The package turned up in the intracampus mail this afternoon. As I suspected, it was delivered to the wrong floor or building and someone had put it in the campus mail (which meant it had to go back to the central mail office on campus before being delivered properly). Since I'm pretty sure UPS wouldn't have been able to locate the package with their completely inefficient tracing system, it was a relief to have it turn up on its own.

Before it showed up, however, I called UPS for the third straight business day, once again explaining the entire situation to yet another customer service rep. (I'd like to note that I don't blame any of the actual UPS employees other than the driver, who delivered the package wrong in the first place, and the first CSR I spoke with Friday, who obviously told me a bunch of incorrect information just to get me off the phone.) Finally I was transferred to someone to put an official trace on the package, who proceeded to ask me a list of questions that had very little to do with my particular situtation, leading to exchanges such as this:

CSR: What's in the package?
Me: A US passport, in my name.
CSR: OK, can you describe what it looks like?
Me: Ummm, like a passport? You know, a little blue booklet that says "passport" on it?
CSR: OK, and have you been in contact with the sender about a replacement?
Me: Well, the sender's my dad [this was at least the third time I had told her this] and it's my passport, so he doesn't have another one to send me.
CSR: [Confused pause] Uh, ok, so no replacement is coming.

I realize that she was simply reading off the questions the screen told her to ask, but it would have been a bit more reassuring if she actually seemed to be listening to what I said. I have had dealings with CSRs at other companies who would go ahead and fill in questions themselves if I'd already told them the answer, and it's amazing how much more confidence I felt in their ability to get things done.

Anyhow, the kicker to all this is that when the package appeared an hour later in the mail, I called UPS back to call off the search. The first CSR I talked to had to transfer me to someone higher up to get that done, and then that person had to send an email to the dispatch center [another thing about UPS; their customer service can only communicate with the dispatch centers by email, they don't even have phone numbers for the centers] who was then supposed to call me back to confirm receipt of the package. The whole process, including the amount of time I spent on hold waiting for the higher up, took over 15 minutes. I was really tempted to just hang up and let them waste their time looking for the package. I still haven't received that confirmation call, so maybe they are still looking.

The most frustrating thing about the whole process is that it was the UPS system itself that kept me from getting good customer service, not the employees themselves. We were unable to start tracing the package on Friday because, though UPS can tell immediately when a package has been delivered and who signed for it, they have to wait until the driver manually uploads the delivery address into the system before they can trace it (which in my case didn't happen until Monday morning). Until an official trace is in process, no notes are put on the tracking notice, even if you've already called in to report it missing, so I had to repeat the entire story (Yes, that is the correct address. No, it's not here. No, I don't know who Moses is.)every time I called in. And because they refuse under any circumstances to give you the direct number of the dispatch center (and I tried calling the one that showed up on my caller ID and got a constant busy signal anyway), you have to leave a message with customer service, wait for them to email the dispatch center, and then hope they call you back. It all boils down to a lot of wasted time, and a frustrated customer whose family will probably never use UPS for important packages again.