Four weeks ago today I filed a damage claim with Fedex. It took nearly a week to get a real person to respond to my continual request for help with this damage claim. On August 3, I receive a letter from FEDEX saying they are not going to honor my damage claim because I failed to send them a copy of the original purchase invoice of the rifle in question. The rifle was not mine, I did not purchase it, I just insured it during the time it was in the custody of Fedex, and was being shipped back to its owner. The letter said "OR" a breakdown of the manufactures cost. I sent them a itemized list of the manufactures suggested retail price for this Savage rifle (taken off the Savage web site), the Broughton Barrel (from the Broughton web site), the action and barrel work done in my shop priced out individually ($510.00)(totaling claim was well over the insured price of $1,500.00). I was told to fax this to them and I have a confirmation they received it. I spoke to a woman named Dianne Condict. She insisted I send a copy of the purchase invoice of the gun. I explained to her two times, I did not purchase this gun there fore I did not have an invoice to copy. Not only can she not hear, she can not read the verbage of her own letter. The customer is away in Canada on a fishing trip. An insurance adjuster came out and looked at the gun. He took pictures of both the gun and the shipping box. The adjuster said this was the fourth rifle he had looked at this month that was totally destroyed by Fedex. Monday, I am going to file complaints at the the North Carolina Department of Insurance, the North Carolina Attorney General's Office Consumer Protection Division, the better Business Bureau, and the Chamber of Commerce. I believe I may invest $40.00 into starting a small claims action against FedEX as well. They may never pay on this claim but it will cost them much more in time money and agrevation filing answers to the complaints. I will terminate my business account with them on Monday as well. They will never get a dime of business from me again. I recomend using the US Postal Service any time you ship.

Yes, I am "P_ _ _ ed O_ _", you would be too.

Longshot

Go to your local courthouse and file a small claims case against them.....they must show up or lose automatically.

You can get a judgement against them and if necessary the court will actually confiscate a FedEx truck and hold it until the judgement is paid.

I've never done this but was told by a local lawyer that this works!

I thought the good old USPS was the answer too until I had a claim. I sent a barreled action to a stock maker and it was damaged. They told him they could not pay for it as it was illegal to send firearms in the mail! Even after he showed them in their own rules that it was not.

quote:

Originally posted by ElCaballero:
I thought the good old USPS was the answer too until I had a claim. I sent a barreled action to a stock maker and it was damaged. They told him they could not pay for it as it was illegal to send firearms in the mail! Even after he showed them in their own rules that it was not.

I assume it was the .300 H&H.....how did it turn out?

Gave up on FedEx and UPS. Now just use DHL. They are pretty serious about their work but really expensive and aren't rocket scientists either.

The key to survival is in the preparation - PACKAGING - plan for Gorilla handling and everything will be OK.

I just shipped some booze to Perplakistan and no problem cause I made Borat-proof packing!

It's because the insurance carrier for these outfits have a 'just say no' policy on claims. It's a matter of bottom line corporate profit. They hope you go away meekly.

I've had this battle with UPS in the past. The claims adjuster stood in my house and accused me of intentionally shipping a damaged gun so that I could file an insurance claim. It happened that it was a firearm that belonged to a close friend who had died and had left me instructions as to who he wanted each of his personal firearms to be sent to. UPS managed to break the buttstock of a (very nice) Model 12 trap gun at the wrist. I can't recall a time in my life when I was any madder. In fact it was one of the few times in my life that I was close to being homicidal.

Eventually got taken to lunch along with receiving an apology from a UPS official. He candidly explained to me that they farm out the insurance coverage to a company who tries to initially deny all claims.

quote:

Originally posted by vapodog:

quote:

Originally posted by ElCaballero:
I thought the good old USPS was the answer too until I had a claim. I sent a barreled action to a stock maker and it was damaged. They told him they could not pay for it as it was illegal to send firearms in the mail! Even after he showed them in their own rules that it was not.

I assume it was the .300 H&H.....how did it turn out?

Never got a dime! Luckily it only cost $20 to fix.

quote:

Go to your local courthouse and file a small claims case against them.....they must show up or lose automatically.

You can get a judgement against them and if necessary the court will actually confiscate a FedEx truck and hold it until the judgement is paid.

I've never done this but was told by a local lawyer that this works!

VD, it just does not work that way. You have to go to court and prove your case and when that happens and they do not show up to fight it, you then have a judgement against them. Then you have to seek payment of that judgement and the courts will damn well not confiscate a FEDEX truck. That is the dumbest statement I have ever heard. Back slowly away from anyone who told you that. Raise your arms up to appear larger than you actually are and do not show any fear or they will come for your brain as theirs is obviously gone. You file a lean against FED EX and go after payment or any number of other ways.

The nice thing about small claims courts it that you do not need a lawyer and in most states they are not allowed. Small claims courts are also not that expensive. Fed Ex will have a representitave there because they are not a person, they are a corporation and they are allowed to have someone representing them and you can bet your boots it will be an attorney.

Sometimes you have to be innovative. When I had trouble with the UPS claims system I managed to get the home phone number of the Chairman of the Board. I began calling him at home several times a night, and promised him I would continue to find means to reach him until my claim was settled.

The next day I called his office and spoke with his secretary just to follow up. She told me she was already working on it and that she would be having a check issued that day. She did, and I got and cashed it. I still receive guns sent via UPS, but I don't send any that way anymore. I use USPS and haven't had any broken ....yet.

Customstox you are absolutely correct!
I must ad one caution though in some states including Colorado you can win your case in small claims and then collecting the money is another matter, there is no mechanism to get you paid in many states. A common ploy in Colorado by persons or corporations that have been in small claims court repeatedly is to plead their side of it make a phony in court apology and "promise" to pay and never have any intentions of paying you. A lien on their property only will get collected on if they sell their property and you remember to continually refresh your lien. Thats not always 100% either as I've known title people to ignore liens and close property sales without acknowledging them.
All in all you are better off to be artful on the phone and persistent in your endeavor to collect.
Good Luck!

I went the Small Claims route a few years ago to get money back from a crooked outfitter. A friend of mine is an attorney and he talked me through the process.

There were two parts that were a lot of fun:

First, once I had the judgment against this dirtbag, who didn't show up in court, I went to the county clerk's office to file a subpoena requiring dirtbag to deliver copies of his bank records and tax returns to my home. Asst. Clerk, asks. “Are you a lawyer?" and I told her no. She says, "I don't think you can subpoena records and demand they be delivered to your house." I told her I damn well could and you didn't need to be a lawyer to do so. She checked and with the boss and then issued the subpoena which I took to the Sheriff and paid them to serve it.

Second fun part was next day when said dirtbag showed up at my house with cash to cover what I’d had on deposit with him, all my filling fees and the funds it cost me to have Sheriff deliver the court summons and the subpoena—oh yeah, also mileage expense for travel related to filing the case paperwork.

One other part was amusing: Judge Judy show contacted me to see if I wanted to take the case to her court of public embarrassment. I declined their offer.

All-in-all it wasn’t hard to do; just time.

Out of curiousity, what division of FedEx did you use? As you may or may not know, they are all operated as independant companies with different procedures for each.

Damage claims are usually denied because of insufficient or inadequate packaging. Of the 2000-3000 packages I handle every week, easily 75% are imporperly packaged. A cardboard box and some packing peanuts does not make a conveyor proof package.

Please understand that I am not accusing you of poorly packing the rifle. I'm just saying that the majority of people do. That is why most claims are automatically denied. As far as getting a settlement from them, it can be a long process. As I'm sure most people know, getting a large company to give up any amount of money can be a lengthy process. I have waited months to recieve settlement adjustments as small as $100.

As far as taking a FedEx truck and holding it until payment is recieved that may work for FedEx Express, but they cannot do that with a Ground truck. FedEx Ground trucks are all privately owned. So FedEx has no claim to the vehicle. If I choose to cover up the decals on the side of my truck, I can use the sucker for whatever I'd like and FedEx can't do a thing about it. In fact, my truck is parked outside my house right now while I'm doing some work on it.

Seriously though, I hope that this works out for you. Just keep in mind that if you come after them with a stick and a lawyer, the will fight back with a bigger stick and 5 lawyers. Patience and diplomacy will usually win with this company.

In my case I contacted an attorney about a $3,000 claim I had against a very well known trucking company...(SWIFT)

He told me (as close to word for word as I remember)
If you get a judgement against them and they don't pay, the court will consider it a contempt of court and order the county sheriff to confiscate one of their trucks (I-80 runs thru this county and there's a major league truckstop there), quarrantine it (load and all) and return it only when they pay the judgement plus costs.

Maybe some states don't have this kind of teeth in the small claims courts.

With FedEx and UPS the same would be the case here in Nebraska.

I'd also think most states have an insurance commissioner that could help but have never used him/her.