I’d rant, too, if some yardbird took my $ and stupidly (or lazily) packed a nice classic radio as yours was.

He doesn’t have a leg to stand on.  If he’d packed it tightly with shock absorbing material, it could have withstood a drop from waist level or higher onto a concrete slab.  

When I buy a radio being shipped to
me I provide detailed packing instructions.  If they don’t follow them, the outside of the box will exhibit damage.  That’s the point
at which I pull out the phone and document the outside of the box and each unpacking step after cutting the outside tape.

73,
Bill
W5WHB
++++++++++++++++
Bill Blodgett
Arlington, Texas 

On Aug 2, 2026, at 11:19 AM, Ken Kinderman via Milsurplus <[email protected]> wrote:


Yeah, absolutely no recourse to UPS... no double boxing, no semi-rigid foam slabs. The radio was free to float in the box. I bought it from a guy who listed it on QTH.com. Ordinarily you can sense if the seller is on the level, but I had a bad feeling when he kept e-mailing me to take photos at every step of unpacking. It was delivered to my apartment lobby in front of me but because the doorman actually signed for it, (in spite of my having signed electronically on the UPS website), the seller accused me of "breaking custody", therefore it was my fault all along. It got crazier. He wanted photographs of all the foam scraps laid out in measured rows so he could calculate the volume. After about 30 emails I blocked him.

I don't know how far I want to go in outing him, or what good it will do.

Sorry for the off-topic rant, but I had to vent

Ken
W2EWL

On Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 12:03 PM Charlie L. via Milsurplus <[email protected]> wrote:
Not sure if you have any recourse with UPS. it was obviously packed minimally, and UPS as do all shippers say double box, with a minimum of 4-6 inches of shock absorbing material on around all 6 sides.  When someone does not do this, the shipper says it is not their fault.  Wonder if you bought this from a ham site, QRZ, QTH, etc?  Post the seller's call and name on the complaint page and shame him.

My famous shipper fails, a Palstar tuner that was shipped in all its original packing via FedEx, dropped from a height by someone in transit, and the impact caused every single item that was mounted on a standoff to break.  They refunded the cost of the tuner but only half of the $60 shipping.  The other, an Icom rig sent to me for repairs, arrived with a set of dual wheel tire tracks across the box, flattening it, and UPS said I did it.  They eventually paid the owner for his loss, but it was a  heck of a battle.

I think when you ship anything today, call Vegas and get a line started on it to see what the odds are that it will arrive intact.

Charlie in NC
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