UPS Shipping/Damage Claim policy experience


For your general information:

I made a claim to UPS regarding an item bought through A'gon. It arrived in what I call 4/10 condition; the shipper (a newbie) says he sent it in 8/10 condition.

I made a claim to UPS, preferring to believe the shipper that the item arrived damaged.

Apparently, in the eyes of UPS the machine still belongs to the shipper and will only pay him. Moreover, they refuse to have any scale for damage. If you send it to them as damaged, you better consider it totaled since you are unlikely to see it again.

In my case it would have been better to pay to have it repaired independently; it would have been more money out of my pocket, but I feel I would get a semblance of what I paid for. Now I may not get the item back and the shipper will end up with my money twice!!!

Hope this never happens to you, but beware of who you choose to ship with. For me, it's now always going to be the USPS.
mrfonda
Swampwalker, That is exactly what I thought. Kind of scary shipping speakers, mono-blocks, or items with power supplies packaged separately.
Last year I purchased a pair of speakers which arrived damaged... and came to realize that there is a long and steep learning curve when dealing with the UPS's and FedEx's of the world. Everything said above about items falling off conveyor systems, and worthless insurnace coverage is sadly true.

In that experience, the most honest and helpful answers came from the person who picked up the damaged cartons to take them to the "special warehouse". That person said that anything of value has to be shipped either UPS Ground or FedEx Ground, because "Ground" is the safest way.

I enjoyed the story about meeting the shipping company on the small claims court house steps... which says to me that when someone says "see you in court" the UPS's and FedEx's of the world know their responsible for the damage.

At the same time, when you look at the newer speaker designs, a lot of them are moving away from the square sharp edge designs. I wonder if that has something to do with the manufacturers incuring shipping damage costs.
Bowling balls or books are the ONLY things I would ever ship UPS.. They flat out suck...