The United Parcel Service, better known as UPS, messed up in a pretty drastic way, leaving one family uncertain about their financial future. Lorette Taylor and Louis Paul Herbert’s father passed away and left them a large sum of money but UPS lost the inheritance. Taylor sent Herbert’s $846,000 inheritance as a bank draft after TD told her that it was the safest way to send the large sum.
The siblings decided to send the bank draft through UPS from Taylor’s lawyer in Georgetown, Ontario given that it is about 270 miles away. That way Herbert wouldn’t have to drive the long distance to pick it up himself. In retrospect, Herbert says, “I should have just driven…It’s something I kick myself in the rear over every day.”
UPS lost the bank draft. The delivery company was able to track the package to a parcel distribution center north of Toronto, but after that, the trail goes cold. Nirali Raval, a spokeswoman for UPS spoke to CBC: “While UPS’ service is excellent in our industry, we are unfortunately not perfect. Occasionally, the loss of a package does occur.”
She continued, “Our records indicate that our team followed UPS protocol and an exhaustive search for this package was completed by our Operations and Security teams. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate the package.” UPS lost the inheritance, so what did they do? They refunded the $32 it cost Taylor to mail the package, sent an apology letter, and called it a day.
To the refund, Herbert says, “That’s nice of them to say but it doesn’t solve my problems.” A bank draft is like a certified check but the fact that the money is taken from a customer’s account immediately and is held by the bank until the draft is cashed. Although TD assured Taylor that the money could be replaced if the draft was lost, they are now refusing to refund the money unless Taylor signs an agreement to pay back the bank if someone cashes the lost draft.
Taylor said that she signed the agreement because there is nothing else to do in this situation. According to her “It [the agreement] also said that if something happened to me, for example, my children and my heirs and my spouse and my executor would have to pay this debt.” To make matters worse, the bank still “never paid anyone a dime.”
She holds that since UPS lost the inheritance, “if the bank really wants indemnity, then UPS should sign it.” TD did not answer CBC’s questions regarding reimbursing the inheritance but sent out a general statement stating that “before we can agree to a replacement, we need appropriate security to be in place.” Herbert claims that he has maxed out his credit cards and he needs the inheritance immediately in order to survive. He also added that if he had the money, he would have been retired now.
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