A week after the first snowflakes started to fall, Sandy Springs-based UPS was still dealing with delayed packages around metro Atlanta.
The company’s delivery vehicles were back on the road two days after the Jan. 28 snowfall, spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg said. But many streets were still impassable, and businesses were closed and unable to accept packages, she said.
Often, that meant UPS drivers had to return packages to hubs, and those packages, coupled with new deliveries, led to a backlog of packages that kept deliveries delayed. Rosenberg said it should be cleared by Wednesday.
“It’s not a weather issue, it’s just clearing through the backlog,” she said.
Rosenberg would not say how many deliveries had been delayed, or what it would cost the company. UPS spent $50 million in the fourth quarter for service refunds after delivery delays kept people from getting orders, as promised, before Christmas, but Rosenberg said the company would not be refunding people due to the snow.
“It was an act of God,” she said.
John Fortin, a Midtown Atlanta resident, finally received a delivery late Tuesday afternoon that was supposed to arrive last Thursday.
He thought UPS should refund the money for delayed deliveries because the company took too long to recover after the storm.
“I understand the storm caused problems initially, but they dropped the ball,” he said. “They didn’t deliver it in a timely fashion.”
Fortin did receive a shipping refund, but it was from the retailer, not UPS.
A FedEx spokeswoman said in an email that the company was “back to standard daily operations,” but did not say if all local packages had been delivered.
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