I think it’s absolutely appalling that the Postal Service won’t stand by their own service and will tell you you’re SOL if your package is lost and you didn’t purchase insurance. It’s almost like a protection racket. Who else can get away with operating like this?
Rosco’s House Cleaning Service: “Go ahead and pay us in advance to come clean your house, but we might never show up. You’ll be out of luck…unless you purchase some insurance.”
Jimmy’s Builders: “We’ll build your garden wall, but it might never get finished. No refund unless you buy insurance.”
Even UPS and FedEx, which can be the spawn of the devil on other issues, will cover the loss to the shipper if the package is lost or destroyed.
Usualy if they know they lost the package they will cover it. If it’s just being dropped off prove they didn’t deliver it. It’s the receiving persons word against theirs.
When you purchase the insurance it requires someone sign for it on the other end.
I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. Since insuring something has real costs associated with it, if they by default insure everything, the cost for everything goes up. Generally, I’m willing to take on the slight risk of loss when sending a package. If the package is particularly expensive, then I’ll pay extra to insure it.
If the USPS “stand by” their service, the only change would be that I would have to pay to insure my package instead of having the choice.
I’m not quite sure I follow. I’m paying to have my package sent from here to there for this amount of money. If the package doesn’t make it there, they’re not holding up their end of the bargain.
Calling it insurance, doesn’t make it insurance. It’s not being insured against an act of god, random accident, like a house or car is. It’s basically being insured against their own incompetency.
If I buy a ticket on Greyhound to get ME from here to there. And I don’t get there, they don’t make me pay insurance in order to be compensated for that…OK perhaps not the best analogy. How about checking airline luggage, instead.
Hey, I’m certainly no fan of UPS. But their stated policy from their website is: “If you believe your package is lost, report the loss to request that UPS perform a tracking system search. If the package is not found, the shipper can file a claim for the replacement value of the package contents up to the declared value.”
Sure they might find some bullshit reason not to “approve” the claim, but it’s not in their policy. By the same token, the USPS might actually help you if you’re package was lost (unlikely) but it’s also not in their policy.
Well, not exactly. Note the “up to the declared value” at the end. IIRC, the default value is $100. So if you don’t say otherwise, you’re covered only up to a c-note. If you declare a higher value than the $100, you pay extra. The extra is a fairly small amount (something like .50 per $100) but you do pay extra, and it’s about the same that the USPS charges.
The big difference is the automatic coverage up to $100 (but I seem to remember that the USPS had also gone to that) and that it’s easier to track your average “basic” shipment with UPS than with the USPS.
At least, that’s the way it was back when I ran a shipping department.
The “up to the declared value” small print is not to be ignored. ALWAYS declare a value.
Declaring a value probably saved my job some years ago. The lab where I worked shipped a research instrument (microcalorimeter, if you care) back to the manufacturer to find out why it was acting weird. The manufacturer sent the boxes, we packed it in the boxes, FedEx came and got it. The sun set and rose again, and the manufacturer called: the thing had arrived absolutely destroyed. Apparently the boxes had been dropped several feet at some point. The instrument cases were broken apart, the motherboard sheared in half, and so on.
I pulled out the receipt and, mercifully, I’d written the instrument’s list price in the declared value box. $100,000. A bit more than the default $100 they would have owed us otherwise. As it happened it cost $8000 IIRC to replace the broken boards and put the cases back together; after that the thing worked perfectly. We never did learn why it started acting up in the first place.
I used FedEx for years and this was the ONLY time there was a problem with a shipment. Most stuff we sent probably wasn’t worth even the default $100. But boy, when they did screw up, they picked a hell of a shipment to do it with.
Anything shipped via COD, registered mail, or Express Mail appears to be automatically insured. These are higher-priced services closer to the costs of shipping via UPS or FedEx. If you ship via the cheap routes - far less than those competitors you tout - then you assume some risk for not opting for the extra change for the insurance.
UPS used to automatically insure everything for up to $100.00. But you have to follow their guidelines for packaging and sealing up the package. They’re good at blaming you for the way you packed it.
Now, I can’t find anything at all on UPS’s website about insurance for any amount.
After thousands of UPS shipments, I’ve never had a package get lost. I’ve had them disappear for a few weeks though. And I"ve had boxes arrive that were no longer sealed (this happens a lot, but the stuff is usually all there). This is the fault of the shipper most of the time. I’ve also gotten stuff that was badly damaged. I’ve always contacted the shipper for replacement and had no problems. I assume UPS reimburses them if it was their fault.
One thing UPS does that USPS does not do is track every package. That’s why it’s so hard for UPS to completely lose the package. It might get routed on the 2-week US Tour to Anchorage, Honolulu, Chicago, Boston and then your destination, but they can usually tell you exactly where it is.
The USPS only tracks items if you pay for certain services, and then I’m still not sure if they can tell you exactly where it is the way UPS does.
Most of the time, you stick 1 or more stamps on your envelope or package and drop it in a box. You get no receipt or guarantee it’s going to go anywhere. It’s in God’s hands at that point. And most of the time it gets there. Seems like you get what you pay for.
UPS used to automatically insure everything for up to $100.00. But you have to follow their guidelines for packaging and sealing up the package. They’re good at blaming you for the way you packed it.
Now, I can’t find anything at all on UPS’s website about insurance for any amount.
After thousands of UPS shipments, I’ve never had a package get lost. I’ve had them disappear for a few weeks though. And I"ve had boxes arrive that were no longer sealed (this happens a lot, but the stuff is usually all there). This is the fault of the shipper most of the time. I’ve also gotten stuff that was badly damaged. I’ve always contacted the shipper for replacement and had no problems. I assume UPS reimburses them if it was their fault.
One thing UPS does that USPS does not do is track every package. That’s why it’s so hard for UPS to completely lose the package. It might get routed on the 2-week US Tour to Anchorage, Honolulu, Chicago, Boston and then your destination, but they can usually tell you exactly where it is.
The USPS only tracks items if you pay for certain services, and then I’m still not sure if they can tell you exactly where it is the way UPS does.
Most of the time, you stick 1 or more stamps on your envelope or package and drop it in a box. You get no receipt or guarantee it’s going to go anywhere. It’s in God’s hands at that point. And most of the time it gets there. Seems like you get what you pay for.
However, for a mere 45 cents you can get a USPS tracking tag for your letter or package. Then you can check on line for its progress and be assured when it’s been delivered.
There are definitely limits on how much you must be compensated for lost airline luggage, and I seem to recall they are not that high.
If the post office had to replace lost parcels, you would pay more postage to compensate for their increased costs, whether you want to call the additional postage insurance or something else. So, do you want to pay less postage and cope with the small chance of losing your parcel, or more postage and not have to worry about that small chance? (I’m assuming here that USPS behaves similarly to Canada Post).
My letter carrier husband notes that you should probably ask the clerk for more details - he thinks this “included” insurance might only cover destruction/loss, instead of just damage. Then again, he’s never been a clerk so he might be wrong.
Checking costs for a hypothetical 1 pound package going from Chicago to San Francisco, USPS Express Mail (overnight to most locations) costs $18.80, Priority (typically 2-day) costs $4.05. Now assuming a $100 value and 6x6x6" dimensions to satisfy the UPS website’s request, UPS would charge at least $40.22 for the cheapest next day delivery, and at least $19.35 for 2-day.
I talk to a group of camera collectors online, and they all say that if you ship something USPS, always ship it Priority Mail or better, or else you’re just begging to have your package (in the case of camera equipment, usually small and heavy enough to be interesting) opened up and gone through in a warehouse. The big difference is that the more expensive shipping rates get tossed on a truck sooner, and thus aren’t sitting around long enough to be gone through. Sad as it sounds, you’re paying extra for protection from the people handling your packages.
From what I understand, between UPS, USPS, and FedEx Express (the purple ones, not to be confused with the brown ones, FedEx Ground, a different company in the color-coded FedEx family of shipping companies), FedEx Express tends to be the most reliable, UPS the least, and USPS right in the middle. And IIRC, according to an earlier SDMB thread, USPS subcontracts some of it’s stuff to FedEx anyways because it’s cheaper on their end. A friend of mine who used to work for UPS told me to never ever send anything UPS unless there weren’t other options available to me.
My USPS letter carrier husband says it’s the other way around, that FedEx contracts out some of their shipping to USPS, and that sometimes Airborne and (rarely) UPS do as well. He has seen parcels with FedEx, etc., labeling on it but USPS postage, and he and his fellow carriers were informed by the supervisors that this was not an error, this was a result of subcontracting. He doesn’t think that USPS contracts out their shipping. (Again, he’s just a letter carrier, etc.)
No they don’t…at least not in real life. As part of my job, I used to regularly ship scientific samples back to a large national park via FedEx, and on 5-7 occasions in the past three years, FedEx has lost, screwed up, or ruined my shipment. On each occasion, I have filed for compensation, and on each occasion, I received a polite letter essentially saying, “Fuck off.”
I, on the other hand, shipped many hundreds of packages, if not thousands, via UPS while working for a hydraulic seals company for five years. As part of my job, I used to be the person who would talk to UPS when things went wrong. Out of the 5-6 invariable occasions where they screwed up mightly, and the 15-20 times they overcharged me for packages, not one claim or adjustment was denied. UPS also gave our company excellent customer service, including repairing the computer we used for shipping when their software failed and making sure I had the latest and greatest of their programs to check where our packages were at any given moment.
We hated using FedEx because of how much more difficult it was to use their services. I find it hard to believe that the above statements about FedEx being wonderful and UPS being terrible are true.