anyone succeed with a fedex claim?

[jimcav]

i just sold wheels, sent them in bags, surrounded by styrofoam peanuts,
something bashed a hole in the box and sheared a spoke at the rim.
so i started the claim online, sent a pic of the box and wheel. anyone do anything that worked. i've been the recipient of damaged goods--and the claim was denied for "improper packing" which was complete BS, but i wonder if they just always say that?
thanks
jim

[97CSI]

Yes. UPS, Fedex, etc., all start off with that. Don't give up. Take it to the next step and small claims court, if needed.

[thwart]

FedEx---Took some time, but after they bent a frame I sold (and packed well), they finally made it right.

Lotsa paperwork, though.

[William]

Their stance is that if it gets damaged, it wasn’t packed correctly…because if it was packed correctly, it wouldn’t have been damaged.

With that being said, UPS is the worse of the two in our experience. We've had more luck getting Fed-X to pony up, but it still requires persistance and hoop jumping.





William

[Blue Jays]

One wonders what exactly do shippers do once boxes reach their shipping hubs? Do they hurl the boxes through the air? Kick them like soccer balls?
There are obviously millions and millions of successfully delivered packages for each damaged one....yet those damaged deliveries are occasionally a doozy.

[David Kirk]

Don't waste your time with the automated system on the phone. You will get no where. If you talk to a person with any authority you can do well if you are persistent and reasonable.

Here's the trick to get to a real person when calling Fed Ex. Call 1 800 GO-FEDEX and when you get through say the word "rep" into the phone. It's voice activated but you will never be given that prompt no matter how long to sit and listen. Say "rep" and you'll get right through to a manager who can actually do something.

Good luck,

dave

[David Kirk]

One wonders what exactly do shippers do once boxes reach their shipping hubs? Do they hurl the boxes through the air? Kick them like soccer balls?
There are obviously millions and millions of successfully delivered packages for each damaged one....yet those damaged deliveries are occasionally a doozy.

I don't recall what carrier it was (Fed EX or UPS) but back at Serotta we once had a bike get it's head tube crushed shut. Hit so hard from the front that the head tube was closed up. It takes a huge amount of force to get this to happen. We got a visit from the claims guy who gave us the "poor packing" excuse and wanted to hold his ground on not paying the claim. We then took an old scrap bike and bashed the head tube with a sledge hammer while he watched to show him how much it took to get that kind of damage. The poor bastard watched in disbelief and then agreed to pay the claim.

I think it's the job of the claims guy to try to get out of paying no matter what. The tough thing from my perspective is that all the carriers are just as sleazy and picking one is choosing from the lesser of evils.

Ahhh big business.

dave

[sc53]

I've been successful on 4 claims (all for stereo gear I sold and shipped) and in each case it took perseverance as mentioned above AND talking to a real person to whom you can email photos of the damaged box, the damaged item, the packing and packaging you used, etc. They always want to see your original sales receipt too, or at least a PayPal receipt or something showing what you actually paid for the damaged item, even though you purchased insurance for a certain amount and paid for that amount. If your claim is going well, FedEx will return and pick up the damaged item for "inspection." Make sure you've taken all the photos you need before then! They will then ask whether you want to turn the item in for the insurance money or get it repaired. I don't know what they do with items that are turned in, but if you want to get it repaired they will return it to you, you get it repaired and send them the bill, they pay if the repair was within your insured amount.

[jimcav]

i hope they can deal with my buyer, as the wheels are in another state now--all i need is for them to pay for the new spoke and any truing--should be simple but obviously it won't be

thanks
jim

[Grant McLean]

i just sold wheels, sent them in bags

you sent them in bags!?
was this a test to see how smashed they could get?
In any case, good luck with the claim.
I consider my own "insurance policy" to pack in double wall cardboard,
braced internally, making it as unlikely as possible for something to go wrong.

-g

[stormyClouds]

I had a successful Fed Ex claim, too. As pointed out, it will take a long time.
I think that I filed the claim in November and got the check in March.
As sc53 said, have the recipient take plenty of pics before Fed Ex picks it up for inspection.
I was told that my frame would be picked up, inspected and sent back to me within a few days. Instead, they picked it up and just returned it back to the shop who shipped it. This began the long game of "who has the frame now"?
It is a pain (purposely, I am sure), but you have to keep on them with constant phone calls.
Good luck and report back with outcome.

[Jeff N.]

I sold a vintage Sansui G-901DB receiver to a guy on E-Bay and the thing arrived at his door looking like it'd been dropped out of a 6 story window. Again, it took some phone tagging, but FEDEX finally came through with every penny. Jeff N.

[PaulE]

I have been lucky so far in shipping on both the sending and receiving ends. Thread drift - this article was in the NY Times Sunday business section. FedEx Ground employees aren't employees at all, they are independent contractors who have to buy their own trucks, fuel, tires etc. and get no benefits.

NY Times Article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/business/20work.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=april+20+2008&st=nyt&oref=slogin)

[woolly]

Back in college, I had some friends who got on with UPS as temp labor loading trucks around the Xmas holidays. They got paid pretty well, compared to other available opportunities for a college kid, but were treated pretty poorly. In turn, they told stories of taking their frustrations out on the packages. I'm sure they were responsible for breaking many things that got blamed, at least initially, on "improper packaging". Sure glad I had a more regular part-time gig back then, which prevented me from joining them in this adventure.

I agree with what others have said about the initial claim - it's likely to be rubber-stamped as "insufficiently packaged" right off the bat, no matter what the real situation is. A couple of years ago a friend of mine shipped two bikes back to Tahoe from the end of RAGBRAI. FedEx Ground, I believe. These bikes were packed very carefully in a new TriAll3 double-bike case. I've seen several bike cases, and this thing was the sturdiest, most protective case of them all. The bikes themselves even had pipe insulation & other wrapping to safeguard against components rubbing together in transit & causing minor damage. Well, when he got back home, he found that the box had been COMPLETELY mangled. Looked like it was butted up against a pole on one end, and rammed completely from the other end until the whole she-bang just buckled. Case, bikes, & pretty much all other contents of the box completely destroyed. The initial response from FedEx? You guessed it - improper packaging was found to be the cause. Unbelievable! Now, they did turn this around pretty quickly & made good on the whole thing, but I wonder if ANY of that would happened had he not pushed the issue.

Despite these horror stories, I personally have had pretty good luck shipping & receiving stuff. It certainly helps when folks do "Frank-level" packing (yes, our own Serotta Frank - best packing I've ever seen). But it's still often a roll of the dice. Within the last year I received an MTB frame that was just tossed into an empty box without any packing or protection at all. The box ended up being crumpled on one end, and a fist-sized hole punched in the side, but luckily (and surprisingly) no damage to the frame. The used Serotta CRT I bought, however, was packaged very responsibly but unfortunately fell victim to UPS - hole punched in the side of the box, wheel trashed, and an ugly (but apparently not structurally catastrophic) dent in the downtube. Broke my heart - the frame was the reason for the purchase. Buyer was great to work with, and immediately offered a full refund. All I had to do was put it back in the box & put it on my doorstep for UPS to pick up. I ended up just keeping it because I still liked it, even though the resulting condition made for a significantly worse "deal" than I had bargained for.

So Jim, sorry to hear your number got pulled this time around. Good luck dealing with the shipping company.

[legacysti888]

Jim, I bought a Mac Pro from Ebay and it arrived bent. The solid aluminum cpu frame arrived bent! The packing was flawless but I think it was dropped from the top of the Manhattan building. It took over two months before FedEx paid the claim. Had bad experiences with both FedEx and UPS, but UPS is definitely the worse company to deal with for damages.

Good luck with your claim, Bro!