Whatever you do, don’t use UPS

We just had a client take two bags to a UPS contractor in California. One bag weighed 50 pounds. UPS charged him $598.14. The second weighed 55 pounds. They charged him $1,330.87.

Now, you and I might’ve told them to take a long walk on a short pier, but the gentleman is 82-years-old and couldn’t wrangle all of these bags through the airport. So, at the end of the day, he ponied up the $1,929.01.

For nearly $2,000.00 for just a tad over 100 pounds of luggage, I would’ve expected them to be flown on a bed of down and pampered by white gloves until delivered as soon as possible at my hotel’s front desk. This is, of course, not at all what happened.

The client gave the two bags to UPS on September 24th and UPS didn’t deliver them in Panama until October 17th. That’s 24 days, 3 weeks and 3 days, or a whopping 6.58% of 2025.

Jenny and I got involved on October 9th. Originally, UPS claimed that some paperwork was missing from the shipper in California. We got all of that sorted. Then they claimed that there was some confusion with delivering the bags. Then they asked if we’d received them. Then they claimed that Customs had the bags. If you went to one warehouse, they’d claim that the luggage was in another warehouse in a different part of the city. We were given five different phone numbers and ultimately the gentleman was forced to pay an additional $221.34 in dues and taxes - and still had to wait two days to pick up the bags ourselves and take them to our client’s hotel.

And the cherry on top: the bags arrived damaged.

Don’t use UPS. Don’t use Fedex. Use DHL. They have a physical presence in Panama and don’t rely on contractors to fulfill their services. This is important because it’s their name on the line when things go wrong and they can’t hide behind layers of contractors and subcontractors to deflect blame and responsibility.