I had a Fed Ex package bang around here for over a week. THEY (fedup) changed the city twice during all of this with noones authority. I posted it every where on the net I could think of in hopes that even fred smith would learn where I live. The card they FEDUP) mailed asking about it got to me.
Sender got it back after a couple of weeks.

They all have problems, but when MidSouth asks if I want fedup to deliver it . . . I say heck no, I want to receive what I ordered!

My other hobby is antique radios. Shipping them is something of a science. The radio will often consist of a brittle wood cabinent with an extremely heavy chasis inside. You must remove the chasis and box it seperately. Tubes must be removed packed and boxed seperately. The cabinenet needs to be supported and boxed seoperately. The whole thing needs to be padded and boxed again. The sacrificail outside box then takes the abuse. If you simply put the radio in a box with stryrfoam beans you can be assured you will get smashed radio at the other side. Many E-bay vendors have not the fogiest idea how to pack a radio and you can expect junk to be delevered. That is way I will never buy a radio from one of those auctions.

I figure the same for guns. CMP has some pretty nice heavy duity boxes. They use some kind of high density egg crate foam on the inside. They are tough secure boxes. Never had a problem with a CMP gun being damaged. The last bunch of guns I got from them was shipped Fed X courior express. They came without any sign of abuse.

I receive lots of stuff UPS ground at work. They beat the hell out of those packages. We have actually had them destroy packages containing evidence from criminal cases. After about a week they did find the item loose and traced it back to the police department. It had tire tracks on it. UPS, and others I assume, treat most packages like so much chord wood. They use skip loaders and conveyor belts to move stuff. It is a computerized operation moving unimaginable amounts of stuff. If you want to be sure your item is safe do two things. Package it to withstand being run over, it probably will be. Second, pay for the better priority service.

After reading this post, I decided to ship my SBH to Ruger via Fed Ex. The local terminal is onlt a couple miles from home. Sooo off I go to the terminal. SORRY unless you have a contract, you can't ship from here! The Kinko's on the west side will take it. I failed to tell her it was a handgun. 6 miles later, I get to kinko's. The freckle faced kid said OH NO we can't ship handguns from here! WTF, then where can I ship this from? Oh Appleton has an approved depot by the airport. It seems thay have to have someone who knows how it has to be packaged, and how to fill out some "SPECIAL" form.

I'm gonna find their website to see if I have it properly packaged. To avoid a 45 mile round trip only to have to return after re-packaging it. GRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrr. Damed paranoid people!

Jeffe has the right idea!!! Make the deliverman/woman open the package right there and then. Note any and all damage and refuse the shipment. See what happens then!!! UPS[I am told] OWNS it`s own insurance co and thus can set policy. I have fought theses assholes over broken Sako stocks, missing barrels and a lot more. The main thing is to keep beating them up and go up the ladder to the top. I have been paid for ALL shipments gone bad but have had to fight like hell for the money. One in particular was a real bitch. The girl at UPS took my money for shipping AND the 1200.00 insurance for the SAko Stocks. She then[rocket scientist that she is] forgot to note on the form the insurance. Too bad for her as on my copy it showed the shipping and the extra 3.80 or so for the insurance. After the assholes broke the stocks they said no insurance. I faxed them a copy of the invoice and they said it wasn`t their fault she had screwed up! I went to the office[Coos Bay] and faced them down. I don`t know to this day who paid, UPS or her but it was paid. I, like most of the others try to use the alternates whenever I can. Hard in small towns though.

Aloha, Mark

UPS, Fed X, and the Post Office all do a great job when every thing goes right. When it goes wrong? A little novacaine in the vaseline helps a lot.

Dave

Here are my horror stories about shipping anywhere, with anyone, at anytime.
My son is in the military, I.E. Afghanistan and Iraq. I sent him some care packages via miliitary and USPS. One of the packages never made it there, lost. Another made it part way there and then, some how, to Fort Campbell, at his home. Via his name, or his unit number? We never ever figured out how it got there. We went down there for a visit to his family. The package was just some mulitated cardboard and crushed things inside of it. Later he said that everyones packages arrived there like they all had been run over with tanks. Nobody's package ever arrived whole, all had severe damage. Crackers, cookies etc. were all crumbs, canned goods all bent, some exploded, like the cans of beer that I had sent him. Another time with USPS, this time mechanical parts being shipped to Africa, my P.H. has a Caterpillar. The parts never made it from Michigan to Africa at all. It "only" took six months of filling out different forms, most people did not even know the proper form to use, causing more delays, and things to try to satisify them to get his money back for the parts, shipping costs and insurance costs, it was $2500.00 in parts. Then I had to do it all over again because the machine was still broken. He finally came to the states and took the parts with him so he could get his machine going. So he went a year without using his machine waiting for our postal service to get things to him. All I heard from them was that it was not their fault for things being lost beacuse of African problems. Yes UPS does leave things on the front porch, and yes they do break things, as well as lose things. But so does the post office on more occasions than what would be normal, at least to me. I have sent five or six packages via USPS, and I have had problems with all of them. Now that is a really bad average shipping with them.
The bottom line, to me, is that they are just going through the motions doing their jobs and they really don't care whether you get your package or not, or in what shape it is in when it does arrive. If they treated packages like they were their own, things would be much better. Have you ever seen the assembly line that UPS uses in sorting out their packages? Totaly hands off, automated, and things falling into bins. Now how it that ever going to be treated like it was fragile? And, yes the package to Africa was made of wood and screwed together. The only thing I ever got back was the label off of one of the boxes. I had put the address inside of the box, on the outside of the box, and on a shipping label attached to the box. They struck out three times on that one.

I had two AR15s left on my doorstep when I no one was home.

I refuse to ship anything UPS. I send handguns FedEx and pay the extra money just to avoid UPS and their BS. As a C&R collector UPS(Universally Poor Service) is a fact of life. They once left a No1 MkIII outside my door with no signature. I stood outside my door at 2:00am and had a lively chat with UPS Customer Service? over that one.
Because I work long hours, I always request a "Depot Hold" of rifles shipped via UPS. Every time since I got my license, UPS ignores the billboards on the box and try to ship anyway. I went clear up to a District Manager and found out that the indivdual UPS facilities don't always have the time to read the labels on the packages. So Ms District Manager, "if your people don't read the labels, how do they know where to ship a package?"(that is a direct quote from yours truly) The conversation went downhill from there.

Just another fine example of "Cranial Rectosis" being company policy.

I now encourage every C&R company I do business with to give folks an alternative to UPS even if it means spending more money to ship.

All done beating the dead horse.
This is my opinion, your opinion may vary.

ZM

Continuation of the above story;

So I go to Appleton. After waiting 5 minutes for someone to serve me, I'm told how much it's gonna cost me to ship my SBH to Ruger in NH. $73.XX! Has to go second day air! Rise in fuel costs ya know!? DAMN I nearly could drive it there myself! (one way and hitch hike back).

So I go up to my gunclub to do some shooting. A fellow member says a local smith used to work for Ruger, maybe he can re-barrel it for me,(barrel extension is cracked). He says no, BUT he can send it via the USPS for me, Ruger will send it dirrect to me! Yippee, looks like it'll get done after all.

I just remembered I didn't specify how to return it to me, damn it'll probably be sent via UPS!

UPS!

UPS had a package for me which they returned to the shipper. It turns out the UPS driver made 3 delivery attempts ON MY NEIGHBOR's GARAGE. Wrong house number, and it wasn't even a house. What a dumbass.

Ive been in the frieght business for quite a few years and have never seen a company so unaccountable for their damage as UPS. Their system is designed around evading claims, from the little electronic hand held pads that have only a place for a signature of acceptance, (no possibility for a damage notation) to their take it or it goes back policy that is also designed to pass the buck on to one party or the other.

The fact that they would rather return the package at their own expense than be accountable for their own damage is an indicator of the astronomical cost of their damaged frieght.

I know a guy who was driving for another frieght company, and while attempting to back into a dock to make a delivery a smaller UPS truck whipped into the dock ahead of him while he was lining up to back in. So he continued to back his truck to a point where the ignorant UPS jerk was blocked in, he set his brakes, took the keys and went to lunch..

UPS drivers are hated by delivery drivers of other frieght companys for such a lack of etticate, and the sad thing about it is that they are trained to be shitheads.

One thing I have had some success with lately is to, when possible, have things shipped to me C/O my employer. I think the drivers doing the commercial/industrial heavy routes seem to handle things better, and there is always someone to receive packages at my office. I am lucky to have a shipping/receiving clerk who doesn't mind helping out though...all the accounting girls have their QVC purchased junk delivered here too. I just wish my employer wasn't so touchy on hazmat and firearm shipments...