UPS by Shipstation charging Residential Surcharges as Adjustment fees after shipping

[RobC]

Starting about a month ago, we started to see that our UPS Air and Worldwide Saver packages are getting hit with residential surcharges. I contacted support three weeks ago and they confirmed that "UPS by Shipstation" does not have residential surcharges and they told me that needed to escalate this with the Carrier Wallet team and UPS.  I've followed up each of the last two weeks & no info yet.

Anyone shipping with "UPS by Shipstation" should check your reports for adjustment fees.  Getting to the reports isn't straightforward as you have to go to Settings/Shipping/Carriers and click on the vertical "..." next to USPS (not UPS) then select "View Reports", then click "Balances" on the left, then change the "Trend" pull-down menu at the top to "Transactions".  Be sure to broaden the date range. It doesn't have a column for carrier, filters are disabled on the balance report, you can't sort it, and the Download feature doesn't include any detail.  You just have to scroll through all of your transactions & look for "Adjustment Fee" and click on each one individually to get the details.

Be sure to check your shipments that are at least a week old as the adjustments seem to take a few days to show up. 

Other quirks getting to the reports: When clicking "View Reports", If you get an "Authentication Failed. Postage Tools exception code 0x004c0106" error, you need to click out of Shipping and back into it, then select USPS->View Reports again. 

If your Balances report says "No data available", from within the report reselect "Transactions" from the pulldown menu at the top again & click Balances on the left again.  Seems a little buggy. 

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[Ktinamk188]

 Yep! I have been having the same issue for literal years and it took me until last year to realize and figure out how to check/dispute. Shame on shipstation for not informing us.

[UniquelyGeekly]

Yep.  I stopped using UPS via ShipStation because of this and a flurry of additional handling charges that shouldn't have been applied.  I managed to negotiate better rates with UPS directly and started using a UPS account that way.  I've just discovered that the UPS API doesn't appear to be pulling in details of surge charges when giving me label totals though and so my invoice costs are higher than what I've expected from the prices displayed by ShipStation. ☹️

[RobC]

They make it incredibly cumbersome to locate the surcharges that Shipstation says they don't charge.  

RE: UPS. I negotiated no residential or fuel surcharges with UPS & got the same rates as ship station (UPS calls this "transactional rates"). Ended up switching to fedex though & they were able to waive all surcharges as well except for Fedex Ground Home Delivery extended area surcharges. 

[Ktinamk188]

All of this! 👆 I been in direct contact with shipstation about all of this and they don't seem to care to figure out how to let us setup our label PRE-PURCHASE to avoid this. I keep just being thrown a ups fee document. 😂 What a joke. They keep telling me that their system automatically checks the address and marks them as residential or commercial, but I keep getting charged residential fees (that are like double my label cost mind you) and there is no way to manually mark an address as residential. So. Shipstation auto address checker us wrong. They are aware. 

[CaraAdmin]

Hello @Ktinamk188, @RobC and @UniquelyGeekly!

Thank you for your post and for sharing your frustrations—we truly hear you. We understand how important accurate shipping rates are to our users, as they play a crucial role in determining the best shipping options for your customers.

Since the rates displayed in ShipStation come directly from the carriers, we rely on their systems to provide the most accurate estimates. When you request a rate, ShipStation sends all relevant shipping details—addresses, weight, dimensions, service type, and special options—to the carrier’s API. The carrier then returns an estimated rate, which we display in our system. While we refer to these as "estimated rates," it’s important to clarify that ShipStation does not generate the estimates—we simply relay the information received from the carrier. We understand that discrepancies can be frustrating, and we appreciate your patience as we continue working to provide the best possible shipping experience.

One thing we can do for merchants is help them understand where these adjustments come from and how to avoid I have attached a few articles within our help center: 

UPS from ShipStation: Post-Shipping Adjustments

ShipStation Carrier Adjustments

I hope you find these articles helpful!

-Cara

[Ktinamk188]

I am receiving adjustments for "residential" fees, but shipstation has literally zero way to manually mark my address as residential BEFORE shipping. You keep telling me that your address verification auto does that, but it is clearly WRONG because almost every package i have sent via ups, they've come back and hit me with this fee that is over DOUBLE what I paid for originally. If I could correctly mark the address as residential before shipping then it would be more accurate.