USPS: Your Five New, Insured Laptops That We Lost Are Worth $74
The US Postal Service lost five new Lenovo laptops that Pedro's friend bought and shipped to him. Pedro expected that this might happen, so he wisely insured the package for $3,000. After stalling for about two months, USPS finally agreed to pay his insurance claim, but reduced the payment, claiming his merchandise was only worth $74.
Pedro writes:
In February I had a friend in Orlando ship me a large box of 5 brand-new Lenovo R500's I had him pick up for me. He insured the shipment for $3,000 and sent it parcel-post to me in San Diego. They told us a delivery time of 7-9 days would be an approximate timeframe, which came and went without a package in sight. All the while I'm tracking the package and its status was never changed from: PACKAGE ACCEPTED ORLANDO, FL. I called several times before the 7-9 days and was only told to wait the 7-9 days. After 9 days had passed I was told it could take up to 14 days. I spoke to several agents at the 800-ASK-USPS number, my local post office and the Orlando, FL post office and got different information from every single place. After 21 days my friend was allowed to fill out an insurance claim, which he did, which was supposed to be processed immediately, yet took another week to be sent from the Orlando PO to their insurance department. Another four weeks later we received the gift of the attached letter stating that they decided to award us $112.14 of the $3,000 we insured the package for. We're in the process of appealing but I'm appalled at the $112.14 price-tag for my lost computers. It's unreal.
Pedro included scans of the receipt showing he bought $3,000 worth of insurance on the package, as well as the letter from USPS offering him $74 for the package and $38.14 for postage.
We hope your appeal works out, Pedro. If it doesn't, consider alerting the leadership at USPS. We couldn't find their email addresses (maybe they view it as competition) but we're guessing a letter would reach them. Unless they lose it.
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Comments:
And they wonder why they lose billions of dollars a year to UPS, and FedEx.
wow. i am speechless.
I sold my old PowerBook on eBay and shipped it via USPS and insured it for $1000, of course the idiots lost it and only paid me $645 sayin' this is what it was worth, I asked them then why did you insure for $1000?????????????
Next time, use FedEx
my girlfriend went through the same thing with her turntables and records. they delivered the box which had clearly been opened (it even had someone elses belongings inside)...
claim filed, case reported to the US Postal inspector, no result.
my advice, never ship anything of value through the USPS ever again. i'm sorry you have to deal with this, its not fun.
is it any surprise that the USPS has just posted losses of $1.9 billion for the quarter?
$74?? I'm very curious to see how they came up with that number?
USPS shipping insurance is ridiculous. One time I was told that I couldn't file a claim because I had already opened the box. Well how am I supposed to know the item INSIDE THE BOX is damaged if I don't open the box?!!?! Apparently it helps to show them the box arrived destroyed, therefore assuming your item is damaged.
Hellooooo, Newman.
"We arbitrarily decided to pay you an amount lower than the insurance you purchased, and don't feel the need to offer an explanation."
Love,
USPS
PS: For your convenience we're raising postage rates on May 11th!
Does he have a receipt for the cost of the 5 computers? I'm guessing that's why they only gave him 74 dollars, because he can't prove what was actually in the box. Still- he shouldn't be required to prove it because that's what insurance is for!
So what's the point of insuring something for a given amount if they are allowed to decide it's worth less?
@kamikazee05: Yep. That's not an unreasonable totally hyperbolic crazy scenario at all.
Absolutely appropriate segue there.
No no no no! that's BULLSHIT! $3,000 worth of insurance was paid for! so USPS! pay up!
Lucky thing the parties involved saved their paperwork. I hope these a-hole USPS people reconsider, because they're wrong! if this goes to small claims court Pedro will win without even showing up and the USPS will end up paying up double with attorney fees ETC.
@eightfifteen: "Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There's never a letup, it's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more, but the more you get out, the more it keeps coming. And then the bar code reader breaks. And then it's Publisher's Clearinghouse day."
I mailed my desktop computer through USPS and when it was recieved it looked like it had been dropped off the back of their biggest truck. It was insured for $2000 but I had to fight them for 6 months to get the $1500 that it would cost to replace out of them. They tried to buy me off with $800 but I was able to get the last $700 when I appealed. With the exception of my actual postman, I don't trust USPS to do anything right.
@veg-o-matic: Doesn't matter how much hyperbole is in there, it's still true. And everyone says, "But look at Australia and the UK; THEY have socalized health care and it's great." But those idiots forget that those countries have MUCH higher taxation, and a fraction of the number of people in the US. So, basically, kamikazee05 is pretty correct. Oh, and ask Canadians how "great" their healthcare is. Go ahead. I'll wait.
Dumbass flamer.
There must be some missing information here. They must have had some basis for reducing the value, such as the shipper's inability to show them receipts for the items that were shipped.
@Mad Dog McCree: That's what I wondered too - I didn't see him mention anything about having submitted receipts of purchase.
Insurance does NOT simply get applied without proof of value, though. From USPS's Domestic Insurance FAQs:
What is required to file a claim?o Article number on the package or label
o Evidence of insurance
o Evidence of value
o Proof of damage for loss/missing contents
So yes, he would have needed a receipt or invoice to prove the initial value.
@Mad Dog McCree: He is required to prove it because submitting Evidence of Value is a part of the claim process.
I deal daily with the USPS, and today I was wondering if their stupidity and incompetence was something natural to them or if they had to aggressively pursue this level of horrible service.
I can see plainly now that they are not only aggressively pursuing it, but using Chuck Norris to hunt it down and roundhouse kick it.
@veg-o-matic:
Ding!
Also, why in hell would you ship 3,000 dollars worth of anything OTHER than Registered Mail?
I don't trust USPS with my packages. I've never had a problem with letters, but packages are a different story. Unfortunately, most free shipping promotions are done via USPS.
UPS doesn't even appear to have easily-accessible insurance information on their web page. Interesting.
@cabjf:
Because a person can declare any value they feel like claiming..regardless of whether it really is worth or not. The thing is though when you have to file a claim for insurance, as noted elsewhere, part of the claims process is providing proof of value.
Otherwise, you'd have people trying to defraud the insurance process all of the time. (Instead of some of the time.)
I find that job 1 of the USPS is covering there tails when they screw something up. I had a package that was supposed to be delivered to my house. The tracking said it had, however no package at the house. I called the post office and first my mail guy said he didn't remember any package. I asked why then is it say delivered on the packaging. He starts saying something about maybe it went out on the wrong route. Talked to his boss and he said there is no way that it wasn't delivered to my house. I asked my mail guy if there was any chance he mis-delivered it in the neighborhood, he said nope. Find out 2 days later the package had been delivered to my neighbors house. The local postmaster had gotten downright hostile with me when I pressed for an explanation. Job 1 CYA.
@Posthaus: Save on postage. A penny saved is a penny earned, unless your package goes missing before it's left the post office.
@WarOtter:
Yes.
And I would add:
"What you're doing here doesn't just border on the ridiculous...you've invaded and annexed all the neighboring territory."
Why would you spend 3K on laptops and then send them parcel post?
Never ship anything of value through USPS.
I cannot wait for day the USPS goes under. How I loathe them.
Every post office in my city has removed their stamp machines, so if you want to buy a stamp after hours, that's just your tough sh!t. They've posted a helpful sign in each lobby, listing the other locations in which you can still purchase stamps (such as Staples and Walmart). I can't wrap my brain around the utter ridiculousness of the USPS telling you where to go to buy stamps to use their service.
@albear: You can't just insure empty boxes and ship them around until USPS loses one. As with most insurance claims, you have to prove how much you actually lost. It's *up to* $3000 worth of coverage.
That said, this sucks.
Wow. It's one thing if he didn't buy enough insurance, but he did. Sheesh.
We stopped using the post office for electronics after we needed to send our Nikon camera back for a warranty repair and the post office refused to ship it at all, with or without insurance, because it was broken already. We said we'd sign something to indicate what the pre-existing problem was (which was actually internal/software, not likely to be caused by postal mishandling), but nope, they wouldn't ship it at any cost at all.
Without UPS/Fedex/etc, how the hell could anyone ship anything for repair?!
I'm keen to support the post office but c'mon, these stupid acts on their part make it hard!
@kamikazee05: You've never had a claim denied by a private insurer? Or your paperwork "misplaced"? Or your claim granted, but for a lesser amount than you deserved?
But then why go damning the system when your penny pinching blows up in your face?
something tells me the hang up is they don't have a receipt for the merchandise, meaning the laptops fell off the back of a truck somewhere.
I'm going to agree with the commenters who have stated that this is likely an issue with proof of value. I realize the guy bought $3k of insurance, but if he can't prove that what was in the box was actually worth $3k, he's out of luck. You can't reasonably expect them to just take your word for it. If they did that, they would be inundated with fraudulent claims, though I'm sure they get enough of those as it is.
Ok, so I run two CPU's (Contract Postal Stations, we're full service post offices, just privately employed) in the Northeast area.
1)Like others have said, receipts are the key issue here. The Value needs to be proven, and our managers told us not to tell the customer this, because packages rarely get lost, and insurance is a huge money maker for us.
2) Why would you buy $3,000 worth of laptops and then chimp out on the shipping? Parcel Post & Media mail are our WORST services. They get abused and damnaged all the time.
3)The "Delivery Confirmation" that he purchased is just that, confirmation of delivery. Its Not a tracking service, why would he call and pester the post office, when he choose to send it the slowest possible way.
4) The reason it took a week for the insurance claim to get into the system (after the 21 day window we have for deliveries), is that, all insurance claims, money order traces, refunds etc... Have to be sent to a scanning clearinghouse in South Dakota before they are put into the system, and we are instructed to send these forms in weekly batches.
@esd2020: When they LOSE the package it seems pretty reasonable that you should get whatever you insured it for - there's no possible malfeasance on your part, THEY lost it. If that would cost them too much money then either they can a) start caring about not screwing up stuff like this or b) raise the price of insurance.
@Posthaus: I agree it seems strange to ship a whole load of new computers parcel post, the fact remains that USPS still offered insurance for those PP items. It's not unreasonable to expect the package be delivered, so why not save some money?
Although without receipts, it's very hard to side with Pedro on this one.
That wouldn't happen to be 9815 Carroll Canyon Rd # 100, would it? Next time when whiting out your own address, don't forget the zip+4 IS your address.
@s25843: So you're seriously going to defend a system that lost the package and denied the full value of the insurance claim on the basis of the chosen shipping method? A system that, by your own admission, encourages deceiving customers? An system that only bothers process information in weekly batches rather than in a timely manner? Seriously? If you don't see the problem here, you've been working there too long.
@WOPDingo:
Having seen both sides of the issue (US citizen who moved to Canada 3 years ago), I'd say overall I'd take the Canadian system. When my daughter was born in TX, she had to stay in the hospital for 4 weeks. We had good insurance, but several specialists don't sign on w/ any insurance (why bother, when you have no good choice but to let them do their thing?). So total out-of-pocket, even WITH insurance? $30,000.
Whereas now, in Canada, all her therapy, hospital visits, surgeries, etc, are FULLY covered.
So while the US is better in that there are more doctors, generally faster appointments, etc, the fact is (in my experience, at least) that it's a lot less stressful/costly on the northern side of the border.
Yeah, I'm falling for the troll bait, but I feel strongly enough that gee, just maybe, BOTH sides have some good points, that I had to comment.
Autria? Sounds like a disease...