CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 2:14 am Post subject: What I want for Christmas...

....is for each and every one of you to kick your local UPS delivery guy in the nuts. Kind of a class action nut kicking.

I bought a 9500 Ultra for cheap, and the guy without my knowing ships it UPS freight. The seller followed my wrapping instructions to the letter, wrapped it up nicely in bubble wrap, but made the mistake not to strap the damn set to the pallet. It was hanging off the edge of the pallet when I got it, lens side first.. Rolling Eyes

I checked the unit out carefully before taking it out of the US, and it seemed fine.

Upon unwrapping it, it was REALLY apparent that someone had dropped a 100+ lb item on the unit. The lids are smashed, down to the point where one of the lens knobs got sheared off. The rear heatsink cover is bent to ratshit,. both sidepanels smashed. The bubble wrap of course hid everything.

Luckily I have everything, but I think I'm switching to FedEx for a while. Evil or Very Mad

The projector fired right up. Thumbs Up

I'll post some pictures, but please, f*ck over your friendly UPS person for me. PLEASE.

In my fantasy world, I'll box myself up for a cross country trip via UPS. I'll be loaded with lots of deadly weapons. When I get dropped severely, I'll climb out of the box and will kill everyone in sight. That's my fantasy anyways.. Twisted Evil

Frank D · Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 73

A buddy of mine ordered a Toshiba XA2 HD player and it came trashed ... you guessed it ... USP.

I guess with all the Christmas traffic tis the season for smashing!

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 3:09 am Post subject:

United Parcel Smashers does it again.

Moose · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 788 Location: Minnesota

I don't get you guys; I've never had a problem with UPS in the probably 30 years I've used them. Well, except for that time when a new driver mistakenly delivered an expensive pre-amp to the renters across the street, which then mysteriously disappeared. But the manufacturer took care of everything and I got a replacement in a few days. Nothing I've received, nothing I've shipped has ever been damaged. Even stuff that was packed poorly (by the seller - I'm a packing fanatic). And isn't that your real complaint, Curt? The seller didn't strap it down, yes, but even if he had how would that have protected the projector from that heavy object? Might it be that your packing technique is at fault? (and where is this technique explained on your site? I can no longer find it) I know you've had good experience with it but I've never liked it for this very reason. Bubble wrap, large or small, has very limited protection from heavy objects falling certain ways. We know how shippers are - all shippers. We can't play dumb on this point. We must protect ourselves as well as we can and in packing projectors, that means building a sturdy, braced box around it or using a road case or something similar. It will add weight and increase shipping costs, but it would take a mighty big wallop to damage the innards. If this is not done, then we must accept that sometimes things will be mangled.

So, no - I'm not going to kick my UPS driver in the nuts. My dog, on the other hand, would be perfectly willing to bite him in the nuts - he passionately hates UPS for reasons I've never known.

Heywood Jablome · Joined: 12 Mar 2006 Posts: 1548

I take my personal deliveries at work, and personally lost about nine hundred bucks for well over the duration of a boating season when a marine GPS was being lost, destroyed, waited for inspection (that I was then told needed to be sent in rather than on-site contrary to what I'd been told six weeks beforehand) then lost again on the way to the inspection station.

After months UPS finally cut the seller a check for the loss, I got my uncashed certified bank check back, and then the broken GPS showed up again!
I had it fixed by its' manufacturer repair depot (via FedEx!) for two hundred bucks and use it to this day.

Stuff UPS has destroyed for my work include UNIX workstations (an SGI Octane dropped from sufficient height to shear surface mount parts off of the mobo) and labratory instruments.

I usually attribute this to the fact that UPS delivers to an industrial loading dock, and stuff they drop off may include 70 pound boxes of steel rivets that are about 8" square, bar stock steel for my machinists, and god only knows what else.

deronmoped · Joined: 03 Nov 2006 Posts: 1154 Location: San Diego

What surprises me is there is not more theft by these guys. I did have one small item that never showed up. I'm guessing the higher ups do not tolerate thieves, smashing packages will "not" get you fired or thrown in jail. I have a buddy that used to work for the airport, he said never put anything valuable in your checked luggage, stealing things out of checked luggage was quite common.

I did have a UPS driver smash into my RV, within a couple of hours they had three guys in suits out there checking out the damage. Got a settlement check no problem. Seems like vehicle accidents are something they are real sensitive about.

Until there is a shipping competitor that comes out with the advertisement of "We have the fewest dropped packages" and starts to take business away from other shipping companies, things will remain the same. So in the meantime we have to put a lot of time and money into packing.

Deron.

captainslug · Joined: 04 Dec 2007 Posts: 23 Location: Sterling, VA

No amount of work by the shipping company will be able to protect a poorly packaged shipped item. I personally haven't had any problems with UPS, FedEx, or USPS. But I do have the good fortune of living very close to Dulles Intl Airport so shipping services here are abnormally good.
I have however had problems with UK's Royal Mail losing things. I can't send anything anything of value to the UK unless I use FedEx because Royal Mail always loses or returns the item after 4 months of failing to deliver it.

nemmi69 · Joined: 24 Aug 2007 Posts: 60

Well have had similar fun with FEDup when they supplied to our customers damed engine heads. They argued the toss till I demonstrated with one of our packaged heads that it had to be dropped from over 6 feet to smash it the way they had turned up.
Also have had FEDup leave personal packages on my door step in the rain that clearly said they required a signature and that it contained electronics and not to get wet! Evil or Very Mad

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

Guys...

UPS handles, on average 3.5 MILLION packages Daily... Shocked

Sheer numbers would indicate that some stuff is gonna get dropped or otherwise dinged up.

It sucks when its the Blu-Ray player that you were hunting for on e-bay for months, and then ist broken when you get it.

Or its a Vintage macintosh tube amp, that looks like an elephant sat on it as it made its way from Hong kong to phila.

But it happens. I will tell you this. Having worked there, their system is not really set up to handle Large Freight or oddly shaped parcels( like a CRT).

But if a regular box gets smushed, its a numbers thing. Rolling Eyes

nemmi69 · Joined: 24 Aug 2007 Posts: 60

Just a note about Royal Hell since I live here, A big problem that occures is that if it is a large parcel or requires a signature and no one is home then a card is left and the parcel goes to the depot. What often seems to happen is that the card is lost etc and the parcel is assumed not deliverered by the recipient (good word with lots of sylabuls Smile

). After a period of time the parcel is returned to sender (if a return address is supplied). Not saying they are perfect far from it but they do try.

Blinx123 · Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 97

mhalsan · Joined: 09 Nov 2007 Posts: 146 Location: Astoria, Oregon

I've personally, repeatedly seen UPS unload boxes by rolling them out of the truck, bouncing off the bumper and onto the cement. The most memorable was when they delivered what was left of a box, little more than a chunk of cardboard with the label on it, which had once held a very expensive electric motor. They wanted a signature! My employer had to fight through their insurance mess, it took about 3 months.

The set of P19 tubes I recently got here was shipped via FedEX; and I agree they do take time to be more careful.

Mark