Thanks for the warning James! I've had really good luck with the terminal-to-terminal shipper ForwardAir http://www.forwardair.com for shipping oversized and awkward objects. There are several drawbacks, but if you can live with them they are a bargain and have been very fast and reliable in my experience. The drawbacks are:
Being terminal-to-terminal the item has to be dropped off and picked up at one of their terminals which are only in select metropolitan areas, usually near the airport. See their site or phone the 800 number for locations.
You need to pack your items yourself in such a way that they could be easily secured to a pallatte. Obvious precautions must be taken to protect fragile items like speakers.
Payment is by money order only. No checks, no cash, no credit cards. Consequently, you need to bring the item to the terminal to determine the shipping, then go to the closest 7-eleven, PO or purveyor of MO's and buy an MO and return to pay them. What a PITA!
If you can deal with those limitations, they have provided me with excellent service with about five separate shipments, all fragile, all large and all impossible to ship by any of the conventional ground carriers, nor by Greyhound (another alternative for larger packages).
Again, I appreciate the warning regarding Craters & Freighters and will definitely avoid using them. I'm currently having a really annoying experience with a UPS shipment. I dropped off an amplifier (very well packed, very large and heavy) at my local UPS Store (the franchise owned by UPS). They signed for it at the store since I'd already paid for the shipment through my account online. It had the barcoded address label attached to it. Well, that was five days ago and it was heading from the West Coast to the East Coast. Problem is there is no tracking record of it with UPS! I've been on the phone with both UPS and The UPS store, and both assure me that it must have gone out and that it must be a tracking glitch. The guy at the UPS store does remember signing for it and insists the driver took it: So they tell me either the driver did not scan it when she picked it up, or the barcode was bad and the scan is not registering on the system, or is registering as some other package. Anyway, they tell me it will show up on the East Coast on the date it is supposed to, but it is REALLY annoying to pay for the service and have no idea where the package is! Anyone else have bad experience with the UPS tracking system? It is insured, of course, but that is a whole other nightmare of the shipping world. Shipping companies have really gone downhill over the past ten years IMO!
Being terminal-to-terminal the item has to be dropped off and picked up at one of their terminals which are only in select metropolitan areas, usually near the airport. See their site or phone the 800 number for locations.
You need to pack your items yourself in such a way that they could be easily secured to a pallatte. Obvious precautions must be taken to protect fragile items like speakers.
Payment is by money order only. No checks, no cash, no credit cards. Consequently, you need to bring the item to the terminal to determine the shipping, then go to the closest 7-eleven, PO or purveyor of MO's and buy an MO and return to pay them. What a PITA!
If you can deal with those limitations, they have provided me with excellent service with about five separate shipments, all fragile, all large and all impossible to ship by any of the conventional ground carriers, nor by Greyhound (another alternative for larger packages).
Again, I appreciate the warning regarding Craters & Freighters and will definitely avoid using them. I'm currently having a really annoying experience with a UPS shipment. I dropped off an amplifier (very well packed, very large and heavy) at my local UPS Store (the franchise owned by UPS). They signed for it at the store since I'd already paid for the shipment through my account online. It had the barcoded address label attached to it. Well, that was five days ago and it was heading from the West Coast to the East Coast. Problem is there is no tracking record of it with UPS! I've been on the phone with both UPS and The UPS store, and both assure me that it must have gone out and that it must be a tracking glitch. The guy at the UPS store does remember signing for it and insists the driver took it: So they tell me either the driver did not scan it when she picked it up, or the barcode was bad and the scan is not registering on the system, or is registering as some other package. Anyway, they tell me it will show up on the East Coast on the date it is supposed to, but it is REALLY annoying to pay for the service and have no idea where the package is! Anyone else have bad experience with the UPS tracking system? It is insured, of course, but that is a whole other nightmare of the shipping world. Shipping companies have really gone downhill over the past ten years IMO!