Bindusar

Whenever you ship an item, there are a few things you should be certain to do to ensure positive experience for yourself and the person you are shipping to.

1. Triple check the address to make sure it is correct. A simple typo or transposition can make a package evaporate faster than liquid CO2 on an OC'd CPU. Tracking numbers do help here, but only if the person who did get (assuming it makes it somewhere) is ethical and doesn't make it his own.

2. Do not pack the item to be shipped if you are using a store front (Mailboxes Etc., The UPS Store, etc.), let them do it. You may think that you know better than they do, but if something goes wrong they may not work with you arguing that "How do we know it wasn't damaged to begin with (insinuating fraud)?" If they pack it, you are in the clear. Yes, they may be making a few bucks off you for it but it will easily pay for itself if there is a problem later on...consider it an investment. If you are going directly to a UPS or FedEx distribution hub this won't be a problem as they do not offer to pack it for you.

3. Make sure to check one of the boxes for a declared value, even if it is the free one! UPS and FedEx automatically insure any package for up to $100...the fees are built into the shipping charges. Anything over that and you pay a small fee to increase the coverage. Here is the hitch, some store fronts may not or will not honor the basic coverage granted by the carriers unless you check the box saying you want it. Now assume you send a package and it gets damaged. The recipient calls and files a claim. The paperwork for the claim is sent to the shipper, in this case the store front, not you the individual. See where this is going? This leaves the store front able to get an easy $100 from the carrier without forwarding it to the consumer.

4. Shipping to another country: When shipping to another country there are 2 tips that were just learned the hard way. First, make sure to make the DECLARED value for customs something very low. Second, if you state the country of manufactur as somewhere other than where it is being shipped to, it will get hit with an import tax. A $100 declared value (thought it was for insurance purposes) and a origin of USA (since that's where I shipped it from) resulted in a $59 import tax that was not intended. So, be careful and consider these things when filling out the forms.

If you make sure to do these few things they will not guarantee the safe arrival of your package to its destination but you at least will have a means of recourse that will be iron clad allowing you to be properly reimbursed for your loss.

somody

nice to know...rep+

intelc4004

"Do not pack the item to be shipped if you are using a store front (Mailboxes Etc., The UPS Store, etc.), let them do it."

I get free boxes from ebay, and I pack everything myself. For all the times the item I sent got damaged in transit with UPS, they ALWAYS sent someone down to write a check for the full insured value. They won't do anything if the package itself wasn't damaged on arrival.
The fact that they pack doesn't necessarily mean anything.
It's actually better if you do it yourself because you know what you're packing and how fragile it is, they don't know anything about it. Let's say you're shipping a cpu. How would the UPS guy packing it know for sure it acutally works, without actually putting it in a machine to test it? :)

Bindusar

The issue with having them pack it for you is really for when you are using a storefront like UPS Store or Mailboxes Etc. True, something like a CPU is impossible to tell if it works, but it is just a precaution to help make sure you can get your insurance $$$ if something goes wrong.

bloodeLf

What I do is declare the item as a gift and the value under $5. Good FAQ!