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May 11, 2007 - 11:10pm
#1
UPS strikes again
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Improperly packaged is the reason for ddamaged shipments. Not UPS or DHL or Fedex...they do it all teh same, thousands and thousands of boxes daily actually MILLIONS....thrown and tossed on conveyor belts. Go after whoever packed it improperly not the carriers. UPS/Fedex/DHL do a great job, so does the USPS. I have no problems with any. I send and receive stuff packaged p[roperly. Fragile stickers, warnings etc., mean nothing. What matters is teh zip code, then teh street address lable. all else is meaninless to get it delivered properly and on time. Which they all do amazingly well. Obviously the person who packaged this speaker doesn't understand how things are dealt with during shipping. Yell at them not UPS.
DPM,
I understand your plight. I have a great friend who is affiliated with UPS and he told me that boxes can literally fall 50 feet if it falls off the line, cause the line got jammed.
Even double boxed, with plenty of damping material, electronics have been destroyed. I saw some at an audio store and it was packaged very well.
Pretty pathetic.
Sh*t happens. But as for your choice of carriers. I guess that would depend where you live. As for Fedex (common) everything flies to Memphis first. Even if you ship something from Albuquerque, NM to Lubbock TX. Where I live UPS is the preference. Luckily, so for far, I haven't had a bad experience with any of the major carriers. Nevertheless, if something damaged in shipping it is to be returned to the carrier through their policy. Not opened up and set up and then complaining about it. You handled the problem incorrectly.
I avoid UPS whenever possible. I had a $2k painting get destroyed during shipping and was given way too much grief trying to get UPS to make good on my insurance claim. The damn thing had 2 forklift holes punched through the shipping carton!
I use Federal Express whenever I can.
In Japan, if an item isn't delivered on time or if it's damaged in transit, great disgrace is placed upon the people at the delivery service company. Sometimes the disgrace is so unbearable that they perform ritual suicides. I propose we institute a similar system here. Any time a common carrier misplaces, destroys, damages or doesn't deliver an item on time, he/she should be forced to perform ritual suicide.
Actually, the box didn't look that bad. There was no way to see the damage to the grill until I'd unpacked the speaker. And returning a rare speaker (one that's never been used no less) that functions perfectly because of a bent (removable) grill is out of the question. Now, if the speaker itself had been damaged, then I would have returned it. Luckily, it escaped harm. Given these circumstances, I think I handled things correctly.
I did email the shipper to let them know what happened. They do a lot of business with UPS.
As for the packaging itself, it was the original box and padding--which had never been opened. The speaker was suspended away from all sides of the box by rather sturdy foam inserts. There was about two inches of clearance all the way around. The fact that the speaker itself wasn't damaged in any way proves that the packaging was up to the job visa vis the normal wear and tear of shipping companies. The only further improvement to be done would have been crating.
As for the nature of the damage, the metal frame is not made of flimsy material. We're talking steel here. For that to have been bent the way it is, someone really had to drop the ball in a big way. I just hope I can bend the frame back into shape somehow. Miraculously, the bend does not prevent use of the grill. It still fits the speaker. It just looks a bit funky.
As for my complaining, this is "general rants and raves" isn't it? As far as I'm concerned, if someone breaks your stuff you have the right to...rant and rave. That's what this forum is for.
And you also have the right to ask others if they have had better luck with other carriers. So, thanks for the FEDEX info. I definitely won't be using them unless I'm shipping something to the southeast. I guess that leaves DHL.
DHLUPSFEDEXUSPS all good. Millions of packages daily, on time. Pretty amazing systems they have Perefection in transportation is an extra fee though. I've had a pkg years ago, that didn't even have my street name, just a bunch of scramlblbeldedlled letters, WRONG number. UPS Red, got it to my door by 9AM That is amazing, cus' technically, they couldn't sent it back to the shipper, as no such address!!! Ya know how great UPS is, at the depot the driver said, they recognized my NAME!!! Now that's SERVICE!!! they all do a great job, I'm sure each of you are pefect at whatever you do for a living, i know I mostly am......but then I've been greeting shoppers at WalMart for decades, I got good at it.
You're absolutely right. You're complaining and I'm complaining on the appropriate forum. So, my advice is return the merchandise to UPS and tell them they f*cked up your stuff and quit crying about it. You given a lot of reason why it shouldn't have been damaged. You ignored the fact that it should have returned to the carrier as soon as possible for customer service. Now, it is probably too late. Don't blame the common carrier. It was your property when it was put on the truck to begin with. It's called FOB origination. In defense of UPS, I had not received a package once because they damaged it and returned it to the seller who promptly sent a new item. Since you admit the packaging didn't look that bad you can't blame the common carrier personnel. The contents of the package is moot. You didn't follow UPS policy and filed a claim. Instead, you wasted that amount of time belly-aching on this forum.
On a happier note: I liked the Hales a great deal when they were around and was pleased when Wadia bought them. It is unfortunate that they didn't do well - nice, nice speakers. A surround system built around them would be wonderful to hear!
Well, that one is odd. What sort of grief would UPS give you for someone driving a forklift through a $2,000 painting? Was UPS the only carrier under the single contract? Sometimes though UPS is the actual deliverer there are other carriers involved under the same contract. That is the only thing I can think of that would have held up the paperwork and restitution. Especially over something that is not replaceable like a $2,000 painting. Incidentally, what was the painting, artist, and so forth?
One day I came home from work and just happened to look on my front porch and there was this huge package from UPS with big bold letters on it, "THE HURD GALLERY". I was like WTF? I brought it into the house and my sister had sent me the last signed print of, "A Portrait of Peggy" by Peter Hurd in a gallery frame. She had purchased it from Peter Hurd's sister over the phone. UPS just left it on the front porch. Something like that should have resulted in a routing slip on the door informing me to pick it up at the depot. I didn't call UPS. I called my sister and we discussed the print and the usual, "You shouldn't have", which led to my story, and she called the gallery who called who called UPS. I'm hoping the delivery person got a lesson on art appreciation and value. There is no telling how much my sister paid for that print.
Yes, they are nice speakers, and the surround system is almost completed. Unfortunately, I've been having a bit of bad luck with the Hales lately.
First, last November, my Musical Fidelity integrated amp blew its right channel and fried the crossover of my right-side Transcendent Eight. It has taken all of the intervening five months to find the appropriate parts. But now there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the crossover will be repaired and reinstalled by the end of this month. Yahoo!
As for the center channel speaker, I finally found this one (unused no less) on Ebay. As I stated above, they are extremely hard to find, but I got lucky. There ain't no way no how I'm giving it up over a bent grill.
As for the surrounds, I have a pair of Revelation Three towers, and I also have the Revelation center--which I'll use for the back channel. I'm looking forward to being sonically enveloped in the Hales sound.
"You ignored the fact that it should have returned to the carrier as soon as possible for customer service."
What customer service, Lamont? What are they going to do? Are they going to repair or replace the frame? No. Is the speaker itself damaged? No, thanks to the frame taking the full blow.
You seem to be ignoring the fact that I don't want to give up the speaker. And why should I? As I've stated several times now, THE SPEAKER ITSELF IS NOT DAMAGED. And it is a very hard to find item. And the speaker I found was brand spanking new. That makes it irreplaceable in my view. Why should I suffer because someone at UPS didn't give a damn.
You know, Lamont, the world isn't black and white. There are shades of gray. This is one of those times. Now, if the speaker cabinet or drivers had been damaged then you would be absolutely right about returning it. And that's what I would have done. But we're talking about the grill--which is removable and may be repairable.
"Since you admit the packaging didn't look that bad you can't blame the common carrier personnel."
Now the logic of this statement escapes me. What, since the box was sturdy enough to bounce back from the abuse I can't lay blame where it belongs: on some lazy ass UPS worker who doesn't give a damn about others' personal property.
You know, Lamont, the vehemence in your posts makes me wonder if you or someone in your family works for UPS.
"You didn't follow UPS policy and filed a claim. Instead, you wasted that amount of time belly-aching on this forum."
Oh, I haven't wasted any time, Lamont. I find this quite cathartic. Everyone--including even you, Lamont--has the right to bellyache. And no one is forcing you to open up this thread and read it. So feel free to bug off.
Was it something I stated?
UPS workers care about personal property? They move MILLIONS of boxes a day!!! How personel should it be? The US Postal service also cares about YOUR items..as they move miliions and millions of pieces of paper, ooooo don't throw that like that. I've gotten hundreds and hundreds of UPS, Fedex, DHL over teh decades, I've yet to have something broken or lost!!! Same for teh mail......UPS p[lainly states to package properly to survive a fall of a distance, if you have some really heavy items in a weak box or poorly designed padding, stuff gets damaged, not stuff packed properly. Ever see how tv and vcr etc are in those well designed boxes, no added weight, floating in perfect fitting styrofoam inserts, Packaging is a business in it self, tv from China dn Mexico, millions get here all the time, packaged properly....to survive loading docks, wet hot cold......packaging done right.....damaged when done wrong.