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Missing package shows up damaged( Update)

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Ten days ago, I mailed out two boxes- one to Chicago and one to Texas. The one to Chicago arrived last Monday, but had either been opened or somehow got mangled and was missing some stuff.

The package to Texas has not yet showed up. A second package, to the same address, was mailed on Monday and arrived on Friday.

How long do I need to wait to make a claim on the missing box? It's insured for several hundred dollars.

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Ten days ago, I mailed out two boxes- one to Chicago and one to Texas. The one to Chicago arrived last Monday, but had either been opened or somehow got mangled and was missing some stuff.

The package to Texas has not yet showed up. A second package, to the same address, was mailed on Monday and arrived on Friday.

How long do I need to wait to make a claim on the missing box? It's insured for several hundred dollars.

 

If you have a tracking number, contact Track and Confirm customer service at 800-222-1811.

 

This usually "shakes a package loose" in a day or two. Was it 1st Class, Priority, Media, etc.?

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It was Media, but with DC and Insured. I've sent a fair number of books and its never taken ten days before.

 

What does the tracking show? That's your first clue to what's going on. Sometimes media gets "stuck" at a sorting facility for a week or more. Media mail has to sit at a sorting facility until all the other packages get put on the truck. If there is no room, it stays at the sorting facility each day. I had one media package take 22 days to be delivered once. It was mis-routed twice down the eastern coast. I had to make several phone calls to get it delivered.

 

Check your tracking before calling them. You don't have to wait 30 days if it's been mis-routed, or actually missing.

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It was Media, but with DC and Insured. I've sent a fair number of books and its never taken ten days before.

 

What does the tracking show? That's your first clue to what's going on. Sometimes media gets "stuck" at a sorting facility for a week or more. Media mail has to sit at a sorting facility until all the other packages get put on the truck. If there is no room, it stays at the sorting facility each day. I had one media package take 22 days to be delivered once. It was mis-routed twice down the eastern coast. I had to make several phone calls to get it delivered.

 

Check your tracking before calling them. You don't have to wait 30 days if it's been mis-routed, or actually missing.

+1

 

Don't use media mail for stuff over $100, or anything important, because it sits on the bottom rung and every day or week it sits is a potential day for it to be destroyed or stolen.

 

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These were all media mail eligible, trade paperbacks and a few omnis. Nothing with ads.

The tracking label is in NYC and I'm out by the Hamptons. Won't be able to check it for a few days.

 

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Don't use media mail for stuff over $100, or anything important, because it sits on the bottom rung and every day or week it sits is a potential day for it to be destroyed or stolen.

(thumbs u This is spot-on. Media Mail is VERY low priority, routinely abused and thus a money-loser for USPS, and because of this they are cracking down on it at all levels.

 

Going forward, I'd expect more MM packages to be inspected, and delivery times to increase overall. The salad days of using the service to cheaply ship bulk lots of comics are coming to an end...

 

 

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Okay, so the box finally shows up, crushed into a pancake. This was a Diamond box, wrapped in bubble rap, inside a larger box filled with peanuts. Half the books have one corner crunched- two omnis( which were individually bubble wrapped)had the corners damaged and blunted.

 

Obviously this will be a insurance claim. I've never had to file one before.

Can someone walk me through what I need to do, and what I can expect.

I have the slips I need for the claim.

 

This is the second box USPS has damaged in the last six weeks. I'm about done with them.

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Okay, so the box finally shows up, crushed into a pancake. This was a Diamond box, wrapped in bubble rap, inside a larger box filled with peanuts. Half the books have one corner crunched- two omnis( which were individually bubble wrapped)had the corners damaged and blunted.

 

Obviously this will be a insurance claim. I've never had to file one before.

Can someone walk me through what I need to do, and what I can expect.

I have the slips I need for the claim.

 

This is the second box USPS has damaged in the last six weeks. I'm about done with them.

 

Others have said it. Don't use media mail. Sure it's cheap, but you get what you pay for.

 

About a dozen years ago Consumer Reports reviewed shipping services. Put sensors in boxes, fragile labels on top and shipped the sensor filled boxes across the country via all the major carriers. Believe it or not, the USPS did the best in not damaging packages.

 

But with all three major carriers (USPS, UPS and Fedex) - the best thing you could do to reduce damage was to use a quicker service. The less time a package spends in transit the less time it has to get smashed, thrown around and otherwise abused.

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The Post Office will take the books and give you the money. It's a hassle, but it typically works out just fine.

 

Do I have them shipped back here or do they pick them up at the address they were mailed to?

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For those that dislike media mail...

 

This was sent Priority mail to Washington state... it was sent to TEXAS twice and back to Washington state after my customer called Texas and complained.

 

The address that I placed on the box was completely legible and CORRECT and still took almost two weeks to get to him and arrived in the condition pictured.

 

The packages that I shipped from the same sales thread that went Media mail all arrived quicker and with no damage.

 

Have yet to have a problem with that service.

 

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I sent myself 34 packages last fall, right after Hurricane Sandy,. 1200 miles from one place to another. 8 were short boxes that went media mail. They were FINE. the priority boxes and parcel post ones, looked like they went through a masher. Most of those had clothes in them, or comic boxes wrapped in clothes, so they were fine, but they were smushed...given they were pretty large boxes I figured they would get mashed and packed accordingly.

 

What's really interesting is, they all pretty much arrived at once.

 

I think it depends on the PO.

 

With all the shipping they do odds are SOMETHING is going to get mangled...but like everything else, we always tend to mention the troubling stuff, not all the ones that get there, so it always seems a lot more dreadful than it is.

 

Sorry about the box Bill, hope it shows up soon, but as long as you have insurance, you should be fine. You can do it on the website now if no one mentioned that yet..

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as a former fedex package handler, you should scream at us. we dont care whats in the package or if it says fragile, we never read the box, just the address label. we throw boxes off the conveyer belt onto the truck. especially if i was loading 5-6 trucks myself, i was throwing boxes everywhere.

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watch this video.

Parcels are automated in sorting and are "knocked" off main conveyor into bins. Parcels fall on top of each other and if your CGC case isn't well packaged for impact expect it to be broken.

Even if well packed you can still expect the odd package to still get damaged as your package could be the bottom of a bin and have several hundred other packages fall on top of it in the sorter.

 

 

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From the USPS website:

 

http://about.usps.com/notices/not121/not121_tech.htm

 

"Media Mail packages may not contain advertising. Comic books do not meet this standard."

 

As someone else mentioned, if I use MM... I just say they're books even though their own website clearly states that comics are fine.

 

 

 

Edit- I stand corrected. Comics are bad. :(

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