The UPS Store — Local services in San Ramon

When you go with a printed label to a UPS store, the least you expect is for the employee to greet you with a smile, and take the shipment, put the label into the plastic envelope and give you a receipt. Sounds simple and straightforward, doesn't it?

Alas, it isn't so much at this UPS store. I have visited over 50 UPS stores and have generally found extremely pleasing people; this guy wouldn't even put his phone down. Instead, he has the phone on speaker and continues to talk to his friend (who BTW kept saying - I think you are busy, and this guy kept saying ... No, I can talk) with a customer in front of you!!! So, without uttering a word, he hands in the plastic pouch, and asks me to put the label in the pouch. When you don't have the courtesy to greet a customer and use your hands to direct him what to do - that's RUDE (I read the reviews here, and that's a word used before)

I generally don't give a low rating if it's a one off. Everyone has bad days, but this happened to me more than once. Last time, the guy was sitting inside his room, wouldn't come out or tell me that he will be attending to me in X minutes; no acknowledgement of customer at all.

Goes without saying, I ain't going to this UPS store anytime soon. Unsurprisingly, all UPS stores in San Ramon area have a better rating (and from personal experience, they are waaayyyy better). I have visited the customer service location on Norris Canyon, that's a bigger location but the employees there are so friendly. The FedEx location on Camino Ramon even packed the box for me, even though it was a UPS label (I went there by mistake). Wow, that's customer...

This UPS has to be the highest priced shipping store I have ever seen. I got fooled once when I paid $280 to ship a small painting to the East coast, but not this second time - I just walked out after I heard what he wanted to charge me. He wanted $23 for a box, which I said it's the most expensive box I've seen, and I got the reply "it's a special box for pictures" which is a big lie, it's not double walled - the Extra Large Heavy Duty box at Home depot is double walled and costs under $5. I said Ok to the box, thinking I just want to get it over with, but then I realized the box is just a tad bigger than the picture, and it wobbles a bit, so he said he can put some popcorn in there, to which I verbally indicated that I'll take some popcorn which comes with this expensive box. 5 minutes later he comes out, and tells me the total is $48. I thought he was joking, but no, it was for real. An extra $25 for about a gallon of popcorn. I, calmly but firmly, told him to take his popcorn and his box. I walked out, went straight to Home Depot, spent $11 on a box and popcorn and shipped my item. I will never go buy accessories from a UPS store again. I almost never use UPS anyway since their ground shipping takes 7 days even if you're shipping to the next city. ...

Needed to post an Amazon return and get a license card laminated before going to bed after a graveyard shift. Sat in front of this store until a full half-hour after the posted opening time (according to both Amazon and Google, which report that this was "updated by the business" just two weeks ago and so should be current--though notably there is no schedule posted anywhere on the doors) and found no sign of anyone. Store was dark, security gate closed, no movement, front door locked, though I did see a guy who apparently had a PO Box who was able to get into the outer lobby, apparently they issue a key or something.

Either way, if you post hours of operation, it seems to me that you should be there. I wasted a full 40 minutes (arrived a little before they were supposed to open) just to not even get what I needed done. I'll be checking with Amazon to see if I can reserve the return with a different store, otherwise I'm stuck trying again tomorrow.

Because apparently my time is of no...