UPS ??? Do they ever pay a claim???

TT's are the most heavily damaged audio item that gets shipped. Most people don't secure the arms and platter correctly and all hell breaks loose ( literally ). Then again, one of my friends has literally had a TT delivered where the wooden base was split at the seems and the spindle bent. There is no accounting for poor handling even if well packed.

I think that the next one on the list is heavy amplifiers. Due to the bulk and weight, they get dropped or tossed because they don't want to carry them from point A to point B. I have had amps delivered that had rack handles ripped off of the faceplate and heat sink fins broken off. The funny thing is that United Package Smashers actually attempted to deliver one of them with 1/3 of the amp hanging outside of the box : )

If everybody took the time to pack accordingly, we wouldn't have as many claims. I'm not sticking up for United Package Smashers or Fed Up, but we all know how the packages will be handled and should pack accordingly.

As mentioned above, stick to your guns and pressure the shipper to deal with the situation. They will do EVERYTHING possible to get out of paying a claim, so keep that in mind when working to resolve the situation. Sean
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Pretender, some of the worst packed items that i have ever received came courtesy of a "mailboxes, etc" or "Pak-n-ship" type of service. The episode that i mentioned previously with the amp hanging out of the box was packed and shipped courtesy of one of these types of services. Besides doing a horrible job ( my experience ), their prices are absolutely ridiculous.

I had a piece that i was going to purchase from someone in Nevada. I told them that it would run about $12 - $15 to ship it to me here in Chicago. While they thought i was crazy with the shipping price i mentioned, they went to get an estimate. They took it to their usual shipper ( one of these "3rd party" shippers ) whom they said that they had been using for over 4 years. They were quoted $42. Needless to say, i refused to pay that amount of shipping on a very small, lightweight box. I stressed that they should go directly to a UPS terminal and do some "comparison shopping". The UPS price was $13 for the same package with the same insurance. Needless to say, they were VERY upset with the "3rd party" shipping service that had been stabbing them for several years.

Ericbee: I've seen other people make mention of this tactic. Your approach seems very well thought out and i may put it to use if i run into problems in the future. I just hope that i ( or anyone else here ) has to resort to such tactics. Sean
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Pretender, if these truly are "large" speakers, i would check into going motor freight. You will have better luck using that method than you would with UPS. While i'm not saying that they are the best out there, i have had very good luck over the years using Overnite Express. Their prices were lower than any of "the big three" i.e. Roadway, Consolidated Freightways, Yellow. This is probably due to the fact that most Overnite terminals are non-union, do there is less overhead involved. The shipments that i've sent through Overnite were also delivered in a more timely fashion and arrived in better shape. Since it is a non-union company, employees that slack-off or get caught handling shipments roughly or damaging property will get fired, not just reprimanded with a letter.

One other suggestion and this applies to anyone shipping speakers. Speaker terminals should be "shunted" or "shorted" together. By this i mean using a low value resistor ( 2 - 8 ohms ) connected from the positive to negative binding posts of the speaker. If you don't have access to something like this ( Radio Shack has them and you don't need anything bigger than a 1/4 to 1/2 watt ), you can use a piece of small gauge wire instead but the resistor is preferred.

What this does is "lock" the voice coils of the drivers in place. This greatly reduces the amount of movement or "throw" that the driver can make. It is being held in place by the natural magnetic field within the driver itself. This minimizes the potential for damage since the driver won't be allowed to "bottom out" or "over throw" if the package is dropped or shipped upside down, sideways, etc... The resistor absorbs any voltage generated by the driver, which WILL end up moving a little bit no matter what. It is one of those "ounce of prevention" type of deals... Sean
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