A few weeks ago I ordered something from calendars.com and had it shipped to my PO BOX address in Lowell. Whenever possible, I always use my PO BOX because I've had problems with people stealing packages left on the porch of my home address. When placing the order I selected the Express shipment method, filled out my PO BOX address and submitted the order. Everything went through and the form didn't complain that they cannot ship to PO BOXes, so naturally I assumed everything was cool.
Several days later, I discover not only was the package shipped UPS instead of USPS, but the package was delivered to one of my investment properties, 53 Ware Street. Ware Street!? My permanent address is on Cumberland RD, not Ware Street, and the Lowell Post Office is aware of that, so why the hell did they ship it to Ware Street? When I checked the UPS tracking, here's what it said:
CHELMSFORD,
MA, US 02/15/2007 9:39 P.M. DESTINATION SCAN
02/15/2007 7:35 P.M. POST OFFICE BOX ADDRESS. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN AN ADDRESS TO WHICH DELIVERY CAN BE MADE, NOT DELIVERED;THE ADDRESS HAS BEEN CORRECTED. THE DELIVERY HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED
Attempting to obtain an address from WHERE? Did they just randomly pick one of houses I own in Lowell? What if I owned 30 houses? Obviously this whole thing could have been avoided by me going to the help section on calendars.com and reading the section on Express shipping:
Question/Topic
Can I ship Express to a P.O. Box?Answer/Article
Unfortunately, Express orders can not be shipped to P.O. boxes.
But why should I have to do that? The easiest thing to do would be to have the order form simply check if I'm choosing Express for the shipping method and refuse to accept a PO BOX address in the Ship To field. UPS can't be to blame simply because they were given a PO BOX address to ship to, which obviously they cannot do. They did their best to deliver the package. Calendars.com shouldn't have provided them a PO BOX address in the first place.
Seriously, basic error checking like this should always be implemented when you're running a website that claims to have "The best selection of calendars in the world".
Obviously not the best web programmers in the world.