so pissed off at UPS and them being so unhelpful about the fact they lost my passport, I am using the passport and visa service, It’s Easy, to help me with this process because I just can’t deal with any more hassles right now. I have heard excellent things about them so hopefully everything will work out well and I will have everything I need by the time I need it.

Finally, here’s the kicker…A new passport costs $157, It’s Easy charges me another $180, the lost money order was like $116 in cash, plus new photos, birth certificate and the pain in the butt factor of having to deal with it. So basically it’s gonna end up costing me over $500 to get my new passport and visa as a result of UPS simply losing my first class overnight package.

“Luckily” for me they cover up to $100 if they lose a package and if I am lucky I may actually get that money one day after I go through a rigorous claims process. So they lose my package which in turn costs me over $500 (and that’s being conservative) and they will “happily” reimburse me for up to $100 if I qualify.

I can’t even express how irritating and ridiculous this is. Considering if I hadn’t have sent it in so early in the first place and didn’t follow up, I would be out the $500 plus the total costs of my non refundable flights into the Guyanas and Suriname which isn’t the cheapest or easiest place to fly.

In truth, money aside, all I really want is my passport back because even though it is no longer valid, the memories and stamps inside are invaluable to me and I hope they will eventually find it.

UPS’s alleged investigation will continue until December 17th when they will officially admit they lost my package and passport and file a claim for me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait that long and you use a company like UPS because they are supposed to be reliable in shipping. When something like this happens and they lose something valuable to you, it really pisses you off. When calling, I spoke with 20 different people all telling me they were sorry but couldn’t help me-thats not what you want to hear and a big company like that should really work on their customer service a little as well.

The commercial says, “What can brown do for you?” I always thought this was a really stupid slogan but I figured out the answer to the question and the answer is SH*T-thats what they can do for me.