UPS shuts down SYR and ReptilesExpress

[Tony]

Got this email today from Debbie at ReptilesExpress, very bad news for the herp hobby.

Tony,
Both company's are shut down First Syr then us here is a copy of the letter from owners
I wanted to explain the current situation with RE and UPS. We have a few people in corporate UPS that have been battling for RE and the reptile industry. There was only 2 more issues we have been working with UPS to find a permanent solution to: Snake Shipping and 3rd party billing (reselling labels). Early this week we made a huge step forward and got waiver free snake shipping approved with UPS through RE. Today we received some very bad news from UPS. The folks in UPS that have been working very hard to get these issues approved lost a very important battle today. We have been told that UPS has sent out a cease and desist order to SYR and pulled there accounts. They told RE today that they can not keep the lawyers from sending the same letter to us. We have been told are accounts are still active and we will need to wait for some of the fires to be put out before they will allow RE as a reseller of shipping labels to the reptile industry. We have 6 months of emails and phone calls assuring RE that our website and business plan was approved before we officially launched our site and most of the problems we have had are from outside pressure being applied to UPS. We will continue to work with UPS to work out this unfortunately series of events and will do everything we can to offer reasonable overnight reptile shipping in the future. We have removed the label option from our website until further notice. We wanted to apologize to all of our members and promise we will do everything possible to work this out with UPS. I placed a call to Chad at SYR today to see if we can work together with UPS to resolve these issues. I have not received a call back. I think at this point we just need to work with UPS together and stop the heat that is being applied at the corporate office. Thanks for the support and please post this in the other forums. We can't hit them all.
--
Thank You,
Debbie Price
debbie@reptilesexpress.com

[John]

Thanks for posting this, Tony. So where does that leave us? I've used shipyourreptiles.com several times to ship my frogs. I can't see a reason why we can't still use UPS but it's going to cost a lot more.

[Tony]

It sounds like UPS is still viable for now, but no more discounted rates. I suspect that they will shut down all herp shipping soon enough if there really is pressure from outside UPS (government? I'm not sure what was meant by that). There is also FedEx, but each individual must go through their certification process.

[John]

What's involved in getting certified by FedEx?

[Tony]

You have to open an account (free), contact the representative for your region and let them know you wish to become certified to ship reptiles, fill out some paperwork and ship a test package to fedex for evaluation (set up just like you are shipping an animal, but no animal inside of course), then do some more paperwork for their legal department. From what I have heard it can take anywhere from two to six weeks to complete the process.

[poison beauties]

I guess I willgo ahead and get certified. This is just one part of a larger etup geared at sending our hobby. With the proposed laws through F&W with the chytrid issues we need to all get certified and make it know we wish to use this. Perhaps then they will fight to keep it around and maybe setup some better rates.

Michael

[onedge30]

Currently, what are the options for a once in a blue moon personal shipper? Do you have to have a business to open a shipping account with UPS or FedEx? And aren't there a certain number of shipments a year to maintain an account?

It feels like the little independent hobbyist is just being completely cut off from any type of shipping reptiles.

[Jeff Kennedy]

You can still go through UPS, however there are no price breaks and no real way to figure shipping. I have got burnt every time. They will even tell you themselves that their online shipping calculator is wrong and of little use. I have actually been checking in to the USPS. It is about half the cost and the packages are guaranteed by 12 PM as opposed to UPS's 10:30AM. Also, FedEx is contracted through USPS to handle their overnight packages so you get the same service at half the cost. They also do offer discounts I believe for business's.

[Pop Alexandra]

What's the current favorite courier service platform for reptile shipment?