Crazieponie, as to the UPS guy dropping your package from waste high, it was not the first time it happened to your package. I packaged several items very well, marked them fragile, insured them and all arrived broken. UPS, declined the insurance due to not properly packaged. They have to be packaged well enough to take a five foot fall, followed by a 70 pound item falling onto them. Google ISTA procedure level 3a. Multiple drops, multiple vibration, atmospheric, and other hazards. The list is long and these are the standards UPS will ask for.if you place a claim. Cheapest testing of your packaging for this is 900.00. Thus it was easier for me to replace customers items at my expense and learn the rules.
Basically all packages go for a ride on their conveyors and after dropping off the end may be followed buy a 70 pound package of bricks falling directly on it. This may happen at every terminal they go through. Also must be able to sustain a five foot drop. They determined my stuff was not packaged well enough for the 70 pound drop and marking them fragile does not get them any special treatment. I should have read the rules before I shipped UPS ground. Now, unless I am the one shipping bricks, we double box and fill with expanding foam. The UPS guy on the truck and the handlers in between know the rules, thus there is not a lot of incentive to treat your package as if it were fine crystal in a cardboard box. Thus their insurance is a scam except for if it is lost. If damaged the burden to prove 3A standards of packaging is on you and a independent lab you pay out of pocket for the testing. If it fails their test, you are out an additional thousand bucks for the test. To box even a small item correctly is 20.00 in materials. Most companies just do the minimum, hope, and replace anything damage can be proven. I will now sometimes crate and pallet expensive items then ship via lift gate truck service. Although I ordered a 25,000 dollar high frequency spindle drive controller (basically a bunch of circuit boards and power supplies in a metal box) to be shipped to me via lift gate truck. The shipper put it on a truck without a lift. I walked out the door just in time to see the truck driver push my 25k box of sensitive circuitry off the back of his trailer and it go crashing to the ground. He could not understand why I was upset. Nothing but freight to him.
