Can You Trust a Shipper? (UPS, Fed-Ex, etc)


No you cannot, and here's why: In July, I bought a Rotel tuner from an ebay seller with a rating of 99.8% on hundreds of transactions. He shipped the tuner via UPS, who delivered the tuner to a business a few miles from my house. Someone from that business signed for my package (it is a warehouse that takes in merchandise from retailers that is being returned to the wholesaler from whence it came). It took several weeks to find this out, and I went to the business back around Labor Day to see what they had to say. I was allowed into the warehouse to do a cursory search for the package, but there must have been 4,000 - 5,000 boxes. PayPal denied a claim I had filed, because the tracking info the seller shared with them showed the package had been delivered. I went to the local UPS store today and was told that a claim had been filed by the seller with UPS and they would have reimbursed him. Moral of the story: Always have your signature required when you have anything shipped, unless you want to fall into this same black hole. Better yet, avoid having anything shipped unless it is from an actual retailer or other reputable company.

 

discnik

@awise1961

Insurance through FedEx and UPS is worthless. When it comes to paying up, they will do all possible to accept any responsibility. Your best insurance is packaging, pack well to the point that box can withstand 3 stories drop or palletize your shipment, almost a requirement for anything weighs over 75lbs. A good measure is, if you can’t lift the box yourself comfortably, it ain’t going to be handled with care.

My UPS driver is a skinny dude, weighs no more than 110lbs. You can do the math. Both UPS / FedEx drivers don’t use any equipment during unloading the boxes :-)

With our ubiquitous cameras, the delivery companies should be offering photo evidence of delivery. Amazon often does it and the food delivery companies almost always do.

They could have body mounted cameras and take a photo of the building location or person it's left with. That photo could show up as a text to sender and recipient in seconds. 

The past two years I’ve been using a local packaging and shipping service that caters to both residential and commercial, nationally and internationally. What I’ve learned from our conversations is that it doesn’t matter if it’s UPS or FedEx - both will attempt to deny an insurance claim, and claims are denied all the time. 

For example, if sending a used component with original packaging and box, and the component becomes damaged during shipment: you didn’t provide adequate packaging as the original yet used cardboard box is considered to have “lost integrity” after initial shipment. The suggestion is to double box with peanuts between the cardboard boxes while ensuring that the component has no breathing room in the original box which would allow it to move around. The packaging should be tight and the outer box should be new per my local packaging service. 

In a nutshell: package as if you’re expecting either FedEx or UPS is going scrutinize and put your packaging under a microscope to justify denial of an insurance claim. 

From personal experience of working in a UPS hub in college, it doesn’t matter if there’s a “handle with care” or “fragile” on the outside of a box. If you’re under a time crunch, which is almost always the case, those labels will often be overlooked or not seen. Loading trailers in a hub is one of the harder jobs in those companies. 

Good point on 'Fragile' stickers on packages - they have about as much impact as the old 'Baby On Board' decals do/did. Choice of packing materials and double-boxing are the most critical factors in the shipping equation, IMO. Maybe a sticker saying 'Shake Me Up/Throw Me Around' would somehow induce appropriate care on the package's journey.

@awise1961 said:

I checked and the Fed-X tracking stated that it had been delivered and signed for a by "W.Brown". Problem is, no such person works for me. I went to my receiving dept, ant indeed Fed-X Express had not been by and I did not have my package, even though Fed-X showed it as delivered.

Besides delivering to the wrong address, the other problem I've seen repeatedly is drivers lying about having obtained the proof of delivery signature. I used to collect / resell wines from cult wineries as a hobby. FedEx and UPS would both routinely put $2000+ worth of wine in my electricity meter cabinet in a large city, mark it as signed for, even though I wasn't home for delivery, and even though it's against federal law to deliver shipped alcohol without a signature. I've watched them do it on footage from my Nest cam.

It's a calculated risk on their part: Do I waste time (and lower the productivity metrics on which I am evaluated) by attempting another delivery later? Or just mark it as signed and the company takes the hit if something happens? Easy choice for the drivers...