making insurance claim at post office when you've lost your insurance receipt...

[lukaspriest]

I recently purchased some relatively pricey computer speakers online. To my dismay, they were defective and I returned them. I sent them back via the US postal service, parcel post. I put $150 of insurance on them. Well, I’m becoming concerned because its been just shy of two weeks (they told me it would take about 5 days), and the company still hasnt received them. And to make matters worse, I seem to have misplaced my insurance stub. Am I totally screwed? I remember the exact day, time, weight, and of course how much insurance I put on them. If I go to the post office, will they have that informationon record, or will they smugly tell me to get bent?

At the same time, It makes me wonder how they could lose a huge, heavy box with the address clearly laminated.

Thanks for any responses!

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

The Better Half came home for lunch and I ran your question past him. His response:

First of all, the speakers are somewhere. Speakers don’t just disappear; the Post Office doesn’t just put them somewhere and forget about them, especially if it’s a huge heavy box with the address clearly laminated.

Two weeks isn’t that long for Parcel Post. Be patient. Trucks break down. Mail backs up. Letter carriers get sick. If the supervisor is shorthanded, since First Class and time-sensitive Bulk Rate get dibs on available manpower, he may not have anybody to “deliver parcels”.

Normally, if you lose your receipt, you are S.O.L. However, if it’s a very small local post office, there’s a chance that they might, if you asked them nicely, go through their book. They keep a record of all the insurance receipts, so if you know the exact date you bought it, and can prove your identity, and if they like you, you might be able to persuade them to reimburse you the $150.

However, there’s no way you can do this at a large Post Office, because they sell hundreds of these things, and it just isn’t physically possible to go through all the receipt books for that day.

Also, it’s not impossible that the speaker company did get them, but they just don’t know it yet, maybe they’ve got Ms. Clueless working the phones, or the boss’s nephew working the mailroom…