This is why I always take things to a UPS store, packed but still open and then pay them to package it and insure it. This way when they claim improper packaging I can say, well you packaged it and were paid to do so. Happened to me before, took some arguing but I got the money for it and it was shipped overseas.

I've read that UPS will still initially deny the claim... the excuse is that most UPS Stores are franchises and not actually owned by UPS, so the store is responsible.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the store paid me. Whether he got his money back I don't know but it's not my concern.
Actually this particular transaction wasn't for damage but rather theft. The buyer in England claimed when he opened the box there was just bricks. The product was in there when it left my hands at the UPS store as witnessed by the clerk/owner so...

Holly chit .. through all this - what did you recover ?

i got a check from UPS for $3k. this is what the bike was insured for and what the bicycle was really worth.
i do believe, my friend never told me the exact amount, the law firm got $2K for legal fees.

So that was a settlement and not a judgement? No punitive damages ?

I believe recovering the legal fees would be considered the "punitive" damages. Am I right?

Punitive damages are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Paying for the other side's legal fees is compensatory damages, what it cost to make the plaintiff whole again.

Sonny ... for as much as what T-guy went through P damages should have been ANOTHER 3 large on top of legal fees.

T did everything right and the UPS management was out to ROB T out of a legit claim

How bad was this box damage ??? Enough to cause the damage to the speaker cones??? and If so why would the buyer not open the boxes immediately for inspection??
I'm smelling horsesh-t or a scam here. As previously mentioned, anything could have happened during that time
At this point I'd roll the dice and tell him to pound sand

The damage in the pic only showed a couple inch hole, and you can almost make out the backside of the speaker. It does not correspond to the the complete destruction in his other pics of both speakers cones. I'll see if I can attach a pic Mon.

Thanks guys, all the viewpoints have been helpful.

Not to detail this thread but:
There was a UPS truck that broke down in front of my house a few weeks ago while making a delivery (across the street from me). After sitting there for about 30 minutes, a Penski Rental truck showed up, and backed up to about 3' behind the now dead UPS truck. Both truck drivers proceeded to "move" the packages on the UPS truck to the rental truck. At more then a few points, my wife and I watched packages flying from the inside of one truck to the inside of the other truck (a distance of easily more then 6'), but both drivers were in the same truck. A few of the packages were picked up off the street and were placed into the truck they missed in the fly though process. I must admit, there were several packages that were handled pretty delicately, but probably less then 20% of what was on the original truck. The entire package swap took about a 1/2 hour, it was a smaller UPS truck, but it must have been pretty full. Upon completion of the package swap, the UPS driver got into the rental truck and drove away, presumably to make the day's deliveries. The guy that was driving the rental truck got into the UPS truck, and drove it away, with a trail of liquid following it up around the turn.

My wife commented on how the drivers just through the packages from the one truck to the other with little regard as to what may have been in the packages.

My shop used to be next door to our local UPS hub. I often repaired their aluminum 2 wheel dollies. Part of the repair was to make sure they were delivered to the hub, and I was to stop in the office with a receipt and get paid. Very prompt payment, always. On several occasions I witnessed the truck loading process. All I will say is when you ship packages, pack them like you would expect them to get thrown into the truck, especially if they are light weight, or small. At the time, our local hub had 43 trucks. The packages arrived on semis (often with pup trailers) from 3 different locations, and the packaged were unloaded from the semis, sorted, and loaded onto all 43 trucks in about 6 hours time with about 6 employees. Christmas time was worse (but at least there were extra people). How much care would you expect to see? Gene

About 20 years ago I had the opportunity to observe the trucks being unloaded onto a belt and the packages picked off the belt... yes, they do throw them. No time or space to set them down gently. I'm sure the process is not slower than it was, too.

I also got to put on a set of "browns" and spend the morning with a driver in his package car (what UPS calls the delivery step vans). That driver was really earning his pay that day, and glad to have a helper. It's not an easy job physically, especially with the red tag (70+ lb) packages.

However, I would not expect to see a tire track printed on a box, or a forklift tine punched through it!

Yea, the lift fork through the package, and a tire mark across one is a bit extreme. Having seen how the stuff is handled at a hub, can you imagine how things go at an airport? In bad weather? There are reasons these things are kept out of site for most people.

The shipping industry is not the only profession where the details of the real processes are generally kept out of the average persons site. I can think of a lot of stuff that is normally done during the course of a day in many professions that I really don't want to know about. Often its better to understand that there are times things don't go according to the plan, and its usually much better if we really don't get the know all the little details of the plan and accept sometimes things go wrong. The problems occur when we don't want to pay for things that go wrong with other peoples plans, and they expect us to. Gene

in my opinion you are correct.

my case was SETTLED OUT OF COURT so terminology differences are irrelevant.
the only thing i know 100% is i got a check for $3K.
my lawyer friend told me the legal bill was taken care of, it was paid by UPS. i didn't have to worry about paying that. my friend told me there was about 15 billable hours mostly filing motions and phone calls between lawyers , he told me that while i bought him a expensive lunch after i got the check. i never got any exact details on what was required to handle the case and what exactly the legal firm got paid..

I've never been around an airport freight ramp but I'm thinking it's a way different thing from a truck loading dock. I'm thinking packages thrown and kicked in to those airplane shaped containers rather than thrown and kicked in to the plane like luggage. Some kinda effort made to balance the load because a nose heavy cargo plane is a way different thing than a nose heavy van trailer. There's also the FAA angle and the real cost of mishaps. Bump your cargo handling vehicle in to a trailer, not that big of a deal even if you put the forks through the wall. Bump in to an aircraft and it's a huge deal even if you don't scuff the paint. I had a FedEx call center as a customer for several years and heard some of the stories.

Having driven a forklift for a few years I'll just say that punching a fork in to a box happens more than you want to know. As for tire tracks, it's less common. Most generic freight trailers have barn doors and the driver needs to open them before backing in to the dock. If the pallets on the tail are light enough and not properly secured they can and do end up on the ground.

Remember the old Samsonite commercials with the suitcase in the gorilla cage? I try to keep that in mind when packing boxes.

I've had two incidents of parts damage in shipping, first one was a pair of fibreglas doors I bought from Herb McCandless years ago, Roadway freight delivered them to my shop in SO CA. The package had a forklift tonque, probe, lift, size and shape hole on one side and it went through one of the doors
I called Herb to let him know and Roadway ended up paying me for the total package price of both doors and they took the damaged door and I got to keep the other one
The second claim was on a used crankshaft B motor 4.25 stroke crankshaft that I had bought from Ohio Crankshaft company a long time ago, I bought six now ones and the one used one, three new RB and 3 new B and the one used B one for me. I ended up using three of the new ones on customers builds before unpacking the used one I bought for myself. I didn't notice it was damaged on the rear flywheel mounting flange, it was bent a bunch , before taking it to the machine shop along with the rods, pistons and so on for balancing. The shop called me when they noticed it and I got it back and gave them one of then ew ones for my build. I called the freight company about filing a claim, I think it was UPS ground, and they told me that it was insured for $100.00
I called Ohio Crankshaft and told them about it being bent and ask why they had only insured them for $100.00 each, I sent it back to them and they replaced it with a new one and paid for shipping it to me for no out of pocket expenses to me
I had ask them to send me another new one and insured it for $1300.00 but they no, ship it back and we will take care of it
I had paid right around $400.00 each for the new ones and $200.00 for the used one
I haven't been so lucky on new defective engine parts that had failed in the motor, which has been more than one

I have had airline baggage handlers crack not one, but two Samsonite suitcases over the years. Nary a gorilla in sight

UPS has stated today a shipper has 90 Days to report a claim for damage, that seems strange to me.

But from what I read here as to the UPS's track record of actually paying for a claim, they could make it 2 years, since they never pay anyway.

About maybe 15-20 years ago I shipped a 1970 C-body dash pad to a guy through UPS bubble wrapped 3 layers, double hard foam cover and wrapped twice in cardboard and then boxed. Got a call from the guy that the box showed up bent into a 'V' shape with a forklift tire down the center. UPS said they would not over the claim as it was not properly packaged to prevent damage is shipment. How the heck do you package a product to survive a 4 ton forklift running over it!? After about 18 packages being lost, damaged, ruined or delivered late (one was 6 weeks late), I gave up on the and have been Using FedEx for the last 15 years and have had only one problem out of a couple hundred packages shipped. I have turn order down if the buyer insisted on using UPS. Plus FedEx is cheaper too.