A way to avoid shipping insurance collection problems

TX_Tube

Active Member
I have shipped some very heavy items in the past and some have wound up getting smashed up in the process. Sometimes from a bad packing job by the shipper end and sometimes from the shipping carrier's negligence. A real PITA trying to collect insurance money if you are the receiver of the package, the sender paid the freight charges and the item got damaged during shipping. The carriers hate to pay insurance claims, just like regular insurance companies, as they make no profit by doing so.

To circumvent problems it is best to have your own account, even if it is a temporary one, such as a Kinko's card when using FedEx to deliver a package. Have the sender drop the item off at a FedEx shipping center and have FedEx forward the charges to you. I believe you can pay online if you have an account or give them the preloaded Kinkos cards number and you are good to go. You can also make sure the proper amount of insurance value is placed on the item and you know exactly what it will cost you for shipping. In this way you are the shipper and the piece in transit is now your property. Plus you will be the only 1 being dealt with, by the shipping company, for insurance claim purposes if the item gets damaged or lost in transit. It took me over 4 months of constant haggling with FedEx to get them to pay off on a heavy item that was damaged in shipping. The shipper was MIA which really made it a nightmare to collect on the insurance payoff. Insurance companies aren't in the business of paying claims, no matter what their TV commercials portray.
 
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Plus you have to know what shipping company you are dealing with. You have FedEx ground and then FedEx ground residence service, that both deliver to homes. FE residence has the built in $4.50 upcharge built into it's price structure already, that FedEx ground doesn't. So if you want FedEx the actual corporation to carry your pieces choose FedEx ground and pay the $4.50 up charge. FedEx residence are sub contractors that are required to have loss insurance by FedEx, but you aren't dealing with FedEx itself if in a damage claim, you are dealing with the sub contractor's insurance company. I have found it better to deal with FedEx the corporation itself in these matters.

I will also go right to the first city hub of the shipping carrier that my package arrives at and pick it up right there. It will save on shipping costs and reduce damage issues caused by deliver drivers or porch pirates. Not really the money is that some pieces can't be replaced easily, in most cases.
 
I have shipped some very heavy items in the past and some have wound up getting smashed up in the process. Sometimes from a bad packing job by the shipper

I see you've been on AK for almost a month so first of all welcome aboard also there is a whole thread on how to package items here at AK, It's quite helpful. If you are the one doing the packaging then the onus is on you to do a better job. If you're having FedEx doing the packaging then I would rethink that as the responsibility ultimately lies with you when dealing with the buyer as more then likely they could care less who's at fault.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?forums/packing-shipping.87/

A real PITA trying to collect insurance money if you are the receiver of the package

The receiver of the package or the buyer is not the one who shipped the item thus it's not their responsibility to collect the insurance money. It's the seller's responsibility.

Have the sender drop the item off at a FedEx shipping center and have FedEx forward the charges to you.

The seller is then tasked to drop off item at FedEx packaged securely by the seller or packaged by FedEx, pay shipping costs and any additional insurance other the the included amount.

The onus is not on the buyer to have FedEx bill them. They purchased an item with either shipping (and insurance) included or plus a fee for shipping (and insurance). That is the end of their responsibility.

In this way you are the shipper and the piece in transit is now your property....

It took me over 4 months of constant haggling with FedEx to get them to pay off on a heavy item that was damaged in shipping. The shipper was MIA which really made it a nightmare to collect on the insurance payoff.

Again not the buyers responsibility, why would one want to do that? also you seem to be contradicting your premise of "the piece in transit is now your property"

The buyer never should be the one dealing with a damaged item, that's the sellers responsibility. You mention the seller was MIA It sounds like the transaction was done outside of eBay? or another online entity?
 
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The main reason a person who purchases an item usually from an individual, wants to be the shipper in the freight carrier's insurance verbiage is so they are the 1 being dealt with directly if an insurance claim is filed. Since I purchased that item from the seller and have already paid for it, it is now my property, held in chattle by the seller, until it is shipped. Once it is shipped the carrier is now in possession of your property and has to take the correct precautions it arrives safely, until it arrives into your possession.

The last insurance SNAFU I had with FedEx, the seller who was paid for the item along with shipping costs, wanted absolutely nothing to do with the shipping insurance claim. This person didn't care about the damaged piece as they already got their money. So I had to slog it out with FedEx for 4 months of haggling to get a check cut. FedEx informed the seller that a check was being cut for insurance loses, since it FedEx's eye he was the owner of the property. FE sent the insurance check to him. FedEx had already picked up the damaged piece and I had a stupid look on my face. Numerous phone calls, plus emails to the seller were never answered. A call to the seller's local DA made him come to the table and negotiate a settlement between us. The insurance value was a 150.00 more then I paid for the piece and I let him keep that amount for his "trouble". If I could recoup my original investment, I was happy. I sure didn't get paid for my time on the phone when dealing with FedEx. So to circumvent problems like this it is far easier to become the actual shipper of an item, so you don't have to go thru an extra filter when dealing with insurance companies. Ask any of the shipping carriers for their hold harmless form, that transfers all responsibilities and collections over to the receiver of the package and they will tell you they don't have 1. I wonder why? The seller has to send a written letter to the carrier to make this happen. More hoops to jump thru so you don't collect on the services you paid for.

This deal was made outside of Ebay from another website. The piece was a very high dollar piece and sort of rare and very heavy at 80#s plus shipping container weight. So it wasn't cheap to purchase or to have it shipped. The piece was sent in it's factory shipping setup, but it was extremely cumbersome to handle as it was large. When I ship something it is over packed as I hate to receive something I paid for damaged from my negligence in packing it. For large items, getting pieces shipped on a pallet is getting more and more cost effective, as retail shipping prices are going thru the roof. You can load up to 3K pounds on a pallet and have it hauled by an 18 wheeler to your local trucking hub, where you can pick it up. I have a folk lift at the hub just load the pallet right in the back of my F350 and away I go. I shipped a 6.0 diesel short block from Pensacola Fla to Houston and it cost was about 160.00. That is a 700 lb item being shipped almost 800 miles for that price. Folks can get a lift truck to drop the pallet right off at the house also for an extra surcharge.

The insurance factor is needed more then ever, as you have folks who buy a working piece of equipment and take the good parts out, to repair their own pieces. Then they claim the piece didn't work and now want a refund from the seller. The bottom feeders of the world are always coming up with something new. So for the seller not to get screwed by these scam artists, it is best to make a short video of the piece working that has a recent date code embedded in the video. Since the piece coming back won't be in working condition the seller can now file damage claims that the piece was damaged in transport. The bottom feeder who took the working parts has already verified the piece wasn't in working condition and your video will prove it was in working condition when it left your possession. The internet has opened up a whole new World for the charlatans to operate in and a person does have to safeguard their own interests in these matters.

Go over to the big auction site and look at amateur radios being sold there. 95% of them are listed for parts only, just because of the parts changers who rob good parts from pieces, then want their money back for their labors.
 
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Let me add this into the thread also. There are still fine upstanding people who will do the right thing, when you have a business transaction with them over the internet. I have received pieces that look like they could survive an atomic blast while being at ground zero, from the seller's great packing jobs. More then a few of the pieces I have purchased, where better then their descriptions made them out to be. There is no 100% rule when dealing with other people and it doesn't take many bad apples to spoil the whole barrel for everyone. When dealing with items that cost more then a few thousand dollars, better to be safe then sorry.
 
FedEx residence are sub contractors that are required to have loss insurance by FedEx, but you aren't dealing with FedEx itself if in a damage claim, you are dealing with the sub contractor's insurance company.

By chance, I had a very large, heavy package delivered by FedEx today. But for the only time ever, they didn't even approach my house. They left it out by the road, a couple hundred feet away. I guess there's no recourse in a situation like that--the most you'd get from 'customer service' is a (useless) apology. It's just weird, because it's not hard to drive the truck up to my house as they've done a hundred times before. I haven't opened the package yet.
 
FedEx Ground Residential service are sub contractors that work for FedEx. This is different the FedEx Ground. They drive their own trucks and have FedEx signs all over them. So the subcontractors have their own delivery methods, which is sometimes a lot different the FedEx's own policies are. I believe you would waste a lot of time trying to get any restitution on shipping charges, because the package was left so far from your house. Be glad a porch pirate didn't swipe your package that was delivered so far from your house. Then you would be really in for a real cumbersome situation, trying to get insurance money from FedEx, caused by the driver's negligence in delivering your package.
 
The onus is always on the seller. I had recently shipped a tube amp, double boxed and padded, to Arizona to a buyer using FedEx Ground and it somehow managed to get dinged. I took the initiative and filed a claim and all, but the buyer won't have the amp picked up by FedEx or drop it off at a local FedEx for them to evaluate and process the claim. So he's covered by PayPal and as a result is shipping it directly back to me. He's getting his refund; I am not denying him that. But I am faced with a difficult process of once I receive it, I will have to file another claim with FedEx and hope that the pictures of the damaged box and dinged amp (with video) will be enough for me to get my money for damages done. Because I will probably not get back the original damaged shipping boxes for them to assess.
 
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