This week, the company told NBC News that it is clearing more than 90% of the packages it handles through customs on the first day.
The rest of the packages, or less than 10%, require more time to clear customs and need to be held until they do. That could easily mean that thousands of UPS packages every day are not clearing customs on their first try.
That’s a problem.
That’s yikes but also…
I hate to say it, but I did wonder (alongside @ModernSwitch ) if this could happen… 
UPS subreddit is FULL of complaints about packages being disposed of and it seems like it’s resulting in a lot of never ending telephone games. UPS blaming customs, customs blaming UPS.
It’s a puzzle for sure because you are not seeing the complaints much in fedex or usps at least about packages being thrown away.
But yeah who is supposed to store all this stuff? And without a proper method of storage (first in first out), some of these packages are going to be missing for months of not years unless they really are just tossing â– â– â– â– in an incinerator .
It will erode trust in UPS as a brand for sure. Even if it’s customs fault, people will still blame UPS. That they should have known better or done something different, etc etc etc.
So are the yarn subs, with US shoppers waiting on their UK-based and Turkey-based yarns. Some of them have reported what someone in the article did, which is a constant stream of conflicting notifications.
I wonder if UPS is actually trying to play by the tariff rules, while FedEx and others might have a more “relaxed” approach for th me moment. Or if UPS just has so many more packages.
Triggered by the apparent ineptitude, I visited the UPS website to see who is running the company.
I was amazed by the lack of transportation and logistics experience in top management.
The CEO is a former chief bean counter at Home Depot.
For many years, top management at UPS was home grown with people who started at the bottom and new the company and their industry.
De minimus made it easy for UPS to be inept and still collect customs clearance fees.
Does UPS run “lost packages” auctions as do the USPS and the airlines?
If they can’t clear them, they can’t auction them I would think…
I do wonder about that. They will think of some way to profit from the situation.
The son of a cabinet member is peddling some sort of tariff refund scheme to various businesses, should the tariffs be recinded.
I find it hard to believe that will happen until at least 2029, unless, the courts….
I can’t write it here, but google:Lutnick sons and tariff refund rights.
That isn’t all that they are doing according to this story from the Supply Chain Dive newsletter –
With de minimis gone, UPS halts money-back guarantee on US imports
“This change has resulted in a substantial rise of formal customs clearances, which has led to increased processing times and delays,” UPS said of de minimis’ end in a service alert for Canada shippers.
Obviously there was NO WAY to anticipate this happening… 
TPTB would have to care, but they do not. They prefer there be no imports. Whether you like it or not, the tariff advocates would prefer no imports. The income from tariffs is still only their second choice.