Sen. Richard Blumenthal: UPS owes customers refunds for late Christmas packages

[oldngray]

I worked alongside an RPS guy on my route. Nice guy, hard worker. But what he delivered vs what I delivered was no comparison. It was he who let me in on the inside workings and like you said RPS could get stuff from point A-B in short order but once it got to the delivery drivers RPS fell on its face. He eventually left as he was getting screwed over by the route owner, a forerunner to the present FedEx situation.

Every original RPS driver I knew were hard workers but quit after a couple of years because they got screwed so bad for as hard as they worked. They made little after paying their own vehicle costs. And RPS quality of service was definitely a joke.

 

[Covemastah]

We had a third company come in here and try to compete with FEDEX and Big BROWN !! Rembah all those DHL commercials with the shiny new trucks ?? How'd that all work out for them !! LOL
They bought a messed up Air Bourne and made it worse!

 

[RPSman]

Yes, I remember when DHL bought Airborne and ruined them like Fed Ex ruined RPS. DHL did not have a big presence in the USA, they originally ran white vehicles with red lettering before the Airborne acquisition. I worked for an Airborne Express contractor after leaving RPS. Most of my deliveries were overnight envelopes; and 5 lb packages like to computer places, dentists and optometrists. I used a small hand truck 3 or 4 times in the 6 months I was at Airborne. DHL did not realize that you can't buy an overnight air express company and compete in the heavy package business. A better merger would have been Airborne and RPS, but I think that RPS backed off from that, because Airborne was union in bigger markets. I see the DHL van come thru my hometown occasionally; they drive a short cargo van; a different contractor has the contract now.
Someone like Conway or Old Dominion would have a better idea of what the package business was about. And acquisition of the regional parcel companies would be the way to start, then fill in the other areas, later as the volume of business grows.

 

[upschuck]

I have seen at least one DHL vehicle every day for the last week after not seeing any in the last six months. Don't know if they are delivering or just driving around to get their name out there again.

 

[RPSman]

An outfit called Eagle Merchant Partners bought LSO, formerly Lone Star Overnight Delivery of Texas. They are eyeing other regional parcel company acquisitions, also. Could they be the ones that put together a 3rd package delivery company? I was the one who forecasted Fed Ex buying RPS in the mid 90's, so this could conceivably happen.

 

[RPSman]

No one believed my May 16, 2014 post. LSO bought Express Courier Inc; which expands their market into the southeast. LSO was at one time part of the APX consortium, before going independent; their sister company in the southeast was Film Transit; which went out with the APX Logistics bankruptcy. They already have a partnership with OnTrac for packages going out of Texas into major California metro areas. This acquisition puts them right next to Skyline Messenger who services the Carolinas. Right above them is Eastern Connection, who is handing packages to Ohio and Indiana off to Pitt-Ohio. Not to mention US Cargo, and Spee Dee Delivery who has expanded into the St. Louis metro area. What say ye all now, with Amazon looking to contract with regionals? Don't put Lasership with all the other regionals, I talked to a terminal manager in VA, and it was very apparent they don't have a clue about running a delivery service.

 

[RPSman]

RPS is FedEx ground. Same concept after FedEx bought it from Roadway. Little real investment cost with the owner operators.

FedEx did not buy RPS from Roadway Services. They bought Caliber Systems in 1997 after the UPS strike. Roadway Express was spun off as a stand alone company in the mid 90's, way before the acquisition, and our holding company was renamed Caliber Systems. We had to switch to new uniforms, after the Roadway Express spinoff, that said RPS only, as Roadway Express had the rights to the Roadway name. Fed Ex Ground's current "ISP or CSP", whatever they call their contractors, is a different concept from RPS' P & D contractors. 3 routes were the maximum P & D contractors were allowed in the olden days, and they were given to senior P & D contractors & terminal managers' drinking buddies. Most P & D contractors only had one route. One contractor at another terminal brownnosed his way to 4, I heated up the phone lines to contractor relations, luckily for him, I sold out and left before I could instigate legal action against RPS. The terminal manager that gave the guy 4 routes, also broke the rules when the HD routes were opened, the manager gave 1 to each existing contractor. Now the FEG contractors have like 12 to 20 routes, and FEG is using the old "cartage company concept" that Airborne Express used for years, and that DHL continued when they bought Airborne.

 

[DriverNerd]

You brought back a 6 year old thread for that?