a leather scabbard and a form fit case with a new rod and it was bubble wrapped and in a Scedule 20 PVC tube which was packed in a triangular box and it has bloody tire marks on it and it has a full 30 plus degree bend in it.
The 2/2 is now a 6 Piece rod.
I have offered to refund the money or start a new rod all I can do!-- -->
I feel your pain. I've had three run-ins with the USPS in the last six months and the rods have lost every time, PVC or not.
And if anyone thinks it's easy to get a settlement even with insurance and ample proof of value, think again. I've been working on a lousy $100 claim for over two months with no results yet.
In fact, the St. Louis claims office lost the original claim paperwork and proof of insurance sent from my local P.O.
This may drive me back to UPS...
Regards,
Flyman
Flyman615
"An undisturbed river is as perfect as we will ever know, every refractive slide of cold water a glimpse of eternity" - Thomas McGuane
Jeff;
Bummer dude!!!!!!!Looks like we may have to switch prefered shipping tube material to either galvanized pipe or cast iron. i hope you win the upcoming battle with the p.o., but don't hold your breath until the check comes.
As long as we are hatin' on the post office, anyone mailing rods internationally needs to be aware of the new regulations/rates put in place on 5/14. Specifically tubes longer than 36 inches may no longer be mailed "Air Post" (now called "First Class International") and you are forced to use the now exorbitant Priority Global Mail where they bend you over in a major way.
Jeff,
That seriously sux! I can relate. When my Edwards blank was shipped to me it arrived in a crushed tube. I was pretty PO'ed and gave the postman a pretty bad time. The blank inside appeared ok though.
When I then sent the blank off to Jeff Fults to be finished I followed his instructions including the PVC tube. I inserted a check for payment in the cardboard tube that the PVC tube was housed in. When Jeff got the package the cardboard tube was broken and the included check was missing. !-- -->:">
I'm done with the post office!! What does it take to ship a package without breaking the living crap out of it?
Really sorry to hear about your rod, hope they take care of it in a hurry.
WOW Jeff! That is a Horror Story. I guess I am very blessed or very lucky. The last rod I got on ebay was shipped in the normal triangle box and only "Rolled-up in new paper" inside the box. I felt sick when I opened it and thought of what could have happened. Sometimes you win...Sorry for your Loss.....Jerry
At the risk of offending any airline baggage handler's that are on here, while sitting at the gate waiting for your plane to leave, have you ever noticed that the baggage handler's are loading cargo marked "US Mail". The Government contract's with a lot of the commercial carrier's to move the mail
I wonder if a lot of the damage you folks have experienced comes at the hands of said baggage handler's and not necessarily the guy delivering it to your door. After all how many have flown with rods and have them arrive at thier destination damaged or lost/stolen?
I'm sorry to here about the trouble. I have a friend who got a job with the post office, loading the trucks. I asked him one day,"when you see a box that says fragile, are you really careful with it? He said no, that just means you can kick it even harder than you kick the regular boxes. What kind of a world do we live in?
As I sat in my window seat once before takeoff I watched the baggage handlers outside transferring everything from the baggage cart to the conveyor ramp, which brought it up into the belly of the plane. The cart being parked 4 or 5 steps from the conveyor, the handler built like Baby Huey would simply pick up the item, pivot, and toss it the other three or four steps distance. None of the baggage had a soft landing on the conveyor. Can't say how they handle the mail but the performance I watched didn't inspire a lot of confidence in the abilities of the average terminal worker.
As for triangular Priority shippers and rods wrapped in newspaper, we have shipped virtually all our uncased rods that way and we have never had to make a claim. Packing rods has become a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't situation, and we favor lower shipping costs over plastic tube pseudo-insurance. The only rod part I have received broken was a tip that was in a tiptube with paper wadding, then in a canvas rod bag, then loosely packed in a 2 1/2# plastic tube. The tube was fine, undamaged even. The tiptop was broken off. A truck could have run over the tube and it might not have crushed, but the tip still arived damaged
To us, it matters not how much crap you pack around it (ask Banjo about his Thomas) because it can either be dropped on end or run over by a 4-ton material mover of some kind. They can getcha either way and when your numbers up, it's up.
It makes you wonder if the people that actually make a living shuffling our stuff around the globe, ever mail anything themselves .
Or better yet,
Take a trip where they have the extreme pleasure of watching through a small plane window, a fellow baggage handler mis-handling their personal items. Aaarrrggg!
Can you imagine the look on their faces if they had to watch someone else throw, drop, toss, kick, crush, bend, or run over their bags or personal items?
Makes you wish someone would invent Kevlar suitcases and crush proof packaging!
What do they do to insure "their" stuff arrives safely, to whom it was actually addressed to, and not in more pieces than the item was originally made in?
Do they get upset if their stuff arrives with tire marks all over it, broken in several pieces, delivered to the wrong address to be riffled through or stolen, or just left on the front porch in plain site for some opportunist to pick up and walk off with?
With the ever increasing cost of shipping, where's the responsibility lay to get our stuff to us in one piece, assuming it was properly packaged for safe shipping in the first place? And I emphasize "properly"
I realize that these are just rhetorical questions that no one really has the answer too, or better yet, a resolution to fix the problem going forward.
Shipping these days is about like going to our favorite casino town, Las Vegas! Just cozy up to the Craps table, blow on the dice, take another deep breath and let her rip. Remember! What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!
That's just about the way it goes when the UPS, Fed-Ex, DHL, or USPS drivers show up for delivery at my house. Only after the item has been thoroughly inspected, am I able to relax and exhale! And God forbid the driver doesn't hand me the item already bent at a 45 degree angle, and with tire marks tattooed all over it!
Hey, how would you feel if the guy working behind the counter at the deli dropped your sandwich on the floor, and then stepped on it a couple times leaving his shoe print all over your lunch before sliding it across the counter to you. Would you still be a happy, satisfied customer? That's what I thought!
Just rubbing my two pennies together, as fruitless as it is.
Quill,
I worked on the ramp at GRR, TVC, PLN and DTW while going to college and you are indeed correct. In addition to bags of co-mat, pretty much every flight I worked had bags from the USPS. Of course while I was "gentle" with the items I loaded, unloaded and transferred, I could certainly tell you a ton of horror stories. I would venture to guess that in most circumstances, any damage done occurs well before your local postal worker delvers the item.
My current postman has a hard time with the English language. He will not bring large packages (e.g. triangle tubes or packages that won't fit in our street-side mailbox) up to the door. He simply stops out front and beeps his horn. If no one comes out he leaves the 3x5 attempted delivery card (whether a signature is required or not). I guess that is better than leaving the tube on top of my mailbox (which inevitably ended up on the ground and/or in the middle of the street), which is what he used to do.
I just received a Maxwell Leonard a few weeks ago in the mail. I sweated it. Seriously considered driving 500 miles round trip to pick the rod up at the auction house. It arrived ok, but looked like the tape holding the cardboard tube's cap was cut. The cap just pop off in my hand. I was elated to see the rod inside. Undamaged.
I want to be buried with my favorite rod.
I hear the Styx River has Fish.
So...yes. I have stories as well. This makes me think though...
Does Registered solve any of this?
Seriously for the last...3 - 4 years I have been real leery of shipping rods. One reason besides "funding issues of purchase" I no longer buy/sell like I used to. Shipping costs on top of that, and...nada.
Back to registered. Have any of these horror stories occurred while using USPS Registered?
I've mentioned in posts before that I've sent/received many dozens of custom traditional bows, arrows and fly rods. My exerience has led me to NEVER use FedEx with UPS being a bit better and USPS service being by far the best. On Tuesday the 22cnd I received a new custom bow here in Baton Rouge mailed from Ronan, MT on the afternoon of Friday the 18th. I like the Post Office.
I’ve been lucky so far. But there has been some close calls. Twice the Fed Ex driver delivered rods I ordered to the wrong address. Both time the resident signed for them and the driver never paid any attention to the signature. Luckily they looked at the name and address prior to opening the package and brought it to my house. Again I was lucky that they were at least delivered to my neighborhood.
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