[R-390] USPS info (What a screw up and a rip off !!!)

[Barry Williams]

I sent a small handheld by UPS about 15 years ago, and the box had a 
puncture into the radio itself when it arrived. They finally sent an 
inspector to my house, and he suggested that I send the radio in for 
warranty repair since it was new enough. I had to call until I found one 
of the big guys for Alabama, and I relayed the story to him along with 
the fact that my wife heard him say that. This guy was going to deny my 
claim until he found out there was a witness to the suggestion of fraud.

I bought a RBL-5 in California on the bay a few years ago for $50. That 
package made it somewhere up north, like in Michigan before the seller 
tracked it down. It was returned to him instead of shipping on to me. 
When he had to lug it back to them, it was misrouted to somewhere in 
Texas. More tracking down. Then, it arrived to me in Alabama. I was very 
nervous about how it would look after all that shipping, but it survived 
in perfect condition. The only think I can figure is that the seller 
wrapped dozens of foam pieces around the radio to make it into a huge 
50+ lb foam ball.


Barry

> For these uber-expensive transactions running into the tens or hundreds of
> thousands of dollars I would rather escort something personally than to
> entrust it to a shipping company or the USPS.
>
> It just seems crazy to ship something that expensive and let the minimum
> wage guy bounce it from loading dock to truck. I frequently need to take
> very expensive test gear with me when I go to a customer location (Rohde
> Schwarz FSH18) and would rather lug it through airports than to ship it. My
> manager suggested that I just pack up everything in a big box and ship it to
> a job site. I think he is crazy and doesn't remember the previous
> experiences where we tried to ship stuff.
>
> Most recently we sent stuff to the US Park at Sandy Hook New Jersey. UPS
> dropped the pallet off at the park service headquarters where nobody would
> sign for it or put it in the warehouse. It sat in the rain for three days
> before we could get out there to do the work. Then, when the job was done,
> it took UPS TWO MONTHS to return the box back to us. By then, everything bad
> been so badly mangled that we had to throw most of the gear away.
>
> Before that experience we sent test gear to Puerto Rico where they lost the
> entire shipment. It was found six weeks later, sitting in the jungle, the
> cabinet filled with almost a foot of water.
>
> For lots of money on any project I would rather deliver it in person and
> receive payment the same way.
>
>