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FedEx, and HELL VTL to the rescue

Well, about a month and a half ago I sold a pair of VTL monoblocks to a gentleman in Canada. A real nice guy. They left on the 19th of August and one amp arrived and the other just disappeared.

The buyer, being an understanding and patient guy agreed that we should wait it out for a bit. I called FedEx almost daily and got the same BS response - "We don't know", "Maybe you should just file a claim".

After dealing with FedEx for as many years as I have, I know that things do not just disappear. This past Friday, I made my usual daily call to FedEx and spoke with a very smart women. She asked "Was there a manufacturers name on the box?". I told her the VTL logo was on the box. Clever as she was, she checked the shipping records out of Portland to VTL in Chino, California and found that on the 27th of August, VTL received a shipment of the same weight. We then called VTL and spoke with Bea.

Bea is marvelous and was genuinely helpful and concerned. She asked for the serial number of the amplifier and verified that the amplifier was received by their shipping department on that very day. Of course VTL had no idea what the amp was doing there since there was no RA or label.

What we speculate happened was the boxes were loaded on top of each other and the top one when it was being pulled off, must have removed the shipping label from the lower box. FedEx had no idea where it was to go, so they returned it to VTL, who they thought was the shipper.

My applauds and thanks to Bea at VTL for being so kind and helping with this situation.
jtinn
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lak
4,643 posts
 
What a great human-interest story, thanks for sharing. It’s nice to hear how a mystery was solved!
Best Regards...
danlib1
819 posts
 
Well, that's one story, and it ended very nicely.

Mine didn't end quite as well.

I shipped 2 speakers, each in an identical box, to a nice fellow in St. Louis. Both were scanned in back to back in Memphis at the Fed-Ex hub. My buyer received one, but the other one simply "disappeared" IN THE FED EX FACILITY IN MEMPHIS.

I filed a claim, and of course Fed-Ex would only pay for the one missing speaker. Trouble was, these speakers were no longer manufactured, and we could'nt buy just one. No matter how I argued it, I was told they were sorry, but paying for the one speaker was their only obligation.

We got screwed.

Moral of the story- If you're shipping a pair of speakers, band them together as one shipment, put 'em on a pallet, and send as insured freight.
mwilson
430 posts
 
Danlib1 - wait until they stack something on top of your pallet that is clearly marked "DO NOT STACK", regardless of how well banded or over-packed it is. Or when they run forks through your pallet it in a warehouse. Neither have happened to me with audio transactions (only a couple things I've ever shipped/received were big enough to send common carrier), but I've encountered this regularly in sending/receiving computer equipment at work.

There is no way to guarantee success as soon as your cherished item leaves your sight. Excuses are all you'll get from the shipping industry, and that's if you're lucky.

I'm starting to really appreciate the motivations of sellers who list "will deliver within x miles radius", and "will meet buyer halfway". Some items just aren't a good bet to ship.
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