Hi Ebay Lovers!I recently Send 2 guitars the same day (1 guitar and 1 electric-Acoustic Bass)one went to france and the other went to Germany, I put the packages on the same USPS Post office at the same time,both were in the case with doble box and peanuts. When the buyers receive the packages those where broken,the guitar that was a vintage gibson archtop was separated in 2 parts and the electric acoustic bass has a 18 inches crack on the front,here is the weird thing: Both boxes and cases was in perfect condition.
Yeah, I know what happened. The guys at USPS that loaded the guitars on the plane couldn't reach something so they stood on the box. When they heard a "SNAP" they thought, "OH S***!", and then proceeded to dust the footprint off of the box, making it look untouched, and in the process your guitars were mangled. I shipped a sign made of a strong plastic resin that was wrapped in styrofoam, surrounded by foam peanuts, and in a box way too big for the size of the sign, and it arrived broken. Cases are only made from ABS plastic, so if you stood on one, the guitar inside would get damaged. That is why the ridiculously expensive flight cases are made of metal. So someone at USPS needs to crack down on the employees who use packages as stepstools. Or maybe each one of your guitars had a termite in them and it got hungry on the flight across the ocean. But I would go with the latter of these situations. Hopefully your items were insured. Best of luck to you!
No, the guitars didn't have insurance,just the $110 Insurance included but however the USPS guys didn't give me nothing back they told me that if the box is fine they are not responsibles.((How Stupid!))I had to reinburse my buyers ,the repair cost of the crack was $570 (Almost the price of the bass for itself).
What i gonna do from now on is taje pictures of the instrument after put it at the post office,to have proof. What do you think??
I would suggest shipping with UPS. They cost a little more, but you can purchase additional insurance for a very fair price and they WILL honor your insurance claim if your item arrives damaged. Also, if you take it to a UPS store to ship it, you can get their pack and ship, where they pack your item, and they take full responsibility if it is damaged during shipment. A little more money is worth the security of knowing that you won't have to go through the situation you just went through. That is my suggestion for you. I hope it helps. USPS sucks!!!
As a retired salesperson from W W Grainger, one of the country's larger industrial supply companies, I can say from over 20 years' experience in customer service that shipping via USPS is not a good idea. UPS (or FedEx or DHL) will just about always be a better way to go. Delivery is quicker, tracking is better, and claims for damage will be handled much better (and happen less often). The postal service was one of my major customers. They always insisted that we ship anything to them via USPS rather than their competition. That makes sense. But then if anything got lost in transit and they could not find it, the post office would always blame US for not shipping it, even when we had a signed bill of lading, and expected us to replace what they lost with THEIR OWN SHIPPING SERVICE! Plus the way they route packages makes no sense at all; half the time an out-of-town parcel is automaticly sent the wrong direction because they send everything to only a few hubs to be sorted before they are reprocessed. If it's too big for a large padded envelope, do not use the postal service.
Were these items shipped in cases? Many times when a guitar is shipped in a case the belief is that it is perfectly safe, and that's that, not so the case. I have had a number of guitars shipped where the string tension was not released and the strap peg was not removed or supported so that it could not strike the case. The result was blown bodies, split soundboards, or ripped off bridges. Hence the reason that I ALWAYS make certain that insurance is added to the shipment. I also when selling a high dollar item "ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS" amortize the cost of insurance into the shipping costs. If I lose a potential auction because the shipping rates are too high, then so be it. Learning from hindsight always kinda sucks.
NOTE: Regardless of the condition of the packaging, if the item is insured and you have a photo journal of the packing process, USPS as much as they hate to, will pay the claim. May take months, but they pay.
I once saw a driver for UPS throw a guitar box off his truck. It landed some 6 to seven feet from the truck. He then picked up the box and brought it over for me the check in. It had Martin guitars on the box so I called an associate to the back and he chewed out the driver for quite a while. In this case the box and its contents were unharmed but I wouldn't want to be an insurance company for those shipments.
First - If the items did not ship via air ... in other words, they had to go via boat, then this is what happens: ever see a freight car on a train? It's as big as 2 garages back to back, and has really really high ceilings ... so, ALL the really big packages (i.e., something the size of your guitar) GOES ON THE BOTTOM OF THE PILE; so it gets CRUSHED.
Second - Overseas bidders, notoriously, CLAIM that they received a damaged item, so that they get a refund plus the item.
In either case, DON'T issue a refund, until an agent from the shipping company comes to inspect the damage to the item, then issues YOU a refund ... only then, should you issue the refund to the buyer. If you are polite in your communications to the seller, they will be willing to wait to follow shipping agent claim procedures.
If they're NOT legitimate, they will press you for their refund quickly, and try to assure you that they're not lying about the damage to the item ...
Again, very sorry about your troubles; and best of luck to you in the future ...
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