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How Not To Ship Computers
jutus writes: "I recently relocated for work from Canada to Florida, and on a suggestion, shipped my equipment (well-packed), with UPS Ground. I've posted some images of the destruction my shipment was subjected to by UPS. UPS Ground does not insure international shipments, so basically I'm up shit creek, no paddle. They have been giving me the textbook run-around for the past week. UPS Canada blames UPS in the U.S., and you can imagine who UPS down here in the States blames. As of yet, UPS has not even attempted to negotiate any compensation for my loss due to their severe negligence ... For Gods sake, use FedEX." My luck has gone the other direction -- I've mostly had good luck with UPS and some misdeliveries with FedEx. Would be nice to hear from any UPS employees reading this about what could have led to the damage jutus illustrates.
I've always found it a bit "funny" that you have to pay an extra fee to make sure they don't break the items you're shipping.
You probably shouldn't have requested delivery by "International Trebuchet"
Now you know.
You made a couple of mistakes...
Sorry for your loss, but, yes you are up shit creek!
Does your house or renters insurance have any provision to cover moving related problems.
I sold a server on Ebay and had it packaged at a "Mailboxes Etc." in Manhattan and shipped UPS to Pennsylvania. The person who got it says it looked like it had been dropped from at least four feet, enough to crack the entire (metal) case. I had bought insurance, and UPS sent someone over to the guy's house to examine it. They have to make sure it was packed to spec or they blame the sender (Mailboxes Etc. in this case).
Despite their basically admitting it was damaged during shipment and that it was packed correctly, this was over two months ago and I'm still waiting for something to happen. They don't give me a point of contact so I have to start from scratch every time I call. Total mess.
I've been shipping things with UPS for the past few years, and only in the last 6 months have started noticing a large amount of damage to my stuff and to my friend's stuff. 3 of my friends had to send stuff back due to UPS damage during shipping.
Has anyone else noticed an increase in damage lately, or is it just me?
Why this falls under the 'Humor' icon, I can't figure out.
:( icon for such things.
You need a
A video of this guy giving the local UPS delivery person a DDT would have been funny, but not a destroyed computer.
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
Well, not to defend UPS, but i thought i'd share my own experiences.
I shipped a number of packages via UPS ground when moving from TX to CA, among them was a computer and a few boxes full of books.
For the computer, I actually had the original box that the computer case came in, along with styrofoam padding on top and at the bottom with a sturdy cardboard box. I also made sure that all the screws were tight, all the wires were bundled up inside. Box arrived slightly banged up, but no major damage. The computer booted up on the first try with no errors. I had actually thought that some connections would have been shaken loose during transport.
However, the box full of books arrived in pieces. In fact, when the UPS man came to deliver the box, it fell apart before he made it to the door. It was the same kind of cardboard that the computer box was made of, but was significantly heavier... I didn't care much about the books since they were just textbooks.
Moral of the story? Well... use the original box if you can, don't make things too heavy or the UPS people will most likely kick the heavier boxes around, and insure things that are expensive!
According to the UPS web site, international shipments are automatically insured for $100, and if you want more, you have to declare the shipment's value and pay an additional premium. This matches my experience shipping within the US (I recently shipped a PC to a friend and of course I bought the additional insurance).
So when you say that UPS doesn't insure, what you mean is that you neglected to ask for or buy insurance. Did you assume that you shipment was insured, or did you just forget to ask?
I'm sorry that your PC got busted up, dude, but face it: you screwed up.
--Jim
I recently bought an SGI Indy off of eBay, and the seller shipped it US Postal Service Priority Shipping. It was *cheap* and arrived in a mere 2 days!! I highly suggest USPS Priority Shipping if the product is packed well with packing peanuts and such. They really have a good service.
---------
Fuck you, motherfucker. Fuck yous to: Rob "Taco-Snotter" Malda, Homos, Kowboi Kneel, and RMS.
Step one in using shipping companies: don't buy extra insurance for expensive shit.
Dude, if it was so important, how come you didn't spend $5 or even $50 for insurance on the shit?
Not sure how it works in Canada, but you might say in the US that giving the package gave them a bailment. They have to take care of your shit. Now, it would be expected that you might have some dings on your boxen, and some other problems. But showing the condition of your stuff should prove more than exceptional incompetance. So, even if they denied the bailment, you could show that the damage was so agregious that it should have been forseeable.
At this point, I think the real question is: what is the condition of the drives? This might be your only recourse at this point.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I saw your pictures and I must say that's a real bang up job. However, you should note that it's rather foolish to ship a tower in the size box you shipped it in.
If you absolutly need to ship PC parts, disassemble them and ship them in containers with lots of foam, packing "popcorn", etc. Even empty ATX cases arrive in boxes two and three times their actual size.
I'm not defending UPS nor am I saying they are at fault. The processes involved in sorting boxes often include large belts and ramps, and yes, two and three feet drops. The belts that load boxes onto FedEx planes often have five foot drops at the top. And this is FedEx.
This is why you need insurance, and you need to be wise about packaging your goods. I sure hope you didn't pack all the things pictured in a 4 cu foot box you showed that was beat to death (probably from stuff rolling around inside of it).
I would go the route of getting moeny from UPS if you insured it. Other than that you're screwed.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
dude, this rocks. Funny thing is, I was going to post a followup and talk about UPS losing my laptop INSIDE their distribution facility. No, not in transit. The package got into the building but never left. 3 weeks later, no one at UPS could tell me where my laptop went. They knew from the scan data that it was in the building, but no one could find it. Lesson learned, ship USPS or FedEx.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Born Slippy by UNderworld - 12" vinyl, they shipped it to me using UPS in a Padded envelope with a Big sticker saying 'Do Not Fold'
Vinyl may be fragil but it must've taken a fair amount of force to Produce the neatly folded package I recived, I was amazed at how symmetric the fold was as well.
Needless to say amazon have used Boxes ever since.
I saw your images (faster than a speeding /. effect, whoo). I don't mean to sound cruel, but that wasn't "well-packed".
Every so often I get Sun hardware shipped to me. I have learned a few things:
Basically, if you aren't use molded solid foam, you're in trouble. At minimum you should use foam blocks for the sides of the box, and then fill the gaps inside with stuffed eggshell foam (e.g., you don't have custom-molded foam, e.g., you threw out the foam pieces that the computer/case was originally shipped in).
The other day I got a hardware board about the size of my hand. It was shipped in a box the size of my torso. The outside of the box had gone through a war zone, but thanks to all that foam, the card was pristine.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I know the grief. I was able to finance the purchase of my laptop because I shipped my desktop (P200MMX back then) and put $2000.00 insurance on it. When my box arrived the hard drives tumbled out of my case and I was like "Oh, my God..."
My housemate recently shipped a downhilling mountain bike from Wyoming, with insurance on it. When the bike arrived they had bashed in what everyone thought were bomb-proof front shocks and bent the rotors on the disc brakes. The typical insurance run-around that they use in *both* cases here are:
- "Oh, it's not our fault, you packaged it incorrectly".
- "Oh, the item was damaged before we shipped it"
- "We'll conduct our own evaluations and keep you informed"
So, this is what you should do, and in my experience works quite well:
* Keep all receipts of the packaging.
* Have it shipped from an authorized shipping outlet, *and* have them sign a letter saying that they packaged it.
* Photo document the packaging if possible.
And when they give you shit about it being not packaged properly, show them but do not hand over the documentation. And if they still give you crap, this is what my housemate did:
* Have a lawyer, lawyer friend, etc, write a letter to UPS, threatening to supeona the records that they have on your package, and the insurance claim paperwork and the inspection results.
Boy did they pay up quick after that. They weren't going to even take a second look at his bike, the lawyer did his thing, and now he's at least getting his disc rotors replaced.
- SK
In the surplus-electronics business, it's almost an industry axiom. UPS Blue (2-day air) is fine, and FedEx 3-day Express Saver service is a good compromise between cost and delivery time. UPS Ground, however, guarantees that your equipment will receive the most abusive possible treatment at the hands of heavily-unionized goons who have zero accountability to management.
In fact, you're lucky if your shipment doesn't magically vanish from the distribution hub.
I usually use FedEx when it absolutely, positively, has to get there in one piece. That being said, I have not been hearing good things about the new FedEx Ground (formerly RPS) service. Apparently the integration with FedEx has not gone particularly well, and they're not providing reliable service with low breakage risk.
Before using any carrier or service, it's a good idea to search Google Groups to see what the various collectibles groups are bitching about lately. And always, always pack your gear to survive a 3-foot fall into a concrete floor. If you catch yourself flinching at the thought of such an impact, you didn't pack well enough.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
My partner used to do onsite shipping/receiving for an environmental lab, handling samples which were often liquid and frequently hazardous, and which have mandated hold times. She told me the lab's policy was to use nothing but Fedex for outgoing and prepaid Fedex for incoming, because not only were damaged/lost samples a common occurrence, (despite being shipped in sealed coolers the size of a piano bench) but also UPS' internal tracking was terrible and their on-time delivery guarantee was worth less than the paper it was written on. It was cheaper to prepay Fedex to deliver incoming samples than to call the client, explain that the hold time had expired while the sample was mistakenly sent to Texas instead of Oregon, and ask for them to resample and resend. That was in 1996-1998 inclusive.
NEVER EVER EVER send anything by UPS unless you get in insured and 2 day aired or less. If you have ever seen one of their distribution centers, you would be shocked. Imagined miles of conveyer belts going 5 stories up. Boxes on each one... as they roll across, a barcode reader reads the UPC code and an arm will push the box off the conveyer belt to the next level down, depending on it's destination. I saw TV boxes drop 5 stories and onto the ground, the maintenance person just picks it up and throws it back on the belt. They do this for efficiency, but with absolutely no regard to the contents of the packages.
The reason I say 2 day air or less, is because those packages are not as automated... they are taken by actual people from truck to plane to truck to plane. This is probably the only way you can get something shipped intact to it's destination.
You can take comfort in the fact, that at least Tupperware has a lifetime guarantee on their products. Take that bowl to the nearest Tupperware party and the Tupperware representative can either get it replaced right then and there or possibly give you a voucher to get it replaced. Good luck.
One way to guarantee tender treatment would be to mark the box "nitroglycerin", but that may cause you some other problems
Your average UPS employee probably would think that was french for fragile and treat it just as harshly.. ^^
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
Next time you ship a computer with UPS, label the box with "BIOHAZARD" (with that nifty, sharp, menacing logo). Chances are, shippers won't want to break it open, exposing themselves to strange, white powder. Of course, they may call the FBI... which would only lend more scrutiny to the package care... and if it's damaged, you could sue both the FBI & UPS. Right?
:)
Why bother.
Anyhow, I bought an old Mac at the Goodwill for $5 and then modified it to make the funky patterns and shipped it to a friend for his birthday.
I went to Mailboxes Etc. and told them I wanted to ship it UPS. First they wanted to double box it. That alone would have cost $150, and would have substantially increased the shipping costs as well since double boxing makes things huge.
After convincing them that I had spent all of $5 and about two hours of my time on this, I conviced them that they could single-box it. However, they made me sign something that stated that it they broke it, it was my own fault.
Then while filling out the form there was a box for value. I put a sideways '8' since it was a one-of-a-kind item. They went crazy again and asked why I had done that. I replied that it was a work of electronic art that interacted with music in a unique way. That really worried them. This all occured in Palo Alto and maybe they were used to shipping strange expensive stuff.
Finally I crossed out the value and put in a big '0' and claimed that if it wasn't art then it was junk. That confused them but finally they shipped it, single boxed, for a total of about $70.
The moral of this story?
Mailboxes Etc. doesn't appreciate a smart-ass.
addendum: My friend painted it with gold paint and used it at parties. It was even more popular than his lava lamp.
Lasers Controlled Games!
If you can read you would notice:
"UPS Ground does not insure international shipments"
To translate, that mean he couldn't insure it with UPS.
Where on UPS's site does it say that? In may, I shipped a computer to Montreal from NY, and insured it for $1000. This is not a policy change either - I just went to the UPS shipping charge calculator, and was able to get insurance for a package for both US->CA and CA->US. Insurance is only $0.35 for each $100 of value.
Yeah, this is why I freeze everything I ship -- from electronics to Han Solo -- into a block of carbonite.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Having worked for RPS, I can vouch for it. Shipping is not done by angles, it's done by $5.00/hour strongbacks. They hum stuff from trucks to conveyor belts. They hate heavy boxes they can't get their hands around. Big light boxes are a joy to them. Sometimes things fall down. Yes, I was a stong back for two or three years. The worst boxes were from a beauty shop. They broke every time, sending sheen and other goo onto the floor! Did I mention plastic wraps inside?
Your boxes look like they recieved significant drops. It's hard to tell how those boxes were packed, and if indeed you used more than one. The cardboard, however, is clearly old and the box should have been discarded.
Thank you for posting the pictures. They are good examples of what can happen. My condolenses for your parts. The folks who did this, I'm sure, cursed when it happened but did not waste too much time with it.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
First: you must match the package to its contents. DO NOT try to fit as much as you can in a single, LARGE box. Instead, use smaller, properly sized boxes for each major piece of equipment. The biggest reason for this is that a lighter package, when dropped, will not produce as much force on impact. Inevitably, all impact forces are first applied to a specific part of the package or a specific item in the package. Therefore, a heavy package, loaded with many items, when dropped, is more likely to apply enough force to one of the items in it to break them, as compared to similar drops of the items packaged individually.
Second: The items, shipped in the box should NEVER end up as the primary load bearing members of the package structure. This is why computer and monitor boxes a)use double layered corrugated cardboard boxes and b) have heavy-duty Styrofoam pieces to provide an internal structure underneath the skin created by the cardboard. Bubble wrap does not provide such a structure. Additionally, the Styrofoam is resilient, like bubble wrap, but more so. Styrofoam keeps its shape much better.
Now, most times those factors are what keep computers, as shipped from the factory, in retail packaging, safe in shipping. Sometimes, EVEN those factors aren't enough and that's a clear indication of major incompetence on the part of the shipping company.
Those two requirements, it sadly seems, were not met by Jutus (the shipper). So, as much as I hate to point any blame, it seems that some blame does reside on the shipper, not all on the shipping company.
Again, this is my opinion, based on my experience, working in purchasing for the IT department of a med/small company and from years of purchasing my own machines via the 'net or mail-order.
-i
"Thank you for your inquiry. We sincerely apologize for the condition in which your merchandise arrived. We are unable to determine when or where any damage may have occurred to your uninsurable personal effects from Canada. Personal effects imported from Canada to the United States cannot be insured. We are unable to process a Damage Inspection Report for your computer.
Thank you for using UPS Internet Services.
Marilee"
So basically I'm screwed, period.
UPS Canada does not know if the shipment was damaged in the States, and vice versa. In accordance with UPS's policy on these matters, my only choice is to suck it. UPS does not respond to customer needs as one entity. It has a billion departments internally to shove your issue around to for weeks.
Again, if they had offered insurance, I would have taken it. They advertise "dependable" service, and this is my first (and last) time shipping with UPS. Obviously in hindsight I am a moron.
My oversight was in assuming "dependable" service includes your items arriving in one piece.
Your average UPS employee is so damn busy he or she doesn't have time to play games with boxes.
What most likely destroyed this shipment was it's journey along overcrowded belts, where it was squeezed mercilessly betwixt 200 80lb. boxes of greeting cards and 80 dell or gateway boxes. When a friend of mine worked there, he said he'd wince when he'd see a wrapped gramma's xmas present nestled between industrial shipments.
UPS does home consumer shipping as a sideline: they're more worried about pleasing their corporate customers.
Last summer, I was a-wanderin' down my street, and lo, there was a Fed Ex truck double parked to the right of me.
Overhead and moving fast, a package launched from the truck landed hard and skidded on the greystone's front stoop.
I looked at the driver; he said, "You didn't see that."
I agreed I didn't.
Fed Ex, UPS, it's all the same -- don't judge by brand. Men will still throw packages around, because it's fun.
...to move the following of my personal stuff:
We recently moved and let the gorillas move everything but the things I listed above. Sure I had to rent a small truck but nothing was damaged. It was well worth the small cost.
Many years ago, a ``professional'' moving company found a way to severely dent a peuter plate wedding present given to me by the EE faculty where I was teaching. It was packed in the middle of a bunch of china which miraculously managed to survive the move. Of course the moving company found some reason that they weren't liable.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
This assures no human will try and lift (and possibly drop) it, and that they will have to handle it with a palette lifter.
Also, have the UPS associate inspect your packaging before you send it off, so they can't complain about improper packing. There should be 6" between your cargo and the container wall packed with shock absorbing material.
As for the claims, yes they can take months. It's much better to prevent damage entirely and dummy proof your package by attaching it to a large object like a palette.
The computer was shipped via UPS flight 1331 which is occasionally used by the Canadian Secret Police for black ops. It seems that a group of terrorists from Greenland were attempting to infiltrate Quebec and poison the Maple Syrup harvest and blame it on the OntarioFirst! movement, thus giving more fuel to the Quebec independence movement. (If Quebec gets its independence Newfoundland will be cut off from the rest of Canada and ripe for invasion by Greenlander nationalists who have strived for centuries to liberate Vinland from the yoke of Canadian oppression.)
Well, flight 1331 was diverted to drop paratroopers into Northern Quebec in an attempted to foil the dastardly Greenlander plot. After the paratroopers were dropped, unexpected windsheer downed flight 1331 over Hudson bay.
Search and rescue failed to find any traces of flight 1331, but the copilot, Red McFearson miraculously survived. Red managed to swim his way onto an iceberg.
On his iceberg, Red had many adventures... including a near fatal attempt to milk a polar bear in desperation brought on by hunger. However, it turns out that polar bears like to be milked and Red was able to survive.
Only two things kept Red going during those months stranded on the iceberg suckling the polar bear... his special relationship he developed with a hocky puck, Marsha... and his drive to fulfill his duty and DELIVER YOU PACKAGE which he was able to salvage from the wreckage.
So, you see, you have no room to complain and you should be greatful for the patriotic, dedicated men and women of UPS.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
UPS doesn't offer insurance on packages shipped by people who want to ship as cheaply as possible. Thats exactly what he got -- A box shipped ascheaply as possible, ala no insurance.
Bowie J. Poag
I had similar problems shipping a recording console with UPS. They refused to even return my calls until I started threatening a lawsuit. I have made the entire story, including photos and contact information, available at http://www.christopherpetro.com/ups
As for FedEx, I have sometimes had problems with them (though far less often). The important difference, however, is that it has never required a threat of a lawsuit to get FedEx to cover my damaged or lost packages.
Packages shipped via UPS Ground from Canada are protected automatically against damage or loss up to $100, and Excess Value Insurance (brochure available here) can be purchased for values exceeding that. The cost is only 35 cents per $100 of value, up to $50,000 of coverage. Looks like he just didn't opt for the coverage.
Caveat expeditor.
I work in a small computer store that gets the majority of its supplies by UPS.
If it wasn't for the quality of the packaging supplied by most computer equipment manufacturers, I'd suspect a significant portion of the equipment would be damaged in transit.
The items in question were all shipped from a national wholesaler (techdata) via UPS. A motherboard I recieved had a partially crushed box. I've seen Athlon processors arrive in dented boxes. Some of the boxes look like they have been torn apart. However, the parts usually arrive in working order, despite the damage.
To UPS, its just a package, that is handled and moved by a bunch of low-paid workers who have no interest in treating your package with TLC, and the management doesn't seem to add any accountability. Until management cares enough to track where and when the damage occurs, and uses that information to remove the problem employees, nothing will improve.
Just my $.02
They're called UPS ground. The stuff is not quite ground up, but they had a fair go at it.
Now, FedEx has problems too, but UPS == avoid! I have a friend who worked there and he was always telling me about how packages would be damaged by co-workers tossing them around in their haste to get more packages moved. They have a bunch of anal, peppy manager-types who exhort everyone to work faster, and they time everyone's speed. Go too slow and you get criticized or lose the job. So packages get tossed and squished.
If you're shipping something they can't break, then go with UPS. Great for shipping clothing and most foods, because it's reasonably cheap. But don't trust them with electronics, glassware, or art. Use FedEx for that.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
F log
R elentlessly
A nd
G rind
I nto
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I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
After spending a few years in the shipping/recieving docks of UPS, I give this piece of advice:
Your package is nothing more than something to take aggression out on. $9.00/hr for shit work makes one very angry, and it is your package that loses out. A fragile package just means it breaks easier when it's thrown into the trailer.
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
More importantly:
If you see that the box is obviously fucked up, and you are asked to sign for it... DON'T! Make the driver pack it back into his truck. You do not have to accept the package. The fine print on the reciept often holds you responsible for damages if you do not "inspect the package" before signing for it. I used to work for a mailorder computer company, and that's what we told our customers to do if boxes showed up obviously physically damaged. That way, the boxes are returned to the shipper, and he/she can make a claim for damages. Of course, if you yourself are the shipper, it makes it a little more complicated. Once you've officially accepted delivery, UPS assumes you have accepted the condition of the parcels. Still, I say pester UPS until you get your refund. Call every day if you have to. Have a lawyer friend of yours send a threatening letter. Someone please post a link to a UPS CS page, so that we can all lodge a complaint on this guy's behalf.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
Let me get this straight: You put a Powermac G4 tower, an PowerTower Pro, and a monitor all in one box, and expected them to survive?
I don't see how all three would even fit in one box, as the box looks to be the size that a normal monitor (plus copeous styrofoam blocks that the manufacturer uses (hint, hint)) comes in.
Did you just pile them in with some newspaper and think that it would be okay? In general, 'fragile' or not, expect your box to get dropped from 4 or 5 feet a few times in transit. Basically, there should never, ever be direct contact between your valued hardware and the interior of the box.
As for insurance, that's a different issue. I hope you get your money, but it reminds me of a friend who says he wouldn't mind getting hit by a car as long as he had medical insurance. Me, I'd prefer not to have the pain and suffering in the first place.
Kevin Fox
A few months ago, I took a tour of a shipping company that I will not name but will refer to as FooBar Inc.
The tour was at night, when shipping companies come alive and really start moving things. The tour was fun (seeing the shipping crates, all the people running around like crazy, etc) until I got to one of the sorting wharehouses. The packages to be sorted would be pulled into the wharehouse where people would go through each package and THROW it onto one of three conveyor belts. The topmost belt was about 5 feet high, the middle at about 3 and the bottom on the ground. I was totally shocked to see the the people doing the sorting THROW (not toss) printers, iMac's, monitors, tv's and other fragile equipment onto the belts. Sometimes they would miss and the package would fall to the floor, ignored until someone came around, picked it up and tossed it onto the wrong belt. Higher up in the wharehouse, where the smaller packages where sorted, the sorters would also throw the packages into the wrong chutes, toss the packages on top of the equipment or onto the floor.
Now, I'm not blaming the sorters (completely). They are payed minimum wage to do a horribly shitty and boring job. I do blame FooBar Inc for not paying these people right or not doing more checks to see how things are running.
After the tour, I never shipped anything the same way again. Recently, I've been either having a packing and shipping store do it for me. If I don't do that I pack the item in multiple boxes (usually 2 or 3) with little styrofoam peanuts between each box. It's a complete pain in the ass to pack (especially larger objects) but it seems to do the trick.
If you want something shipped right, don't ship it, take the package to the destination yourself.
Geoffeg
I have nothing to back this up but anecdotal evidence, but I really think you are completely wrong. I've had a lot of friends work at UPS, and they said they destroy the boxes for fun. Partly, it's encouraged by the fact that they are constantly being performance-analyzed by OR experts who are timing them and stuff. The official truck-loading procedure works like this:
A guy stands at the bottom of a big metal chutes-and-ladders type chute, taking boxes off the bottom. In front of him is a docked truck. He's supposed to take the first bunch of big heavy boxes that come down and stack them up on the back edge of the truck making a wall three-quarters of the way high. Then, everything else gets tossed or drop-kicked or whatever over the wall, into the truck. There is no placing or stacking, nearly everything is pitched into the truck.
There is a constant stream of packages the workers are kicking through and stuff, and then there is a pile for super-heavy or super-large packages that don't go in the truck, they get dropped into a pile next to the truck, where another truck comes and gets them. The truck-loaders are actually required to wear burly steel toed boots, which maximizes the destruction.
But, the REAL destruction comes from the fact that most of the people who do this are young men who hate working there. There's always someone breathing down your neck, timing you with a stopwatch, and all you do is mechanically toss heavy boxes around. It's a shitty job. In the summer, the insides of those brown trucks are like 120 degrees, and at unload, someone has to run around in there and toss all the boxes out. So, to vent, whenever there's no one around (which, on the night shift, is basically always. Those guys are timed as much and their workloads are lighter), they just destroy the boxes for fun.
They get grudges against certain shippers because they handle the same packages on the same routes everyday. So say your company ships boxes of screws from Podunk to Bumblefuck three times a week. The same guy probably handles all of those boxes, and he hates them cause they are always heavy. This is going to dramatically increase the probability that he accidently damages or loses one (toss it out next to the truck in the parking lot).
Sometimes, the people learn that some packages are good to break by accident. I knew a kid who accidently kicked a whole in a box and found out that it was full of mints being shipped to a hotel to put on pillows. He stuffed his pockets with mints, and whenever he saw another box like that, he broke it open on purpose.
They use things like keyboard (music, not computer) boxes as bridges, which kills the vintage synth traders of the world. Or they put them between to other boxes and sit on them on break.
It's malice, and most of the destruction is human, really.
How about drivers who don't care to ring your doorbell or check if you're actually home?
My first experience with this was with a $500 package that was late by two days... and then a week... and then a week-and-a-half. The tracking system said "delivery made" but there was no package. Repeated calls to the service center revealed nothing until finally one day a rep said "there's a note in the system that says 'green box' so do you have a green box around your house?"
A light bulb appeared above my head, and I went outside with a look of disbelief on my face. I found the box (containing a high-end RAID controller) at the bottom of one of my *recycle bin* at the side of the house, beneath tons of cardboard and plastic. Two more days and it would have been recycled. What sort of idiot delivers a package to a recycle bin?
Well, the second time this sort of thing happened (system says delivered, but I haven't seen the package), I *asked* the rep if there were any delivery notes in the system. This time the note was "tree" and I found a box containing a Sun 3/80 *up in the branches of my 14' pine tree* in the dead of winter. The driver actually seemed to have climbed the fence next to the tree to place the box in it. They're sturdy branches, but it still seems ridiculous to me.
Calls to UPS about these incidents resulted in the following explanation: sometimes when the individual isn't home and the address is difficult to reach, the driver may leave the package on the premesis in a "non-obvious" area so that he doesn't have to return. I guess a recycle bin and a tree are UPS's idea of protecting me from thieves... Of course all of this ignores the fact that I was home all day on the day that BOTH of these deliveries were supposedly made...
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Mod parent up, my Dad did 6 months at UPS and this is exactly what he described. As a side note he felt it was all the unions fault, they had managed to jack up the pay rate and as a result management used those stop watches to try and get their moneys worth from the overpaid workers (not sure if this is still the case now, but it was in '73)
I am very sorry that your equipment was damaged, but you made some very fatal mistakes.
1) Posted in the UPS center where you shipped your equipment are guidelines for packing matterial and minimum crush-strength box matterial for various size/weight packages. Looking at your pictures I can see that your box did NOT meet those guidelines. I can see this just by looking at the pictures.
2) Insurance for your package would have cost $0.35 per $100. That's only $10.50US to insure your shipment for $3,000. I called and verified this for a Canada-to-US shipment.
3) Remember: Your package rides conveyor belts, slides down shutes, is loaded and unloaded on delivery vans, tractor-trailers, and train cars. It travels thousands of miles along with 10's of thousands of other packages some of which may weigh as much as 177lb's and somebody's pakcage has to be on the bottom of the stack. That's the reality of it.
Here are my suggestions:
1) Buy the insurance (duh!!!!)
2) Pack your stuff like it's going to be air-dropped. You know the packaging your G4 came in? That's how you SHOULD have packed it. If you had it would still be fine. There is a reason a new Dell comes in a box strong enough to support a VW.
There is a reason UPS and other shippers have those packing guidelines posted. And the reason they offer insurance is for the people who don't read the shipping guidelines. Sometimes packages that are done right do get damaged, but not often.
Shippers dont' intentionally harm your packages. The damage most likely occured durring transit in a tractor-trailer or box-car. The employees don't kick and drop packages. They just don't. UPS is VERY consious of this. If you are seen intentionally damaging a package you are FIRED ON THE SPOT. I saw a guy get a written warning for dropping a package just 6 inches. I saw another guy get fired for eating a jolly-rancher candy that fell out of a damaged package.
I'm sorry your equipment was damaged. I know you are upset and I know it sucks when this sort of thing happens. I hope my comments will help you avoid having this happen to you again.
TIP: if you want to ship something and absolutely insure it's safety, ship it in a hard plastic cooler. They come in all sizes and are the most indistructible thing you'll ever find. People ship fragile scientific instruments back and forth in GOTT coolers (with the lits taped down) all the time and they never get damaged. I know you can't get a mid-tower pc in one, but I just thought I'd mention it.
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-
I currently work for UPS, and the sad truth is that we cannot fuck up a parcel that is properly packed. My hub alone ships thousands of Dell and Gateway pieces a day, and I myself personally see several hundred in one 4 hour sort. Both the Dell and Gateway boxes are made of sterner stuff than your average moving box, and both have sturdy moulded styrofoam packing, not peanuts. Bubble wrap will not save something as heavy as a cpu or monitor. I have seen a Dell monitor box fall three stories without suffering so much as a dented edge. I have seen my coworkers jumping up and down on a Gateway box with the deliberate intention of destroying it, but only leave dirty footprints. I have also seen what happens to boxes when the contents are poorly packed. UPSers are overworked, and underpaid, and they're Union. Management walks all over them, despite Jimmy Hoffa Jr.'s best efforts to curb them. Moral of the story, pack well, INSURE EVERYTHING, and never buy Gateway. Dells are ok. (Ok, so I'm biased...)
Society doesn't turn on a dime, but if enough people lean on the steering wheel long enough, it can negotiate a curve.
In some states if you have an outstanding judgement against a company, you can hire the local police to do the collection. If they refuse to pay up, the police can just confiscate anything that appears to be the dollar value of the judgement.
is here, email forms are here.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Surprise, when I recieved the package at home, it had been bent. The mounting cardbord had been totally destroyed. Fortunately, I was able to remount it at the place I got it framed, though there is a permanent crease in the piece towards the top that is noticable in bright lighting, if you know what you are looking for.
This kind of peeves me to this day, since there are only two copies of this in existance. The artist has the other one.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Soft padding simply won't work through the mail. I made this mistake once, thankfully on far less expensive items. It's especially pathetic when combined with hard, heavy objects like books (for me) or computers (for you).
Although I've seen several "you should have known better" postings, I disagree. Most packing guidelines are very poorly and/or ambiguously written. Just what does "adequate padding" mean? What could be more adequate than padding with several pillows, right? Wrong.
The packing material must not compress or else your packing is useless and you get "exploded" boxes that look, well, like yours. This is why computers are packed by the factory suspended in the middle of the box by styrofoam holders. The holders transfer the load of the other boxes stacked on top through to the boxes stacked underneath without collapsing. Bubble wrap is great for a thin protective layer around individual items, but it won't hold them in place within a box.
It's unfortunate that your lesson was so expensive. I wish you luck in your attempts at getting some reimbursement, however next time be sure to use professional packing materials (sounds like you did-- bubble wrap), leave absolutely zero air space, and plan for several hundred pounds to be sitting on top of whatever you ship.
And that's the problem. I'm currently sitting in the Northern Plains district hub, in the Technology Support Group office. My door is ~10 feet away from the first of the loading doors in our hub, and there's nobody in here deliberately trying to destroy packages.
I'm here for twilight and midnight sorts, and although you are correct in that our particular hub has less volume on midnight sort, there isn't a single sorter, loader, or unloader who's got so much spare time (or is so angry) that he or she is crushing boxes because they say "Fragile."
I'll allow that I'm not constantly observing each individual. However, I'm not management, and I'm actually in the hub ~65% of my night, working on various problems. You would assume that in the approximately 1352 hours I spent in the hub over the last year, I would have observed, at least in passing, some of the behavior which you describe. Strangely enough, I haven't.
As for the theft, UPS takes its integrity very seriously. We had one individual who was using his position to ship packages fraudulently; when this was discovered (the company is scrupulous about its accounting), he not only lost his job, but civil charges were filed against him to recover the money he stole from the company. Criminal charges have been filed against individuals who have stolen package contents, and UPS security offers a $5,000 "stoolie reward" to anyone who presents information or evidence of another individual's theft.
To make a long story short (too late), all you've done is take a few facts (the package cars and feeder trailers get hot in the summer, certain shippers send large volumes on the same route constantly) and string them together to draw conclusions which have no empirical fact to back them up. Sounds like FUD to me.
They that would sacrifice their
I know you are upset but this is partly your fault. Bubble wrap means nothing and cardboard and bubblewrap does not equate to good packing. How do I know? I worked nights for UPS for 4 years unloading, loading, and sorting customer packages. I currently ship 2-3 packages every day for my wife's home based business.
Check out the Anal Retentive Packer! He gets it mostly right.
http://www.twaze.com/arp/arp.html
So how do you ship a computer by UPS or anyone else and get it there looking good?
1. Hire a pro who knows what they are doing to to pack it using foam fill and other professional toys you don't have at home. The $60 or $70 you would have paid looking not so bad now.
I have to do this on a budget can you teach me to pack like a man? OK.
1. Box in a Box. This is a cardinal rule of packaging. You have an outer container that is reinforced rigid. You can cut sheets of styrofoam for braces which are cheap (Home Depot or Lowes look near the insulation). Provide dead area space or fill with peanuts to the inner container or brace which holds your equipment firmly. Consider shrinkwrap or lightweight plactic trash bag taped around the equipment to keep out dust and smushed packing material. Gateway and Dell usually just use custom fit styrofoam braces in new boxes and that works fine. You may have to improvise here.
2. Use NEW cardboard boxes. If you can afford a killer rig you can afford some new cardboard boxes. At least get ones that are LIKE NEW. The corners should be unbent, not covered in tape, no holes where holes don't belong. The reality is that boxes in poor shape get only get worse during shipping and get less respect by many handlers (not to be mean but if it's hard to pickup because the corners are all soft it's not going to get the best possible handling). Find some Gateway or Dell boxes that your neighbors are tossing after unwrapping the new system.
3. Minimize the time in the system as much as you can afford. Ship 2 day or 3 day service avoiding the lowest common denominator of ground service if you can. Every day in the system is a day exposed to danger. Dell charges you $100 shipping do you think they make much profit on that? They pack well and probably don't make a lot of money on shipping.
4. Make sure you include written shipto, shipfrom, contents list inside the package (both if you paid attention to 1 above).
5. Strap it on the outside securely with heavy duty shipping tape (spend $5,$10 at stapes or your home improvement store).
6. If it's worth $2K or $3K insure it!
Your goal is that you should be able to drop the box 2 feet or kick it hard with a work boot and the contents have a fighting chance. Don't expect sleep deprived college students to baby you package regardless of weather you label it fragile or not.
Your package should NOT rattle or shift weight around when tipped side to side.
Good Luck!
Its sad that if want anyone to take responsibility for their actions you have to threaten them with a lawsuit. Just keeps the courts clogged and lawyers churning out of law schools.
HT
I worked for UPS in West Michigan for about a year [1999-2000]. One of my jobs was to unload a semi full of IBM desktops, thinkpads, NEC monitors, and HP printers and scanners [some other computer items] every night. This ment hundreds of desktops went through my hands in the matter of 1 hour or less [my shift was only 4 hours]. Although they were not handled with kid gloves, I never saw one that ended up like that. Trust me when I tell you that if that had come through our site we would've heard about it from our managers.
However, I have seen pacakages this bad or worse. It happens. The logistics of moving insane amounts of packages in short periods of time mean that problems are bound to arise. Plus there is a serious human factor involved. Tired, hurried, inexperienced, or lazy workers can cause this sort of thing. Also managers directly effect the quality of the work being done. UPS has the training to properly handle packages out there, but like anywhere, it's up to the workers and managers to implement.
I can't say much about claims, other than that they tell us the amounts that they pay out every year and its hefty.
As to what could've led to this, any number of things. A bad wall [imagine a giant game of tetris in a semi] could have done it, a jam in a chute, it could've gotten caught on the belt, or even a mad worker [it happens, fast food workers spit in your burger too]. Another possiblity is that heavy packages [over 70#s] were sent too early on the belt and crushed the pachages. Heavy packages are saved until the end of the night to try and prevent this.
One last thing November and December are the times of the year to be extra careful about packaging and the like. The numbers of packages that are handled during these times of the year increase significantly.
weso
"I like my sugar with coffee and cream." - Beastie Boys
I used to do that type of thing too, although I used old TVs. I started with black and white, and migrated to color later. ;-)
I used a separate amplifier to drive the deflection coils in the TV. Having a separate amp both isolated it from my stereo, and allowed adjustment of the level, balance and tone controls for best display, independant of the stereo volume level. I used an AGC circuit to compress the audio levels slightly so that when the audio level was adjusted to give nice patterns at high levels, the quieter passages didn't collapse to an indistinguishable dot.
Color was the best addition. Through a separate board, I split the audio into low (below 300Hz), mid (300 to ~4KHz) and high (above 4KHz) bands. I ran each of the three signals through an attenuator and hacked them into the red, green, and blue low level video inputs respectively. I was doing this this way back before computers were fast enough (Pre IBM PC days) when TVs were made with mostly discrete components, and that you could easily get to the individual circuits to make the necessary modifications. Computers got fast enough to do the same type thing in software about the time the Pentium 100's came out. Today, with Gigahertz processors and fast video cards, it could make for a nice OpenGL project.
Later.
wings
Now then, during the time that I was a loader, and later when I was a contract computer tech, I *never* saw or heard of *anyone* destroying packages on purpose. I did occasionally see someone mistakenly back heavy equipment into packages or such, always a mistake.
And it was always dealt with seriously by supervisors. One time, I dropped a tiny box that couldn't have weighed more than 3 or 4 ounces from a height of about 10 inches onto a larger box. I did this in order to avoid having to climb out of a truck to place it carefully on the other box only to have to climb back into the truck. I was pulled aside and counselled about this infraction.
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
Thought I'd chime in with the rest of the Slashdot crowd - wow, that sucks.
Now for my brief defense of UPS.
At work we frequently ship at least one RMA'd monitor back and forth each week to Gateway (we're in PA.) These monitors go into cardboard boxes that are very thin with nothing but foam support each end of the monitor.
I have never encountered any shattered monitors or DOA ones that don't work right out of the box. We've never received any calls from Gateway asking where a box might be either. For large 60 pound 17" monitors to travel halfway across the country in thin boxes with barely any protection and survive is amazing.
There are isolated incidents of jackasses in every industry everywhere. There has been a whole lot of generalizing in the discussion about how "every UPS guy" does this. Unfortunately, the number of comments like mine pointing this out seems to be less then people willing to hope on the bandwagon to trash UPS. I'm not denying these things DON'T happen, but I've never encountered any problems in numerous shipments with UPS.
Caveat emperor, insure.
NO, NO, NO. You are right! Don't give up your fight. The reason that insurance exists in the first place is to secure un-replaceable items (i.e. an antique or valueable piece of art that does NOT have a replacement). Unfortunately, insurance has become a means to financially back any old item, at least in the shipping world. I think your packages were mistreated. I'm don't care what methods the shipping company uses to move packages, but by buying their service, you are making an implied agreement that they will get your package from point A to point B UNHARMED! Don't listen to most of these posts, your packages were fine and, again, you were mistreated. Take them to small claims court. SUE! SUE! SUE! Really, I'm appaled and this is completely un-called for.
/. posts get you down, you can win this thing.
Go to the nearest UPS office, or location, talk to a face, not just a voice or a computer. Let them know you are upset! Let, them see your glaring eyes and red face when they tell you, "There's nothing I can do." If you yell loud enough, things will get done. Keep up your fight! Don't let the pessimistic
What has happened to business these days? What ever happened to the "deal" that was based on a handshake? What ever happened to doing business face-to-face?
This comes from an extensive history of long distance computer shipments... Boston to LA, LA to Jacksonville, Jax to Seattle, Seattle to NYC, etc.
:
1. Use the MFG's original boxes if you saved them. If not,
2. Do not use loose fill (otherwise known as peanuts) to pack your equipment, neither FedEx not UPS will pay on claims where this was used (been burned twice).
3. Double Box! This is a necessity. It may seem stupid, but if you double box almost any claim will go through without question. (You can use loose fill in between the boxes).
4. Take photos BEFORE and take photos AFTER (preferably upon delivery, with the driver or truck in the picture, snap with him walking away if you need to).
5. If the box is damaged, have the driver (deliverer) note this. Make sure he/she does.
6. If you ordered something from a store and the box is damaged, just refuse it.
7. Pray.
Now remember, FedEx is NOT a box shipper. They like to deliver letters (big money, small hassle), and thus I have had MUCH better luck with UPS. But here it's trying to choose the lesser of two evils.
Hope this helps someone. I've lost way too many computers in shipping.
On a side note, in college I shipped a 'cinder block' from Boston to Pittsburgh. UPS broke it. No joke.