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As a photographer who has been paid to photograph the sorting hubs for Airborne Express in Wilmington Ohio and Fed Ex in Nashville Tennessee, I have observed that packages are not intentionally dropped at any part of the process. They travel on conveyors and slide down stainless steel chutes at various points. At no stage in this process is there ever a "three foot drop from a conveyor" as one correspondent suggests.Even if a shipping company were out and out evil and wanted to cause harm to packages, they would not place a three foot drop anywhere in the sort process because it would cause serious maintenance problems to their own equipment and would be noisy and uncomfortable for their own employees. But of course the companies are not evil nor stupid and causing damage to packages is the last thing they want to do. That's why their sort centers cost many millions of dollars and are meticulously engineered to make the process swift, secure, and safe.
If a package is ever dropped three feet, it is a mistake and most likely to occur at the delivery point as the package is removed from the truck. Any deliveryman who drops a package that way should notify the recipient and have them check for damage because it is beyond what can be considered acceptable. In most cases, a three foot drop to pavement would result in obvious external damage to the package.
Follow Ups:
On some news broadcast about the post office, they showed some stock footage of packages travelling along conveyors, and at one point there was a pretty big drop from a conveyor to a chute or bin or something, at least 3 feet. These would have been small packages; maybe big stuff is handled better. I would still recommend packing things as if they are going to be dropped. I had a computer badly damaged when I was forced to send it airfreight; the amount of damage looked equivalent to at least a one-foot drop.Someone in a CRT projector forum said he'd watched a delivery guy drag a palletized projector off the back of the truck and let it drop to the ground. Which immediately resulted in a damage claim.
A friend of mine sold his BAT VK500 on Audiogon and when it was delivered there was a hole in the box. The buyer never noticed it. It was obvious that FedEx placed a fork right in the box damaging the hell out of the amp. It popped the top, bent the handle, and just plained ruined the amp shell. Needless to say there is a claim and funny thing the idiot buyer thinks my friend shipped the amp damaged. Before anyone asks, yes it was insured.
Just like a ball my boxes where nicely rounded off I asked the fedex guy why he did so said it was heavy. I told him he was rolling $10000 worth of electronics he turned red...Also seen fedex do a drive by drop off truck hardly stoped my box was just rolled out onto the driveway was a CD player not cool.Also love the walk away knock some of these guys do.Iam lucky most of the UPS and FEDEX guys know me but with new guys or vacations then I have trouble.
Or at pickup!I had a FedEX guy drop an expensive preamp RIGHT in front of my eyes as he was leaving our reception...just flat out careless!
Regards, Allen
The FedEx Express hub is in Memphis, Tennessee. Was that what you meant to write?
Regards,
Geoff
Forgive me. It was years ago. I was in Memphis.
Most of the time I have had good luck with UPS. However, on one order they destroyed two Audio Research amps in a row ($8000)........They do have problems.
All I want to add is this. I know a person who told me he once worked for one of these shippers (I don't want to sued for liable so the company in question will not be named). He told me in no uncertain terms that the heavier the box the more abuse it got, further as a rule the workers were anything but careful or respectful of the boxes they handled. He told me that they were actually thrown recklessly onto or into whatever the next phase of the shipment was. Given the condition of many boxes of audio gear I have recieved I believe it. You simply must double box and use a lot of protective material, when shipping. In effect assume your precious irreplacable equipment will be subject to a beating. I am suprised no one seems to believe this.
The only things that I have recieved that appear carefully handled are, beleive it not, USP priority mail, in small packages, I collect tubes and many sellers use that method.
Like a 3-pointer. And try to make it come down on a corner. That's the weak spot.
all critically damaged by UPS and Fedex. I've had a Magnum Dynalab tuner arrive with it's control switches broken off the front panel. The damages are more than likely caused by human error - but they are real, and they are too frequent in nature.DKL
Double boxed with an ample layer of styrofoam peanuts between the boxes?The shipper should always assume "normal" abuse will occur. Running the tines of a forklift through a box is not normal. However, having a box gouged by some sharp object to a depth of a few inches is normal. Dropping a box a foot or so is normal. Kicking a box off the back of a truck is not normal.
OK, gotta vent here, I just shipped a pair of Bang & Olufsen S45 speakers that I had restored. They had to go all the way across the country, stands and very delicate mint-condition grills included. The only way I knew I could get them there safely was to put the speakers in two separate boxes, then heavily space and pad around that box and each one in their own separate larger box. Each separate box could have easily held everything if shippers were more cautious. The stands had to be boxed separately so they wouldn't slide around and damage anything else, which left the grills to be very carefully packed in their own box.So, here we are, with four boxes, two of them huge, where one big box should have sufficed.
Take them to be shippped, got nailed for the extra size, and the extra weight of the packaging, a $4.15 "rural surcharge" for EACH box, and a hefty "fuel surcharge" for each box. The grand total to ship all of this was over $163!!!!The reason for me being so cautious? You should have seen what happened to the pair of Maggie IIIa speakers I shipped once, that I had PROFESSIONALLY packed, at the shipper's store! Been almost 10 months, still nothing heard from my claim.
Grrrr . . . I need a refreshing adult beverage now!
BT
"to a depth of a few inches is normal": have you fallen in love with shipping companies or what?
In the case of the Tylers, they came directly from the manufacturer. With the Merlin VSM-Ms, they were packaged in their original EXTREMELY robust packaging, as were the NHT 2.9s (though the NHT packaging is not up to the level of Merlin).
And I know Ty packs his speakers well.
HI,
In my experience, both personally and with my repair shop, I have never experienced damage to the contents of a package. This covers hundreds of packages.However, based upon the condition of some of the outer packages, this is true only by the grace of God. Some packages were pretty beat up.
In general I have supported the delivery companies. But I know that damage does occur. And I have seen packages dropped from the delivery truck. But not mine, at least where I could see it. I think they do quite a good job.
Sparky
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