* Updated January 27th -- Notes at the end of the original story.

UPS is usually pretty reliable. My experience, however, has been that if the smallest thing goes wrong the whole process grinds to an inexplicable halt. Let me show you an example.

On the 20th (a Wednesday) Lenovo shipped three packages to me. Two of them came from China. The first made the trip in the expected (and paid for) two days. The second seems to have spent days sitting in Shanghai and has so far chained itself to the wall in Kentucky.

I called UPS. They swear to me that the package has cleared customs and is not lost in any way. They say someone made a mistake (but won't say what it was) but that the package is on its way. However, they also say the package is now expected on Thursday. Aside from the fact that it's a full 5 days longer than other one -- and two and half times the original shipping time overdue, nobody can tell me what the problem is.

Even more confusing, is that although the package is supposedly in Kentucky and through customs, they're saying it's 4 days from there to here. In the mean time, every other package ever sent to me over two day air (including the other package in this same order) takes less than one day to go from Kentucky to my door.

So, with this box which hasn't moved at all in more than 20 hours -- even though the next steps should not require any travel at all (there should be an import scan and departure scan in Kentucky). So far in 20 hours, UPS hasn't done what it usually takes 3 hours to accomplish.

Can anyone give me the slightest idea what the fsck is going on with these guys? I get the distinct impression that I'm being lied to. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

This is the package that got delivered on time.

Location	Date	Local Time	Description
SO. PORTLAND, ME, US	01/21/2010	10:19 A.M.	DELIVERY
	01/21/2010	8:13 A.M.	OUT FOR DELIVERY
MANCHESTER, NH, US	01/21/2010	6:44 A.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	01/21/2010	5:52 A.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US	01/21/2010	4:01 A.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	01/21/2010	3:06 A.M.	IMPORT SCAN
	01/21/2010	1:42 A.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
ANCHORAGE, AK, US	01/20/2010	5:41 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	01/20/2010	12:12 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
TAO-YUAN, TW	01/20/2010	8:31 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	01/20/2010	6:32 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
CHEK LAP KOK, HK	01/20/2010	5:18 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	01/20/2010	11:31 A.M.	ORIGIN SCAN
HK	01/19/2010	9:07 A.M.	BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

This is the package that is scheduled to be 5 days late (as of 1/25/2010 3:45pm)

Location	Date	Local Time	Description
LOUISVILLE, KY, US	01/24/2010	8:27 A.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
ANCHORAGE, AK, US	01/23/2010	6:04 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
SHANGHAI, CN	01/24/2010	3:15 A.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
SHANGHAI, CN	01/22/2010	9:40 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	01/22/2010	6:28 P.M.	EXPORT SCAN
SHANGHAI, CN	01/21/2010	10:03 A.M.	ORIGIN SCAN
CN	01/21/2010	11:53 P.M.	BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

I wonder if when I finally see this package, if it will have customs stickers on it from 10 different countries and large dents and tears covered in tape.

UPDATE: 1/27/2010

After spending days with me pushing buttons and getting different information, the package finally escaped from Louisville, KY after spending about 3 days basically lost. Missing from this log was a brief note inserted prior to the clearing agency note that indicated "INTERNAL UPS ACTIVITY" -- that note vanished after about 30 minutes and is no longer in the log. I believe this is when the package was actually found and put back on track.

In any case, I'm happy to say that it did finally get here in an undamaged form. Two packages sent from the same invoice with the same shipping choice from the same region (some consider Taiwan to be part of China -- in particular the Chinese -- while some do not -- most of the rest of the world, so I won't say the same country). One took two days. One took a week.