APRIL 2020 was a bad month for this scrivener.
I had dealings with a reluctant medical equipment company.
My mail was routinely late or not delivered or collected, either.
Sequestered in the house, my purchases were via the WWW.
Those that were delivered by someone other than the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) arrived on time and were left at the door.
THE USPS, which unless I am mistaken, still gets some of our tax dollars and regularly raises the price of postage, can’t get it right.
Today, I am waiting for a package that should have been delivered on 1 May. Today is 4 May.
Where is my package? According to USPS (see image, below), the package was shipped from the vendor on 25 April from Houston TX via DHL.
The above image was checked for changes shortly before this entry was uploaded.
USPS reports that the package arrived at the DHL facility in ORLANDO Fl (why Orlando?) on 28 April.
- Why Orlando? Miami FL is the USPS regional center for my area. Maybe DHL drivers are afraid to drive in Dade County. I don’t blame them.
The package has been sitting in Orlando — doing what? Waiting for Universal and the Mouse to open the parks again? — since 28 April.
The famous Barefoot Mailman1 could have delivered the package on foot by now.
Let’s see, April 28 was a Tuesday. The package, USPS claims, arrived at the Orlando DHL facility at 4:08 a.m.
So, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday, and now Tuesday, 5 May. Six full days to get a small package from Orlando to Miami to Hollywood FL.
But USPS reports that the package STILL sits in Orlando at DHL’s facility. If USPS knows the package is being held at the DHL facility, why doesn’t it prompt DHL to move it to USPS?
Complaining is a waste if time
We have absolutely terrible service where I live.
I subscribe to the USPS Informed Delivery service that shows me the mail I can expect on the same or next day. (The items are scanned in the Miami facility and then sent to my local distribution office where the mail is sorted and the letter carrier assigned to my route collects the mail for my address.)
The mail often is stuffed into the wrong mail box if it is delivered at all.
When it is delivered by the regular carrier, the mail arrives — when it arrives — after 6 p.m. (When the mail arrives in a timely manner — say before 5 p.m. — we know the alternate carrier was delivering that day.)
This is a motor route, so the carrier cannot blame the bad service on sore feet. Lately the days have been “warm,” but mostly rain free.
My neighbors and I have complained to the local distribution center. Nothing can be done.
I complained to the USPS Inspector General. Based on the response I got from that address, I think I was dealing with the USPS Inspector Private (E-1)! Useless.
I’ve even electronically buttonholed my U.S. senators; for that I received a “got your note” response but nothing more.
Talk abut job security.
Letter carriers are protected like none other.
We have had excellent service in the past — elsewhere.
Yet another Hyundai recall
Recently Hyundai sent me a recall letter for my 2008 Elantra.
Problem with the brake system.
Keep the car away from buildings, it said, because it could catch fire due to a brake component — even if the car is turned off.
This is the second time there has been a recall for a brake related issue.
The first time I took my care to the Rick Case dealership on US 441/FL 7 was to replace a faulty brake component. Turned out the replacement component was faulty. The replacement unit kept my brake lights lit and caused me to call road service to jump the battery. The chief mechanic told me to “get a new battery.” He had one for more than $200. I bought a battery elsewhere.
When the same thing happened again, the battery was once again jumped and I drove to the dealership. FINALLY someone diagnosed the problem: a faulty replacement part.
In the end, the service manager refunded what I paid for the battery and, most reluctantly, replaced the bulbs that were never intended to be on for long periods.
Given the current conditions, being sequestered at home due to the Chinese virus du jour, and seeing tv advertisements that car dealers were going to their clients rather than forcing their clients to come to them (and sit in a waiting room shared with other possibly virus-infected customers), I asked via email, and later snail mail, if Rick Case would do the same. I am in the “high risk” category and the recall warned that the car could catch fire at any time, even with everything turned off.
I heard nothing from Rick Case.
I heard nothing from Hyundai HQ.
This, then, is my first, and last, Hyundai. The CAR’S OK; the DEALER is not.
My wife took her Hyundai (now replaced with a Benz) to the Rick Case shop in Weston for a wheel alignment.
The job was done AND THEN the mechanic told my wife the car needed new struts, a/k/a “shocks.”
- Wait — if shocks (struts) are replaced, don’t the wheels have to be aligned?
Yes, of course. Even kids in high school auto class know that.
But you just aligned the wheels and THEN checked the suspension? A Dilbert moment.
Granted, the car is not a $60,000 or more vehicle, but to fail to even ACKNOWLEDGE multiple communications is unconscionable, both on the part of Risk Case and Hyundai, especially when the communications are about a federally-mandated safety recall..
Rolling along with a rollator
I am unbalanced. Most of my alleged friends will attest to that.
In truth, I can’t walk far without toppling over, even when I am sober as the proverbial judge.
To get around, my doctor ordered a rollator for me.
A rollator, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a four-wheel walker.
The first rollator that came my way was for a shorter person; the handle bars maximum height above ground was 35 inches.
It let me get around, but it left me with pains in the shoulders, neck, and triceps.
Worse, my point of vision was about three feet in front of the rollator so, unless I lifted my head (painful) I could not see cars, mothers with perambulators, or loose canines approaching.
My doctor agreed to order a new rollator with much higher handle bars.
GETTING the new rollator from One Homecare was more “painful” than using the too-small-for-me original rollator.
The office ordered the rollator and One Homecare rejected it, it lacked a specific part number.
One Homecare called me — the patient — and told me — the patient — what the order needed to be acceptable.
- Can you call my doctor’s office and tell the people there what you need?
No, we don’t have that capability.
Can you fax the information to my doctor’s office?
No, we don’t have that capability.
Unbelievable.
Finally my doctor’s office “got it right” and One Homecare sent it to Humana, my Medicare Advantage plan company, for approval.
Humana approved the rollator and called me, leaving the usual cryptic message “The service your doctor ordered has been approved.” The patient gets to guess WHICH “service” the doctor ordered.
At this point, One Homecare should be calling me to set up a delivery date.
Instead, if bounced the Humana authorization back to Humana to cross an “T” or dot an “I”.
I called One Homecare customer service several times and never got satisfaction.
It turns out One Homecare had to order the rollator (from China where it is manufactured?) and it finally arrived. (Had One Homecare told me the device was back-ordered, I would have understood.)
The new, red, Drive Nitro Tall rollator finally was delivered and quickly put into use.
- To its credit, One Homecare delivered both rollators fully assembled and the delivery person even gave a brief demonstration of how it works.
Sources
1. Barefoot mailman: https://tinyurl.com/y9qnft2o
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.
No comments:
Post a Comment