If you ship a fragile or expensive item, make sure that you have UPS do the packing of the item. I recently purchased a very high-end camera lens on eBay and the seller shipped it to me via UPS. It was well packed and arrived in fine shape, but I was not satisified with the product. I contacted the seller and explained my problem to them and they agreed to replace it with another lens of a similar, but more complete package of accessories. I sent the lens back to them via the same packaging and carrier as it had arrived to me, but was informed a couple of days later that the lens and arrived in two pieces and was unusable. They had filed a report with UPS, and informed me that an inspector was coming out to inspect the packaging. This seller is located in New York and is a high-volume seller of graphic equipment. They are quite experienced with packaging and I had no problems in returning my lens to them in the original packaging. Unfortunately, UPS did have a problem. It seems that if you send an item using their service, they will sell you insurance but they will not honor the claim if they did not do the packaging. They did not tell me this at the point of sale as the transaction was being completed. At no time did they give me a warning that they would nullify the insurance if they were not the packaging agent. The only disclaimer made was on the billing form that I had filled out earlier in the transaction and it was stamped on the document after the transaction had been completed. Why offer insurance in the first place if you have no intention of making good of the claim? The only answer that I can think of is greed and the bottom line economics of making a buck anyway possible.
0 comments