Today I started to receive the following message from the UPS API:

User Id and Shipper Number combination is not qualified to receive negotiated rates.

and to make matters worse, the result of this issue caused the checkout process to error preventing our customers from finishing their orders.

So after doing a little research on my end I ended up calling the UPS technical support phone number for the United States:

Over the phone we went over the following steps:

UPS.COM
You must add and authenticate your account using Account Summary to view Negotiated Rates in UPS Internet Shipping, Time and Cost Calculator on ups.com, and the UPS Developer Kit - Shipping and Rating APIs.

To add and authenticate an account:

1. Login to ups.com using your My UPS ID and password.
2. Select the My UPS tab at the top of the page.
3. Select Account Summary from the navigation menu or the tab rollover.
4. From there select Add an Existing UPS Account.
5. Follow the steps to authenticate the account. To authenticate your account you will need the following information from your most recent UPS invoice: invoice date, amount due, invoice number, and control number.

Normally this should work but for us it did not because we already did those steps. My case was escalated and I am waiting for a call back.

I disabled UPS on the website so our customers could still place an order. Now I can breath a little easier.

I will update this post with the resolution as it becomes available.

*UPDATE at 1:57pm*
UPS called me back and told me there is a global outage for negotiated rates. They estimate a minimum of 2 hours to restore access.