Friday, December 9, 2011

Safeguarding Your Deliveries

During the 1980's, Hill Street Blues was one of my favorite TV programs.  I usually watched it alone because my husband was at work when it aired.  I had already put our toddler daughter to bed by airtime, so it was just the TV and me until a couple of hours later when hubby arrived. 

The show had a stellar cast.  One of my favorite actors was the toothpick-chewing, uber cool Detective Neal Washington (Taurean Blacque).  I liked his obvious stage name, too.  Another favorite was Officer Bobby Hill (Michael Warren), not for his acting skills, but for his good looks.  He still owns them today

Admixed with suspense, each episode solved a crime or two with good winning over evil.  Then there were the tender moments shared at the end of each episode by Captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti) and Joyce Davenport (Veronica Hamel).  Good TV.

As I shared in my previous blog post, this week I survived attempted theft of an unattended delivered, doll-filled package. Thank God for watchful neighbors and the immediate response of the local police in preventing the criminal from completing his act of crime.  This event still seems surreal.

In order to prevent this from happening to me again, other than being very vigilant regarding proposed delivery dates, I immediately placed a neon orange sticky note on my mailbox to alert all delivery drivers (UPS, USPS, and FedEx) to ring my doorbell to alert me that a package has been delivered. 

I also telephoned UPS the evening of the incident to request the courtesy of a doorbell alert when packages are delivered. 

Today I enrolled in UPS My Choice. With the basic plan, UPS will send email reminders the day before a package is scheduled for delivery, the morning of delivery, and a final email confirming that the package has been delivered. Renewable annually, this program can be upgraded to their fee-based premium service for $40(!), which includes additional services such as redirecting packages to a UPS Store for pickup or instructing UPS where on your property to leave the package, e.g. the back door.   I opted for the basic free service.  Hey, $40 can buy another doll or two.

In the event that a UPS-delivered package is stolen, an online claim can be filed under the Support tab on their website.  Here's hoping that you and I will never ever-ever-ever have to do this.

In the words of the Hill Street Blues character, Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (Michael Conrad), "Hey, let's be careful out there."



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1 comment:

  1. That is great information to know. $40 can buy you 2 Basic dolls, about 4 Fashionista dolls, 2 StarDolls, but NOT 2 new SIS dolls. Sorry. I am still miffed.

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