PiggyShip is based in Los Angeles, where the Better Business Bureau (BBB) tells Contact 6 why it gives the company an ‘F’ rating.
“It’s because they don’t talk to us. They don’t answer their complaints. They don’t communicate,” said Steve McFarland, president of the BBB serving Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. “I think it’s consumer beware.”
Please stop using these last mile shippers with terrible reputation in the United States. Free shipping last mile delivery should be USPS!
Maybe around this time last year, I was receiving all my shipments from China via USPS last mile, without a single problem. Suddenly PiggyShip / UniUni is handling my shipment from China to Phoenix and its been unpredictable and a source of anxiety.
Shipments leave China reliably and clear customs in the US … only to go into some black hole of terrible status tracking, non-existent customer service, and inconsistent in delivery schedules. I’ve had stuff sitting in a local warehouse for weeks, ‘out for delivery’ for days, a $300 order of firefly lights thrown over the wall …
Yes, I can spend another $20 for DHL, but this all worked great a year ago with USPS and without having to spend an extra for premium shipping …
UniUni and PiggyShip are the only delivery services I know of in the US where “Package is out for delivery” literally does not mean “package is out for delivery”. How is one supposed to plan for delivery, like being around so its not stolen, when it’s “out for delivery” a whole week+?
And during that week, where the heck is it? Somebody’s car?
IME, not all but many. Here’s my experience during my South America road trip:
FedEx: expensive, but absolutely rocks. Perfect tracking, quick delivery, absolutely no issues – used them quite a few times both in Chile and Brazil and had ZERO issues. They’re my number 1 option when I need something delivered with certainty and speed. Kudos to Hank for offering them as an option!
Starken.cl: best last-mile shipping company in Chile. used them many times and have never had an issue. Much less expensive than FedEx too; if they operated internationally I would use them for everything.
DHL: not great, but not the worst either – never used them in Brazil, but did a few times in Chile, and they always delivered, albeit taking their own sweet time if you’re away from the city center (case in point: right now I’ve a package coming from Amazon being delivered by them, and they’ve just delayed it by 4 more days with absolutely no explanation. And forget going to their shipping offices, they’re totally rude and unhelpful (once one of their employees called the police on me when I insisted on a receipt for a couple of returning, expensive packages I had just dropped there – the police station was just across the street but they didn’t bother to come as apparently the lady in question had a history of hysterics and they didn’t want to waste their time).
Correios do Brasil (government-owned mail service): used them a couple of times since my last time there – not the fastest nor easiest to deal with, but no issues either.
Correos de Chile (ditto): used to be the worst of the worst (I had a couple of horror stories with them) but has been getting better as of late. Received a pair of packages through them in the last month, both times I had to go to their post office to pick them up but no further issues. They’re the official delivery agent for AliExpress, Yanwee and a few others.
Chilexpress: another last mile delivery company in Chile. unhelpful call center and a history of delayed deliveries, but otherwise no issues. I have used them when Starken is not an option.
Bluexpress.cl: sucks big time, haven’t delivered in time not even once, no phone service and tracking only shows events days later. Amazon used them some time ago for last-mile Chile delivery, but fortunately have since stopped.
Shipit.cl : they’re so bad I call them ShipS#it (replace the ‘#’ with the obvious consonant): delivery to the wrong address, lost packages, damaged packages so much they come with missing items inside(!), tracking absolutely sucks, no call center to phone and obtain info or complain, etc. 3 words: avoid, avoid and avoid.
Better than PiggyShip and UniUni, but still not great, at least in my experience in the USA. For me, USPS would be best. DHL is about as good as OnTrac as well.
IMO it would be a great idea to create one, But I think it would have to be regionalized at least by continent and in many cases country, eg a poll for EU, a different poll for the US, another for Canada, etc.
Therein lies the rub. Within the same country, there are going to be differences between regions. PiggyShip doesn’t work on the east coast, and is pretty much west coast only. However, anything is better than UniUni and PiggyShip. I would gladly take OnTrac over those two, even if it’s not as good as the big three, being USPS, FedEx, and UPS.
Sure thing! But only the users in those regions would be able to tell those differences, so my suggestion would be to ask them to share their knownlege in the comments. Then the comments can be sampled for whoever puts the poll up, and if need be, a new poll can be set up reflecting those differences. Complex, yes, but the situation itself is also complex, so…
We even get differences in regions in Britain, which is about the same size as Nebraska. I know people who wouldn’t touch Evri with someone else’s barge-pole but they’ve always been good for me and I live down a private road and have a post-code that sends you two miles away if you use sat nav to try to find it.
I’ve had multiple issues with Uniuni shipping, ordering from multiple vendors. Recently a package I ordered from Convoy went missing after Uniuni had marked it delivered. The delivery photo they provided of “my door” was unrecognizable, and I’m not exactly sure where they threw the package, or if they even tried to deliver it. When I reached out to Uniuni to ask what happened, they could not give an answer and instead directed me to ask the seller for a refund. I found this to be terrible customer service.
When I reached out to Simon, he offered to resend the package with a better shipper - my order is now on its way to me via USPS, and I really appreciated him helping me out when Uniuni had caused the issue. Thank you again!
I’d add to the conversation that for the US, on the west coast, Uniuni is bottom tier shipping. Ontrac is good, and USPS is excellent.
BTW I have gotten a couple of things from Wurkkos recently using UniUni. I don’t like them. Very slow and no communication. I found a package that I discovered had been delivered the day before out on my front lawn. Tracking showed it had been “delivered” . No email or other communication indicating anything. Their tracking info is also sadly lacking. I guess they are used specifically because they are cheap. SO, at least in this case, we get what the shipper pays for… crap!
OTH Yanwen has always been fine. They use USPS for final delivery. So I can always get decent tracking info and status notifications.
