Monday, January 07, 2008

How Ridiculous is this????

This is beyond ridiculous - be sure to read the whole thing...the mind-boggling bit is at the end...

I'm starting my next grad class next Wed the 16th. Over break I ordered my books from Amazon.com. I ordered them on Thurs December 27. I chose "free shipping" since I wanted more books rather than paying for shipping. Basically this means "get them to me whenever you freakin' feel like it." Part of my order arrived on Saturday Dec 29 via US Postal Service. I was very pleased, however this portion of the order contained simply a few kids books I'd ordered "because I was ordering" not my books for class that I was thinking I'd get a head start on reading. I assumed that the rest of the order would soon be here. Wrong. Part of it did arrive on Wed the 3rd - again, not the part that included my books, well one of the books, but it's not the one I need to read 1st.

So when it didn't show up on Thurs or Fri I started wondering. Why did 2/3 show up but not the part I actually wanted? So I went to "track my package". Well, it's being shipped via DHL so I go to their site - it says "arrived in Alexandria, VA, out for delivery" on Fri evening. I was expecting it Saturday. no. I thought surely by today. no. WTF?

I got back on DHL's site. It appears that it is being taken to a post office for the USPS to deliver to me. Ok, good, they have their shit together and can actually deliver a package (as a side note I mailed a package to a friend in central PA after noon on Dec 31. She had the package before lunch on the 2nd of Jan. See what I'm talkin about...less than 48 hours, with a holiday and I didn't pay extra. But I digress). Well, the PO is closed for the night so DHL will try again tomorrow.

The TRULY ridiculous part.....you aren't going to believe this one....seriously....it will blow your mind...I scanned the whole "tracking" page and my package of books that I have now been waiting over a week for was sent from CHANTILLY VA!!!!! That's 30 miles from my house. That's right folks. The return address on the DHL page says "Sterling, VA" My box of books has traveled from Sterling (30 miles from my house) to Wilmington, OH (DHL's hub - near Cincinnati), then to Allentown, PA then to Alexandria VA and now it's being delivered to some PO. WTF??????

Here's proof:
http://track.dhl-usa.com/TrackByNbr.asp?nav=Tracknbr

I'm just blown away. I could have seriously driven over the warehouse and picked it up myself. I guess then I would have had to pay for the gas to get me there. Somehow, I doubt that this is the cheapest way for Amazon to get me my books.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I laugh. Only because anytime I have anything shipped to me via UPS, we deal with the same thing. The UPS here is literally a mile away. My books were put on a truck at 7 a.m. this morning according to the website. But they aren't here yet. I could have walked there and back by now!

Seraphim9 said...

I have you beat....I work at a college bookstore in Savannah, GA and had a student order a book to be delivered via FedEx to Grovetown, GA (near Augusta, GA). It left here, went to their hub in Ellentown, GA (south of Atlanta) - then it decided to take a detour out to Phoenix, AZ before coming back to GA to its recipient. We ended up refunding the student the price of shipping - you better bet that FedEx will be adjusting our bill!