Reecourse when item damaged by Post Office?

[ultrarunner]

My cousin asked me to buy a novelty 5 liter empty Jack Daniels bottle on E-bay for her... she is overseas and her nephew wanted it for his 21st birthday.

I don't buy much from E-bay and when I do, it's car parts.

Anyway, the seller shipped it Priority mail from Los Angeles to Oakland California and the box was at my front door this evening... I have not opened it. The box has several punctures and all I can hear is broken glass inside.

Called the Seller and he said the post office examined it before shipping and said it should go priority for $15 and the box is stamped fragile 29 times on all sides.

Seller has 100% satisfaction with 10 years selling.

Does the Post Office have any responsibility?

Oh... I think it's nuts, but my cousin said the $100 price plus shipping was ok.

 

[Jim in ICT]

Good luck. You're dealing with the guv'ment. Hope it was insured.

 

[ultrarunner]

Nope... I did pay with Paypal and used a credit card.

Insurance was not an option... from the postage rate sheets the cost to ship the $100 item with insurance would have been $24.

The Seller asked if I would be so kind to take the unopened package to my post office and fill out a damage claim... which I will do in the AM

 

[Western]

You'll probably have better luck through pay pal or your CC.
Of course he could have mailed you a broke coke bottle too, but I doubt it.

For that cost you could have bought AND emptied 2 bottles of Crown Reserve Just sayin

 

[Skyco]

I'd say you are out of luck if no insurance was bought.
Why should the credit card company or paypal eat it? They didn't break it.



BTW stamping fragile all over it probably meant to the post office "handle extra rough".
What would happen if a box said "Valuable-Do Not Steal"

Added later- I just looked and the $9 extra would have covered about $700 in value....I gotta say if a $700 fragile glass item was shipped without insurance, via the post office......well.........just saying.
You say it was $100 item- that would have only cost $2.25 extra.

 

[RickB]

Insurance was not an option... from the postage rate sheets the cost to ship the $100 item with insurance would have been $24.

What do you mean insurance was not an option? It surely was an option, you simply didn't choose it.

Priority mail is a crapshoot because there is no STANDARD insurance and no tracking.
UPS insures ALL package for a value up to $100 and ALL packages can be fully tracked.

As a buyer, if UPS or FedEx aren't shipping options, I usually don't buy.

 

[firefighter9208]

As a seller on Ebay, I insure everything. Get's kinda expensive sometimes, but I don't want to take a chance.

Chris

 

[firefighter9208]

Oh yeah, forgot to add. My mother sells and ships fabric on ebay and etsy. She usually ships 20-25 items a day and uses USPS flat rate boxes (everything from 1 yard in a flat rate envelope to 25 yards in a large flat rate box). Too much of a hassle to weigh everything and buy boxes to ship fedex or UPS.

Recently she had a package lost between her house and the post office. The carrier scanned it at mom's house, but it was never scanned at the post office. She didn't have insurance on it. It's too expensive to insure everything she ships, so if the value is under $25.00 she just takes a chance. She seldom has anything lost. The funny thing is that the post office and postmaster won't even try to find the package, even though it was either lost by the carrier (in her car) or at the local post office.

She had another package that was "lost", but mysteriously showed up at the house of the recipient three weeks after it had been mailed. Mom had already re-shipped that package (at her loss). When she looked at online tracking it was scanned at the local post office 3 days before. That one must have also gotten lost in the carriers car or at the local post office.

Her local carrier doesn't like the fact that she has to do carrier pick-up on 20-25 flat rate boxes at mom's every day and always has something "smart" to say about it. One day she was throwing boxes in her car soo hard that mom could hear her in the house. And her house is on an above ground basement. She is also always trying to find some way to make it harder on my mom to ship throught USPS. Some new "regulation" on carrier pickup that is usually wrong when investigated.

Chris

 

[nue2farm]

Chris, seems like Mom should let the Postmaster know of the "service" she is getting and demand something be done about it. Have fun and stay safe....

 

[firefighter9208]

Yeah, right. Small town postmasters. Hah! The postmaster is usally the one that calls with the "new" regulation. Of course we've had 5 new postmasters in our small town in 3 years.

Problem is, the post office is so small that the postmaster has to help "put out the mail" and work the window. Nobody wants the job. They just want to sit in their office and do paperwork.

Then we get a new one (postmaster) and the carriers convince them of something that isn't really true.

One of the past postmasters "sent word" by the carrier to the school that I work at that they would no longer be delivering "personal" mail to the school. It would have to be picked up at the post office. She said that if it had a persons name on it it was personal. Only mail with just the schools name on it would be delivered.

I called and spoke with her and she said that this was what they were going to do. I told her that with 100 people working in a building, we had to have the person's name on the envelope or we would have to have somebody open every envelope to see who's mail it was. She said "that's the way it's gonna be".

I called the "main office" in Montgomery and spoke with someone (can't remember who, it was two years ago). They said that that was B.S. and that mail was delivered "by address" not name and that it would be taken care of.
Within the hour I got a call from the local postmaster saying that they would continue delivery as normal. Boy she wasn't happy. Neither was the carrier. Wouldn't even speak to use when she came in the office for about a week.

Another time the carrier wouldn't pick up the white boxes that she delivers mail in. We get 2 or three large white boxes a day. We stacked them up beside the mailbox (about 20 of them). I called and asked that they be picked up. The postmaster told me that 20 wouldn't fit in the carriers car. I told her that I understood that, but if she would take 2 or 3 a day they would fit (that's how many new one's she brought).

The postmaster told me that I needed to load them up and bring them in. I told her that I was going to throw them in the dumpster. She said, "you can't that would be against the law". I told her that they had one hour to pick them up or they were going in the dumpster. A few minutes later the carrier showed up and got them. That didn't make her happy either.

When she brings our mail in some days she'll be counting her steps (out loud). Found out the there is some "regulation" that they don't have to walk over a certain number of steps to bring the mail in or they get paid extra??? Don't know it that one is true or not.

Chris

 

[EarPlug]

It is the Seller's/Shipper's problem. Don't open the package and take pictures of the damage. Contact the Seller and ask them what they are going to do. They need to take it up with USPS. The shipper is responsible for proper packaging and safe shipping to you and buying Insurance if necessary.

If the Seller does not make it right then you definitely contest the charge with your Credit Card. The Credit Card company won't "eat the charges" as one poster stated. They will just take the money back from the Seller.

Jack

 

[Western]

I'd say you are out of luck if no insurance was bought.
Why should the credit card company or paypal eat it? They didn't break it.

They wont "eat it", "Buyer protection" is a common perk with them.

 

[ultrarunner]

What do you mean insurance was not an option? It surely was an option, you simply didn't choose it.

Priority mail is a crapshoot because there is no STANDARD insurance and no tracking.
UPS insures ALL package for a value up to $100 and ALL packages can be fully tracked.

As a buyer, if UPS or FedEx aren't shipping options, I usually don't buy.

This was an Ebay purchase... fixed price shipping with tracking... the seller notifed me it shipped and provided tracking.

As a side notice, I buy a lot of things from Grainger and shipping is included... if it doesn't arrive, they resend it, if it arrives broken, they replace... no insurance involved and never a problem in 20 years.

Took 3 orders of laboratory thermometers the first two orders had every one broken... third time was the charm... arrived perfect and all three boxes were identical.

 

[firefighter9208]

It is the Seller's/Shipper's problem. Don't open the package and take pictures of the damage. Contact the Seller and ask them what they are going to do. They need to take it up with USPS. The shipper is responsible for proper packaging and safe shipping to you and buying Insurance if necessary.

If the Seller does not make it right then you definitely contest the charge with your Credit Card. The Credit Card company won't "eat the charges" as one poster stated. They will just take the money back from the Seller.

Jack

This is absolutely correct. If you notify PayPal they will do a charge back (take the money from the seller) and give you a refund. The seller is responsible for insuring the item.

 

[orezok]

Shipping insurance only covers the shipper, not the receiver. If a claim is filed on an insured item, the payment will go to the shipper and chances are the claim will have to filed by the shipper. That is why most ebay sellers don't insure at their cost. They have nothing to lose.

 

[dmccarty]

You guys have some horrible problems with the postal service. As my granny would say, I am thanking my lucky stars that we do not have those problems.

UPS, USPS, FedEx have all been excellent. DHL, not so much.

Last week the USPS was driving up our private road to drop off a package that would not fit in the mail box. We happened to be leaving so she gave us the box otherwise she would have driven a half mile up the road and then our driveway. I do not think she has to do this but all of the ladies at the USPS deliver to the house when needed. :thumbsup:

We thank them. :laughing:

Later,
Dan

 

[Bird]

Dan, when we lived in the west end of Navarro County, our mail came from the Frost, TX, post office (little town of less than 600 population). The Postmistress put up box mail and worked the front counter. I think they only had one other inside employee and that may have been part time. Then the Postmistress's husband was the regular carrier. They had a part timer who delivered the mail on Saturday.

And, like you, we couldn't have asked for any better service. First time I went in the Post Office to do the change of address, she introduced me to her husband who was getting ready to go out. They asked a number of questions, including if he had a package too big for the box and no one was home, did we want him to take it back to the post office and us pick it up, or did we want him to leave it and if so, where would we like it left.

We're actually having good service here in town from the USPS, UPS, and FedEx, although occasionally the USPS carrier leaves mail in our box that belongs elsewhere in the neighborhood, and once recently UPS tried to deliver a package to me and when I looked at the name, it belonged next door.

Of course I was a clerk in the Dallas Post Office from 1959 to 1964 and back then I told friends and family if they were going to send a package, they needed to package it securely, then throw it as hard as they could against a brick wall. If it couldn't stand that, it wasn't ready for the post office.:laughing:

 

[sweettractors]

The USPS Rep was just in my office today. We have been comparing USPS Eagle Eye to UPS Worldship for the last 2 months. Eagle Eye won't work for us. Sticking with UPS WorldShip. Ken Sweet

 

[Skyco]

I still don't see why it is the shippers fault or the credit card company or ebay.
Sounds like insurance was offered since the cost was known, but declined by the purchaser. So the shipper should lose because a purchaser did NOT want to buy insurance? That ain't right as they say.....

 

[CompactTractorFan]

BTW stamping fragile all over it probably meant to the post office "handle extra rough".
What would happen if a box said "Valuable-Do Not Steal"

Good one!!! :laughing::laughing::laughing: