The UPS Store

Very helpful staff, and they were conveniently open for later hours (till 7:30 PM) during graduation/​moving weeks!

I moved across the country and used this UPS store to ship my clothes and books to save some money from my moving company. Bad move.
The pickup service was very timely, but that was the only positive portion of this experience. My boxes were brought to the store and left in the truck overnight, so I did not know the charge for shipping until the next day. When I asked for a receipt, I was told that the scanner was obstructed by my boxes and they would send it to me later. They did, but the time between me letting go of my boxes and having receipt of my shipment was 5 days. Not cool.
Once my boxes got to my new home, they were a wreck. 8 of the 10 were split down the sides, probably put at the bottom of large stacks that they couldn’t support. I lost countless articles of clothing from falling out the side, and many books were scuffed or damaged.
In summary: horrible customer service, horrible treatment of my things.

These guys were super helpful. I had some important documents to mail and also needed a return label. They suggested that I get it delivered to the store and they’d give me a call when it came in. No waiting or nothing to sign. I didn’t even know UPS did that. A different one I went to tried to get me to purchase express service when it wasn’t necessary. Saying something how UPS wouldn’t deliver regular ground to my door but this store at least gave me an alternative.
When my documents arrived they called me right away and had them right behind the counter when I came to pick them up. With such convenient service I might use them more often.

Wow… My partner over-​nighted me a package from Cambridge to Montréal, or tried.
He sent it Thursday. It did not arrive Friday. According to UPS, it was not going to arrive until Monday at the earliest in spite of being at a facility IN Montréal, 10 miles
I was going to be back in the US by Monday, so Monday delivery was moot, and they couldn’t explain why they could not deliver it on Saturday.
Where it gets convoluted is that my partner had to go back to the Central Square location to get it re-​routed back to Boston, at which point they will return it to the Central Square location rather than delivered to a home address.
Furthermore, they are refusing any refund for failure of service, and then want to charge a re-​routing fee (which they won’t even give a delivery estimate for).
This is generally a bit of a WTF to me. The employees weren’t helpful at all in explaining or offering any comfort, information, or recompense. They did not mention that their 1 day shipping is really more of a suggestion before purchase, either.

This is a locally owned business. The owner (Jesse, who is often in the store helping customers) and his employees are very pleasant, helpful, and easy to work with. It’s fast and low hassle to ship something from this location.

If only parking near here was a bit easier since Mass Ave is always a «fun» place to try and park at, this UPS store would be perfect. They are so nice and friendly and chatty here, and you can tell they aren’t trying to rip you off ever price wise. When I was there they even checked out how much it would cost one customer to send her package versus the normal USPS price and she decided to just go to the post office instead and they didn’t even seem to care one bit. So nice of them to make sure their customers are happy.
They also honor AAA discounts here and even have a Unilocal check in offer for 15% off! That is nuts! More UPS stores should have that deal, but since they are the only ones that I know of in this general area that does the check in deal, I know this is the one store I will be sure to mail all of my stuff from!

DHL uses this UPS store to handle shipments, and the manager did a great job handling our recent shipment overseas. He knows his business and handled all the details flawlessly and with calm efficiency. Bravo.

I mistakenly posted this on 6÷4÷12 for the Porter Square UPS Store and just realized my error. Sorry for the delay in getting this attached to the right store!
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I had a complicated shipping project today that involved a shipment to Afghanistan via DHL, which uses this UPS store as a dropoff location. Lynne at UPS worked with me in a friendly, professional manner and made the job a pleasure, when it could have been a really frustrating experience because of the paperwork required. It’s clear to me that this is a well-​run local business, worthy of support by the 2 138 community.

WOW. I just had the most amazing experience ever that involved shipping something.
I’m moving to Chicago, and brought my last 3 boxes to this store to ship directly to my new apartment. Jesse, the owner, weighed them and then advised me that due to the large dimensions they would be quite expensive.
He asked if we could get the boxes down a couple of inches. Plenty of room in one to do so. The problem was that the other box contained my bike, and I had been unable to get the pedals off. Jesse went to the auto store next door, borrowed a wrench and got them off! It brought the cost of shipping my bike down $ 100!!!
So I didn’t have to abandon my bike or any other unwieldy possessions here in Boston due to the insane man power present in this store. Great guys :)

The manager is great! He does it all from customer service to the best shipping for your buck! Exceptional service all the time.

I went to this store to get some passport photos, and despite the simplicity of my request, I was generally very unimpressed with the place. First, the shop was littered with boxes, making it rather uninviting to even walk in. Second, the staff was painfully unfriendly. And lastly, TWO employees (not one, but two!) kept telling me that I cannot smile in passport photos. Now, I have had a number of passports in my day, and you can definitely smile in passport photos. After I insisted on taking the picture anyway (which required a great deal of insistence on my part — also contributing to the negative experience), the staff clearly didn’t know how to take passport photos. The first two were way too zoomed in on my head, and were unacceptable. By the time I finally got acceptable prints, 30 minutes had passed. The whole thing should have taken 5 minutes!
I hate being a stickler about things, but I believe if you are a shop that offers a service, at least train your employees to do that service. I’m sure passport photos aren’t the bread and butter service for a store like the UPS Store, but still. A friendlier, more informed staff would have made up for their incompetence, but sadly, this UPS Store had neither.

This UPS Store sucks. I went there to ship a handmade baby blanket to a relative in Canada. I packaged it up myself, paid the $ 32 bucks it cost to ship to Canada and was on my way. So far a pleasant transaction. Well, I get a call from my relative who says he had to pay $ 49 bucks upon receipt of the gift. What, what, what? I call the International UPS call center and was informed that any package with a value of over $ 60 dollars is charged with customs, duties, and taxes on the amount that’s over the $ 60. How would a customer possibly know this information??? Hey, here’s an idea, how about the UPS Store taking some initiative and informing their customers of these exorbitant fees on international, specifically Canadian, mail. All it would take is a sign stating something like «If you are shipping a package to Canada valued at over $ 60, the recipient will be charged customs, duty, and taxes upon receipt in Canada». That would probably take care of it. What burns me the most is that this was a homemade blanket and I arbitrarily assessed its value as $ 100 given the yarn, labor, and sentimentality of the item. Had I known that my uncle would be charged almost $ 50 for the present for his first grandchild, I would have gladly assessed the value as $ 59 dollars. I called and spoke to Jessie, who claims to be the store owner. If he is the owner, wow, because he was completely inarticulate and a douche. We got in a verbal sparring match, and like a feeble-​minded robot, he kept repeating that his customer service reps aren’t responsible for alerting customers of Canadian customs and duty fees. Nice customer service boss! The least you could do is reimburse me for my shipment so I can pay my uncle back for the $ 50 bucks it cost him to receive my present. Thanks for the full disclosure — next time I’ll ship with the U.S. Postal Service, they may be slower, but at least they let you know what the deal is.

I dig the concept — you take your stuff, they package it for you, and ship it off. I’ve gone there for years, and while I’ve always found them a bit too casual (i.e. they always say «yeah, sure we’ll email you the tracking number), everything that I’ve mailed has always gotten where it’s needed to go.
The downside is that the last package I mailed there– which had my passport and a visa application in it– was lost. Of course, this wasn’t the UPS store’s fault, but UPS Headquarters required me to negotiate with the UPS store to get my money back and the Central Square UPS store wasn’t exactly jumping up and down about paying me back for my losses.
In fact, to date, UPS hasn’t refunded me for my losses, and Jessie (the manager of the Central Sq. UPS Store) acts like he’s done me a big favor by giving me what he’s given me.
Let me just say, UPS jumps up and down to mail your stuff for you. But when they lose your stuff, suddenly they are VERY hard to reach. And the UPS Store was the same way. Sometimes I felt like Jessie was hiding from me. He acted like *I* was freakish for being upset that my package was lost (and hey, I was angry. I was about six weeks away from a trip to India, and suddenly I had to reapply for a passport AND a visa), and not once did he ever say «Hey, I’m sorry.» The whole thing just felt like really, really bad customer service.
Now I just walk to Kinkos on Mifflin Pl. in Harvard Sq. The shipping is more expensive, but they haven’t lost any of my stuff (yet).
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CODA: Here’s the best part of my UPS Tale. About six months after I mailed my package, I got a phone call from the Indian visa office in NYC. Apparently, UPS had just delivered the package. SIX MONTHS LATER. The package had been opened, my passport was there and damaged, the money order was gone, and the official who called me said the envelope had track marks on it as though it had been run over. Nice work, UPS.