UPS Shipping/Damage Claim policy experience

I worked for UPS awhile ago as a claims adjuster. Did you know it is very common practice that a courier says a package must be able to fully withstand a five foot drop on bare ground? This is almost an industry standard no matter which courier you choose. The reasoning is the automated conveyor system every center utlizes. When there is a jam, the packages will be bottlenecked and one may fall past the guides and fall to the floor. This is extremely rare, but it certainly does happen.

To properly protect an item in transit of a delicate nature generally requires two or even three corrugated layers with proper fill volume in between each. the vast majority of people that ship do not know how to properly ensure against damages, and these are the people at most risk of experiencing such damage.

If you do have a claim, always save every ounce of packing material. Additionally, if there is no clear outward damage to the parcel, the claim will be denied 100% of the time.

UPS is by far the worst of the shipping companies. Though there is no way in Hell that I would trust anything of value to the our wonderfully government employed post office workers.

I bought a 90 pound tubed amp from a guy in California in mid 2007 who packaged it in a BBQ grill box with foam peanuts and loose tubes. The box arrived via UPS and I made my UPS guy (Mike) stand there and watch me open it, taking pics the whole way.

I knew the claim would never be paid as it was terribly packaged. However, I immediately filed with Paypal (my only method of payment for items I purchase that I don't personally pick-up). The seller shipped it for 25% of the selling price. I ended up getting my money back, but it wasn't easy. The box was rated for about 50 pounds and nobody in their right mind would have every packaged a $5000 fragile amp in it. I am sure the seller lost a ton of money on this feable, lazy attempt.

My rule is to photograph the packaging process as proof of proper packaging. For any very heavy items, I always add plywood to the sides and bottom of the boxes as added protection. I always make sure the boxes are rated for 150% of the actual weight.

I never use UPS and always use either DHL or FedEx I hear both a more reliable with handling claims on a reasonable basis. I can honestly say I have never had any shipping damage on anything I have shipped and three times on items I have received - all via UPS.

From my experience UPS is a real CRAP they lost a Mephisto Drive years ago, denied their responsability and offer me a basic 100$ refund that i did not accept because i went in court with tem it took nearly one year and i won over UPS because of the international rules regarding their responsability and during one year they lies to my trying to escape their responsability.
Mister Brown is a kind of para military that do not have any respect for their customers...
UPS NO NEVER (got good result with satandard USPS depending of the weight of the products)

Although I won my only claim against them in Small Claims Court, I may not have needed to go there had I not asked their claims examiner if there was any truth to the rumor that "UPS" stood for "Ur Parcel Slipped".

Although I haven't had any damaged packages using UPS, I always try to stay away from it and use Fedex. The packages handled by UPS often times are delivered with dents, small holes, crushed corners, etc. UPS handles packages very roughly. I am quite happy with Fedex.