Re: Shipping delicate test equipment...

I purchased a Sencore CR7000 from ebay. It was shipped to me in a big box
with 2 pieces of newspaper, and a fishing float. Needless to say... It
arrived with a cracked case, and unoperational...

Callan.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kurt Mahan" <kmahan@xmission.com>
To: <techtoolslist@flippers.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 3:17 AM
Subject: Shipping delicate test equipment...

>
> I had some bad luck with a 3 box shipment (monitor, cpu and parts). The
> monitor had the misfortune of having a fork lift put through the box
> pretty much dead center. "ouch". The box the cpu was shipped back in
> (a fairly large unit) was in the orignal factory packaging. Well, the
> box showed up back at Tektronix with the corners rounded. And when they
> opened the cpu box they poured out the pieces -- due to the really rough
> handling, the power supply (an old linear one) had torn loose and bounced
> around. The third box was just fine. It had the mouse and keyboard in
> it.
>
> Well, the Tek rep was totally pissed 'cause it was a loaner unit and
> he really needed it back. He was pissed, that is, until he found out
> that we'd insured the shipment for $25k. He loved us after that. (this
> was back in the late 80s).
>
> The current damage that I see is small boxes that seem to get run over
> by the fedex truck. Customer calls up and says "it's smashed". The
> worker dudes are sneaky. They'll usually put all the pieces in a new
> box and send it on its way. But they use the old waybill, which typically
> shows up the tire treads just fine. No way to protect items from that
> kind of abuse.
>
> The best advice to give to people is to always SAVE the packaging until
> you've determined if it's broken or not. Also if you see obvious damage
> to the boxes make the delivery dude write a report on it. Otherwise
> there is no proof that THEY caused the damage. But it is tough to
> get fedex/ups/whoever to pay for a poorly packed box. No matter what
> THEY did to it....
>
> The other thing is to know who fedex/ups believes to be the "SHIPPER".
> Obvious you say. Not really. When you ship through a Mailboxes Etc.
> or Office Depot then they are the shipper. Until such time as you need
> to find out who it is -- like if you need to start a trace. Then, well,
> good luck in figuring it all out. The amount of crap they make you go
> through is impressive. But if you're nice to the ups/fedex folks and
> don't go ballistic they will typically try and help you out (at least
> that's been my experience)..
>
> Kurt
> kmahan@xmission.com
>
>
> > Comments? Any one else have nasty surprises when they opened a box? I've
> > had the points snapped off of probes, pins mangled on pods etc, so I am
> > careful to describe recommended method of packing to sellers of
equipment.
> > for example - the Fluke Pods, it is IMPERITIVE that the plugs are taped
> > after locked into the self test socket on the pod. Shipping tape works
very
> > well.
>
Received on Tue Apr 23 07:49:51 2002