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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.
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!
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.
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.
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Fuck you, motherfucker. Fuck yous to: Rob "Taco-Snotter" Malda, Homos, Kowboi Kneel, and RMS.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
F log
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I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
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
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
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. -=-=-=-=-
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.
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