In the past week, students at Binghamton University have been experiencing issues receiving small deliveries from UPS.
As Physical Facilities and UPS have encountered delivery issues, some students have received messages that packages have been returned to the sender and marked as “customer refused delivery/did not want,” even when proper addressing guidelines for packages are being followed.
In a statement sent to the Physical Facilities Listserv on Thursday, March 21, officials wrote that Central Receiving, the department of Physical Facilities that receives and distributes packages to University mailboxes, was not refusing packages, and that packages weren’t being delivered because UPS was not following the department’s new small-package delivery procedures. According to the Physical Facilities webpage, mail package delivery procedures were changed late last year in response to budget reductions and staffing changes.
“Physical Facilities worked for many months, with all the carriers, prior to changing small-package delivery procedures,” the statement read. “Our efforts included piloting the program in certain areas, creating training manuals for carriers and walking them through the process. We secured full agreement with this change in delivery procedures from all the carriers. It is only in the last couple of weeks that UPS has not been following the new procedure while other carriers are.”
But Kevin Darrell, Student Association (SA) vice president for finance and a senior double-majoring in accounting and mathematics, and Matt Johnson, assistant director of the SA, wrote in an email that when the SA attempted to track down packages that had been returned without arriving at the SA office, a UPS representative told them the error had likely occurred at Central Receiving.
“When Matt called and spoke with UPS’s customer service about the matter, the customer service representative was confused when he said that our office had no record of an attempt ever being made, much less that we refused any packages,” Darrell wrote. “On further investigation, the UPS representative stated that this should not be happening and the only explanation would be that ‘Someone at the facility’s receiving dock must be refusing delivery.’”
Darrell wrote that the issues surrounding small-package delivery only arose after Physical Facilities changed their small-package policy.
“There were definitely some contrary statements being made by the two parties — UPS is saying deliveries were refused or undelivered, yet Central Receiving is saying that they did not refuse any packages,” Darrell wrote. “Given that this issue arose following Central Receiving’s change in protocol, it makes sense to conclude that Central Receiving has been in some way not accepting packages under that size — even if they’re not outright refusing them.”
Despite this, Darrell wrote that the main concern is making sure students are receiving their packages.
“Ultimately, and we cannot stress this enough, we did not care whose ‘fault’ it was, we just wanted to stop having our packages, and those of all the student organizations planning events, returned to sender,” Darrell wrote.
Although some students and student groups have experienced issues receiving their deliveries, not all students have been affected. Jonah Maryles, a sophomore majoring in human development, said he hasn’t noticed a problem.
“I received a package from UPS the other day and had no problem picking it up,” Maryles said.
In a recent statement posted to B-Line, Physical Facilities officials wrote that packages are now beginning to be delivered, although they continue to monitor the situation.
“Physical Facilities assures the campus community that it continues to work with the UPS corporate office in Syracuse to resolve issues with the activities of the local UPS office regarding small-package delivery service to buildings,” the statement read. “The local UPS is now following proper procedures and deliveries are being made to many buildings including the science buildings, ITC and Physical Facilities.”
Physical Facilities could not be reached for comment for this story, and UPS representatives declined to comment, citing company policies.