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It had to happen... (shipping disasters talk!)

#22
Several years back I bought a keyboard off of Reverb. The seller did a terrible job packaging it and it showed up with a hole in the box and one of the keys broken and a big chip out of the formerly perfect frame. He neglected to get the insurance and then asked me if I would split the repair ($300 on a $1,000 keyboard). I told him no.

Then when I shipped a keyboard, I was thinking of what happened so I put the keyboard in a sturdy box, put extra cardboard over the keys, wrapped it in bubble wrap and put all of that in another sturdy box. I bought the Reverb insurance. The keyboard showed up at the buyers house with the frame cracked. I don't believe that there is any way that that damage could have happened accidentally. Anyway, reverb offered him $300 compensation and he accepted it.

I don't ship instruments anymore, just pedals.
 
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#27
Figbassist75 said:
I'm going through this right now with UPS. I ordered a bass from Thomann recently. It is supposed to be here Wednesday but as of this morning, UPS has not picked up the package from Thomann for shipment. This isn't Thomann's fault. It is entirely upon UPS's shoulders. They used to be better than this but have gone downhill over the years.

It almost makes me wish I would have chosen DHL for a delivery option. Yes, it would have cost a little more but they are on the ball in delivering items from Thomann. I ordered a bass in December and it was at my door in three days. UPS would have taken a week or more at best.
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Good luck!!!:eek:


I guess this may depend on your location, but in my experience DHL is massively superior to UPS. There's far less shipping damage, excellent customer service (especially with DHL Express) and not nearly as outrageous handling fees. With UPS there are always lots of "hidden" fees. They really are the WORST. At least in my part of the world.

I still remember the last time I called UPS customer service, after they had damaged a shipment containing a Danelectro 12-string. The guitar was double boxed with lots of padding, but there was a small hole that went all the way in to the guitar, and had dented the body. When I called UPS customer service I was connected to a person who (judging by the accent) was located at a call centre in India (and I'm in Europe). The person told me I was wasting my time because I would never get a compensation from UPS. The exact words he used was "pick your fights". He went on an on about how useless USP are and actually seemed to hate UPS more that I do... I gave up and instead I tried to use UPS' online form for filing a complaint. The form required a photo to be uploaded. The problem was, it wouldn't accept any standard picture file format, and it wouldn't tell you which file formats it accepted (if any...). I tried every possible file format I could think of. No luck. When I tried to send the form without attaching a photo, it crashed and I had to start all over again from scratch.The complaints form was basically rigged to make it impossible to file a complaint.

UPS is rotten to the core.

DHL Express is superb IME. I can have shipments from the other side of the world at my door the next day, and often at surprisingly reasonable prices. They have excellent customer service too, and I have NEVER experience any shipping damage with them. With "standard" (non-Express) DHL it will probably depend on whoever handles DHL shipments locally though. I think non-Express DHL is often handled by the local postal service (which is still significantly better than UPS, at least in my experience).
 
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#28
Gilmourisgod said:
I ordered a fight case from Thomann through UPS that arrived with a fist sized hole in the box, and a dime sized hole in the case itself. I'm trying to picture what could have caused it, marlin Spike? Cap'n Ahab's peg-leg, perchance? Luckily i photographed the damage as it sat on my porch, and took a video of the unboxing. Thomann just told me to keep the "damaged" case and sent me another one. Excellent company. I was able to "fix" the damge with some black electical tape. The common denominator in these tales of woe seems to be UPS....
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Thomann are generally helpful in situations like these. They have always given me a refund for damaged goods, but they have never, ever given me a refund until the damaged goods has been returned to them. When UPS couldn't care less and often takes 3-4 months to return damaged shipments (and that's within Europe...) it's still very frustrating, even if Thomann does the right thing in the end.
 
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#30
Good luck!!!:eek:
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Thank you, my friend!

Next time it will be all DHL for me. When they handled my Harley Benton B650, it was in Cleveland, OH at 7:00 am and flown to my location and delivered by 11:30 am.

If that had been Amazon or UPS it would have sat there another four days before being delivered a week later than expected, if I was lucky. Yes, DHL costs more in the long run but they blew me away with their fast shipping. And the item arrived in flawless condition. DHL destroys Amazon and UPS in service and shipping times all day long.

Thomann are generally helpful in situations like these. They have always given me a refund for damaged goods, but they have never, ever given me a refund until the damaged goods has been returned to them. When UPS couldn't care less and often takes 3-4 months to return damaged shipments (and that's within Europe...) it's still very frustrating, even if Thomann does the right thing in the end.
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Thomann is a great company. When I checked on the status of my acoustic bass the other day, they got on to UPS for not picking up their shipping items on time. Thomann has always been a pleasure to deal with even though I have only purchased two items from them. Their service and quality of their items makes it worth to risk additional taxes and import fees.
 
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#31
In my case they must have done the math and realized that the return postage for a flight case on their dime, plus the postage on a replacement case, exceeded the value and wrote it off. I assume they have some kind of insurance to cover damaged products, so they probably lost nothing financially. In my case that approach is both smart business and generates customer good will. I later bought a Warwick two piece bridge, and even with the postage from Europe, it was less than any US distributor I could find, which tells you how much US sellers are marking it up. Aliexpress does something similar, though in a negative fashion, it's not unusual for people to receive guitars that are only roughly similar to what was ordered, or not what you ordered at all, and then be offered the "choice" of paying return postage to China, or accepting a fractional refund to keep it. When you find a good company like Thomann, keep giving them business!
 
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#32
(Disclaimer: let's avoid the obvious discussion about local shops decline versus online orders growth.)

I don't know: technically speaking, in a world that is more and more "online" and consequently the shopping is shifting from the local downtown shops to the online stores, the transportation quality of service should act accordingly. My 2c.
 
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#33
Avezzano said:
(Disclaimer: let's avoid the obvious discussion about local shops decline versus online orders growth.)

I don't know: technically speaking, in a world that is more and more "online" and consequently the shopping is shifting from the local downtown shops to the online stores, the transportation quality of service should act accordingly. My 2c.
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Not to get off track, but every local shop I used to browse back in the day was utterly overpriced compared to a then-fledgling online industry or even Guitar Center, believe it or not.

That and availability are a couple of reasons why online shopping is eclipsing local stores into oblivion.
 
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#35
Avezzano said:
Ah, ah: you guys are the best!!! Seriously, the damage on the bass was not so large and on the back part of the instrument. No big deal, after the nail varnish applied. The hole in the case I wlll fix with some fiberglass: some bi-component stuff that my buddy guitarist has in his garage. But honestly I could not care less about the case, that I never use anyway. Remains the mysterious way this could ever happen: I could understand a drop. But a hole so large? That has severe consequences in the internal of the soft padded case? The shipping company is Bartolini, that here in Italy is a big one. And they also work in Europe. Surely they have agreements for the overseas countries. I would bet 1000 euro that they have a deal with UPS in the United States... :)
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Ha ha that’s so ironic that the name of the shipping company is Bartolini
 

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