the problem is not how often things go wrong. It’s when they go wrong, the customer is screwed. To get through to UPS with a complaint requires an IQ of 160 and communications skills of a university professor and the patience of a turtle, then, maybe then you have a 10% chance. Otherwise, forget it, everyone at the other end of the line is a robot (not literally - yet) reading from a script with the purpose of causing so much stress to the customer that s/he will give up.
Can You Trust a Shipper? (UPS, Fed-Ex, etc)
No you cannot, and here's why: In July, I bought a Rotel tuner from an ebay seller with a rating of 99.8% on hundreds of transactions. He shipped the tuner via UPS, who delivered the tuner to a business a few miles from my house. Someone from that business signed for my package (it is a warehouse that takes in merchandise from retailers that is being returned to the wholesaler from whence it came). It took several weeks to find this out, and I went to the business back around Labor Day to see what they had to say. I was allowed into the warehouse to do a cursory search for the package, but there must have been 4,000 - 5,000 boxes. PayPal denied a claim I had filed, because the tracking info the seller shared with them showed the package had been delivered. I went to the local UPS store today and was told that a claim had been filed by the seller with UPS and they would have reimbursed him. Moral of the story: Always have your signature required when you have anything shipped, unless you want to fall into this same black hole. Better yet, avoid having anything shipped unless it is from an actual retailer or other reputable company.