UPS hit with a class A lawsuit?
- Thread starter LoaderforUPS
- Start date
I'll bet that car dealer has charged some kind of towel or supplies charge in his service department even if they decided they didn't need any supplies.
So the fuel surcharge is different for Air than Ground. Big deal. The fuel surcharge for (insert any marketing name for any class of service) relates to the fuel cost over that whole service segment divied-up among all parcels in that segment. It doesn't mean you're paying for jet fuel, or diesel for a truck. It's the fuel cost for the service segment.
But I guess since car dealers are sued all the time, that's the only way he knows how to act. If your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail.
Any way you cut it, it's frivolous.
Whether you're talking about the base rate before the fuel surcharge, or the bottom line after the fuel surcharge, prices are easily obtained for any parcel at any service level, and can be compared against each other, or the competing services. The line-items that add up to the bottom line shouldn't matter to anyone. Either the bottom line is acceptable, or it's not, and there are other choices out there to make.
So the fuel surcharge is different for Air than Ground. Big deal. The fuel surcharge for (insert any marketing name for any class of service) relates to the fuel cost over that whole service segment divied-up among all parcels in that segment. It doesn't mean you're paying for jet fuel, or diesel for a truck. It's the fuel cost for the service segment.
But I guess since car dealers are sued all the time, that's the only way he knows how to act. If your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail.
Any way you cut it, it's frivolous.
Whether you're talking about the base rate before the fuel surcharge, or the bottom line after the fuel surcharge, prices are easily obtained for any parcel at any service level, and can be compared against each other, or the competing services. The line-items that add up to the bottom line shouldn't matter to anyone. Either the bottom line is acceptable, or it's not, and there are other choices out there to make.
grgrcr88
No It's not green grocer!
The problem is not that we are charging them for air service. The problem is that we tacked on the air fuel surcharge on top of it for packages that did not board an airplane. If it went via ground service to make a next day air commit then the fuel surcharge should be the lower ground fuel surcharge, not the air charge. That is the basis for the lawsuit, and it has merit!!
Bubblehead
My Senior Picture
Catatonic
Nine Lives
I was working on UPS.com in 1998 and it was there then.
I remember it being in the service guide in the late 80's when I was responsible for setting up the Second Day Air in the Atlanta Hub ... someone asked the question way back then.
Bubblehead
My Senior Picture
Frivolous suit then.
bigtoe1111
Active Member
fragile: throw underhand!
PASinterference
Yes, I know I'm working late.
We once had an OMS who would send his child support payments 2 miles from our ctr using one of the ctr's 2da barcodes. (he never paid for the shipping) Whenever I saw the letter on the belt,I would always ask him If if he wanted it to go to the airport to get his money's worth for the shipping
One more thing to consider is the law considering First Class Mail.
Sending a letter by an express service like UPS's NDA or FedEx's Overnight is clearly allowable under the law. Someone sends that same letter by Ground, and it's not so clear as to whether or not that constitutes competition with First Class Mail.
Once you get over 13oz, the maximum weight for First Class Mail, the protections for the Postal Service are irrelevant, but under 13oz it can come down to a matter of interpretation: Is UPS just providing a better version of First Class Mail, or does the service rise to a higher level like a courier service? It's easy to justify UPS delivering something that could have gone by First Class Mail when there's a guaranteed 10:30 (or even 3pm) delivery. It's not quite as easy if it's going Ground, even with the complete tracking that isn't offered by the Postal Service. (I think it can be done, but it's not a slam-dunk.)
So there's very good reason to not encourage people sending letters to just use Ground.
Sending a letter by an express service like UPS's NDA or FedEx's Overnight is clearly allowable under the law. Someone sends that same letter by Ground, and it's not so clear as to whether or not that constitutes competition with First Class Mail.
Once you get over 13oz, the maximum weight for First Class Mail, the protections for the Postal Service are irrelevant, but under 13oz it can come down to a matter of interpretation: Is UPS just providing a better version of First Class Mail, or does the service rise to a higher level like a courier service? It's easy to justify UPS delivering something that could have gone by First Class Mail when there's a guaranteed 10:30 (or even 3pm) delivery. It's not quite as easy if it's going Ground, even with the complete tracking that isn't offered by the Postal Service. (I think it can be done, but it's not a slam-dunk.)
So there's very good reason to not encourage people sending letters to just use Ground.
UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)
Well-Known Member
I try to look out for the best interests of my customers while ensuring that they continue to ship with us and, yes, if they can save a few bucks by sending the letter ground rather than premium I will encourage them to do so. I have found that by doing so they may end up giving us more volume so, in this case, there is no good reason for me not to encourage them to use ground on non-time sensitive correspondence.
UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)
Well-Known Member
The rate charts are on ups.com if you are curious. Ground is available for both Alaska and Hawaii. I did not realize you could not use 2DA for Hawaii--are you sure about that? I don't know how ground packages are transported to those two states.
rod
Retired 22 years
Damn---I just about fell out of my chair. Upstate don't know something!
For a 6x6x6 package weighing 10 lbs going from Harrisburg, PA to Wasilla, Alaska, it would be 104.17 for NDA, 67.12 for 2DA, and 56.71 for ground with 4 days in transit. No 3 day option available. For the exact same package going to Honolulu, the prices are identical except ground takes 5 days instead of 4.
UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)
Well-Known Member
p228
Well-Known Member
Ground HI and AK that originates in CONUS goes by aircraft. If someone were to send a ORM-D ground it would be returned. It costs a lot more than normal ground service but it is less than one and two day.
From the lower 48 you can ship to AK and HI using "Ground". Yes, those packages will go on an airplane, and no, they don't get the air surcharge; they get the ground surcharge.
But they also both have additional surcharges, similar to, but larger than a rural surcharge.
Depending on location, NDA may take 2 days, and 2DA may take 3 days.
USPS is always less expensive, and by quite a bit because of the surcharges, but Priority Mail estimated TIT is sometimes longer than UPS Ground, and Parcel Post estimated TIT can reach to more than two weeks.
The difference in price between Ground and 2DA isn't as much as you might think. It's a smaller gap than you'd usually see between Ground and 3DS going across the country, so if the customer isn't inclined to recoil at the Ground price to AK or HI, upselling them to 2DA, even if it takes 3 days, is usually an easy sell.
And p228 is correct: No ORM-D even for "Ground" because they go on a plane (or planes).
And make sure that anything going to HI is packaged very, very well. They are brutal at Ontario. They're not just playing Tetris with the boxes. You'd swear that they're jamming boxes in the containers with hydroiic presses when they're going "Ground". The stuff we send 2DA and NDA shows up in fine shape, but I get complaints about the condition that nearly every Ground package to HI shows up in. Almost as bad as shipping to Mexico.
But they also both have additional surcharges, similar to, but larger than a rural surcharge.
Depending on location, NDA may take 2 days, and 2DA may take 3 days.
USPS is always less expensive, and by quite a bit because of the surcharges, but Priority Mail estimated TIT is sometimes longer than UPS Ground, and Parcel Post estimated TIT can reach to more than two weeks.
The difference in price between Ground and 2DA isn't as much as you might think. It's a smaller gap than you'd usually see between Ground and 3DS going across the country, so if the customer isn't inclined to recoil at the Ground price to AK or HI, upselling them to 2DA, even if it takes 3 days, is usually an easy sell.
And p228 is correct: No ORM-D even for "Ground" because they go on a plane (or planes).
And make sure that anything going to HI is packaged very, very well. They are brutal at Ontario. They're not just playing Tetris with the boxes. You'd swear that they're jamming boxes in the containers with hydroiic presses when they're going "Ground". The stuff we send 2DA and NDA shows up in fine shape, but I get complaints about the condition that nearly every Ground package to HI shows up in. Almost as bad as shipping to Mexico.
UPS Lifer
Well-Known Member
Ground to HI and AK go ground in the contiguous 48 states and then fly when they hit air hubs on the west coast, like the one I used to run in Ontario. Haz Mat ground will be rejected and sent back ground.
Time In Transit is the key to the mode of transportation (air or ground).
As for Rusty's comment above, there are two hubs in Ontario (air and ground) running simultaneously, the ground hub was and probably still is brutal on packages but the air sorts use a different system and the packages are less likely to get damaged.
Time In Transit is the key to the mode of transportation (air or ground).
As for Rusty's comment above, there are two hubs in Ontario (air and ground) running simultaneously, the ground hub was and probably still is brutal on packages but the air sorts use a different system and the packages are less likely to get damaged.
