image969

Just some friendly advice.. NEVER use Greyhound shipping. It's something certain companies offer now. Greyhound says 7-10 days.. I have my bumper coming from Umnitza cross country to RI. Has been almost 2 weeks and it's only in Denver. Take a look at the tracking..

Had Umnitza not messed up when i paid the extra money for door to door Fedx.. I wouldnt be in the prediciment. But yea.. Just cause its a bit cheaper dont mean it's worth it. Worst shipping company everrrrr..

05/15/2014 08:29 PM 1402/DENVER,CO Package Loaded To 1402/DENVER,CO; Route: 1402-1

05/14/2014 08:26 PM 1402/GPX DENVER,CO Package Loaded To 1402/GPX DENVER,CO; Route: 1402-1

05/13/2014 10:21 PM 1402/DENVER,CO Package Loaded To 1402/DENVER,CO; Route: 1402-1

05/13/2014 07:58 PM 1402/GPX DENVER,CO Package Loaded To 1402/GPX DENVER,CO; Route: 1402-1

05/12/2014 07:51 PM 1684/DENVER,CO Package Loaded To 1684/DENVER,CO; Route: 1684-1

05/11/2014 11:30 PM 7125/SALT LAKE CITY,UT Package Loaded To 7125/SALT LAKE CITY,UT; Route: 1300-1

05/10/2014 09:42 PM 86398/RENO,NV Package Loaded To 86398/RENO,NV; Route: 1314-1

05/02/2014 09:34 AM 86555/OAKLAND,CA Package Loaded To 86555/OAKLAND,CA; Route: 8302-1

image969

And if anyone has been through this before, can yo uplease explain to me how it was loaded 5 different time in Denver? It's only 154 miles through that city.

tonyb635

Just sit back and chill as it will eventually show up, sadly there is nothing you can do. They have a lot of lazy people that work there and they see this very large box and no one want to make the effort to load it...

umnitza

Defending GPX isn't really on our list of top 5 things to do with our time/day, but it's important to recognize that we are going to address some of the main issues we've discovered through the course of 3000+ shipments over the last 3 years.

Some issues we've discovered that we will address:
1) Size of boxes dictates ability of loading.
The larger the boxes, the fewer the bus routes available for the package. If we include side skirts in a package on any order, it doesn't raise the cost of shipping as a $ value, it does raise the cost of shipping as a time value. If 30 passengers are on a bus with 30 pieces of luggage and your box is simply too large, their luggage takes priority and your package waits for the next bus. This actually explains James' situation above - *almost* (like loading in Denver several times, or taking a while in Reno).

Moving forward, we will no longer be shipping side skirts with any bumper order. We will also not ship 2+ bumpers. If you and your friend are ordering, we will only ship one at a time.

2) Location dictates delivery time
We all know that distance causes increased times, however location - like Florida vs North Carolina vs Maine are different routes.
Different routes are more heavily trafficked during different times of the year. I

Moving forward, we will notify you of the route differences that we expect given our experience.

3) Time of year also dictates delivery time
If your order happens to fall into a holiday scheduling - for example, if we ship on June 30th, but July 4th is right around the corner, there is almost always a delay as a result of this because of the increased passenger traffic.

Moving forward, we will notify you of this possibility.

That said, there are many many positive factors as more shipping companies realize that bumpers are really hard to ship not because they weigh a lot but because they simply don't stack and eat up a larger than standard area on the loading/shipping docks.

Pilot Freight, a company we used when we did are spring E60 M5tech Bumper super special @ $335 SHIPPED. Pilot has since raised their rate an additional 35%. We used to be able to ship an E60 bumper package to your door for $150 before several rate hikes, today that number is $275.

We've started using an LTL carrier that recently was able to deliver to a commonly used route for as little as $150 for a single pallet, however, that same pallet to a residence non-common route was $240.

By comparison, James package was about $105, and even that is about $50 more than it used to be in 2008 when we first started with GPX.

Just this last 30 day period, we've shipped over 125 bumpers with Greyhound.
Attached shipping receipts (below).

Statistically, here is what we've discovered - we took 10 randomly selected shipments
Shipment 1: CA-FL - 6 days
Shipment 2: CA-FL - 9 days
Shipment 3: CA-Boston - 4 Days
Shipment 4: CA-Newark, NJ - 17 days
Shipment 5: CA-Dallas, TX - 16 days
Shipment 6: CA-Cincinatti - 4 days
Shipment 7: CA-Chicago - 4 days
Shipment 8: CA-Tyler Tx - 2 days
Shipment 9: CA-Denver - 4 Days
Shipment 10: CA-Brooklyn 5 days

As you can see, just in this random sample, you have 2 shipments that took over 15 days and one nearly 10. the rest are within the 4-7 day window with one being incredibly short 2 days to Texas.

I hope that helps some of you. The main positives with GPX are:
1) Cost
2) Predicted speed for standard sized items (1 bumper, 2 small bumpers, exhaust)
3) Better trackability
4) Usually same or next day shipping
5) Locations next to most major cities without the need to wait by your door for the delivery guy.

The main negatives are:
1) Bad tracking in general
2) Incredibly lazy employees at some stations
3) Near impossibility to reach anyone when getting status
4) A centralized contact in Oakland who when she's not there makes tracing packages next to impossible.

Please never ever hesitate to call us and work out the best case situation for you and we'll keep working towards improving and doing better for our customers.

JayArras

With 3000+ shipments logged, I would think that you are probably one of Greyhound's biggest shippers. To be truthful, I have never heard of another company using Greyhound. That's not to say that it isn't done. I'd love to learn who else does.

So as one of Greyhound's better customers, don't you think you have some kind of clout with them? In any other industry, if one of your biggest and best customers complains, you better listen! The consequences? They take their business elsewhere. This is what you should be doing here. With so many complaints, if it were my business, I wouldn't put up with it. Competition is too fierce these days and customers have many choices. When their shipping business starts to decline, just maybe they'll take notice.

image969

In this paticular thread I was not blaming Umnitza for Greyhound. Umnitza forgot to tag it as fedex when I had already paid for door to door. That was a mistake and bumper would already be on my car. But this was clearly to bash greyhound. Not sure what other companies use them but they are terrible.

FYI. As of tonight. My package is still in Denver.. Still not even half way across country. Day 15 since shipped out.

Still has to go to Chicago, NY, and then RI.

JayArras

Yes, that's what I'm saying... Greyhound should be slammed for being such a shi**y carrier. But in addition, in this particular instance, what a top-notch vendor would have done was:

1. Ship you another bumper FedEx on their dime since it was their mistake.
2. Asked you to ship the first bumper back to them FedEx with a prepaid label once it arrived.

That's what Amazon does whenever they happen to send you a defective or incorrect product. They don't just wait for things to resolve themselves.

DanL

+1. At the very least, upon realizing their mistake, they should have sent out a new bumper via FedEx and then contacted Greyhound to have the in-transit bumper returned.

tonyb635

The only thing you have to consider is that Greyhound is a people hauler not a package hauler. What would happen if one were to purchase a ticket and when they arrive for departure they are told they don't have any space for their luggage because they have Umnitza bumper on board? I thing Greyhound has found a niche to make a little extra money but again, it like space available. When I ordered mine, it took a long time as well but it was no big deal to me because I wasn't in a hurry for them. I assume people are aware that they have an option to choose the shipping method as the OP did for additional costs, but looks like it was mistakenly shipped via GH. That's something that the OP should address with the vendor. If they are looking to keep cost down, then there is that risk of the package being delayed if the decision is to use GH.

JayArras

That's a hell of a business model: "We'll take on your package if we have room. And if we don't? We'll, you'll just have to wait because ya know, we're really in the people-mover business and we're just trying to make an extra buck off of you if we can."

Let me ask you (because I have never done business with Umnitza), did they CHARGE you for shipping? Sounds like, yeah, we won't charge you for shipping because we don't really have a clue when your purchase will arrive from Greyhound, but if you want it by a certain date, we do offer FedEx or UPS at a certain charge.

Bottom line: Shame on Umnitza for putting up with Greyhound's lousy shipping service and shame on any Umnitza customer who would put up with having their purchase shipped this way unless, as I said before, shipping is free and the customer is well-aware that there may be a big delivery delay.