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Thanks, Trixter, for confirming my worst suspicions about USPS insurance. Maybe somebody else has the inside skivvy on UPS insurance claims.
 
I'm not sure what suspicions I confirmed; surrendering a partially damaged item to get the insurance money seems like a legit way to prevent scams. I just wasn't aware of that the first (and only) time I tried to collect payment.
 
Trixter said:
surrendering a partially damaged item to get the insurance money seems like a legit way to prevent scams.
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So when you wrote (in the linked post) that the USPS "insurance is only protection against complete and total destruction of property and/or complete and total loss of delivery. If it *arrives*, and is only *somewhat* damaged, you’re shit out of luck!" what you really meant was that it seems like a legit way to prevent scams. Right, I obviously misunderstood you. Thanks for clearing that up.
 
Well, the money behind insurance with that sort of policy is probably widely misunderstood. If I receive a computer with monitor and they shatter the monitor, that'd mean I'd need to destroy the computer too to recoup my loss? I remember reading about this before and honestly I always forget how unhelpful insurance really is when they bang the hell out of the package and damage the item physically but don't want to own up to that. Oh well I guess. On the bright side, there's an app for that.. This way you can show them how you blew it up and they'll be none the wiser!
 
I'm not sure if I'm sensing sarcasm in your (Gib) reply to me, but regardless, the two statements don't necessarily contradict each other. I was previously confused about USPS insurance when I wrote that post in 2006: I thought you were paid money if something was damaged. The clarification I have since learned is that money is paid out only if something is considered a total loss, and for that thing to be a total loss, it must be surrendered over to the USPS.

So, if you are considering insurance with a carrier -- most likely any carrier, not just the USPS -- be prepared to prove the item's value (difficult with a vintage item, but not impossible) and also be prepared to illustrate what "total loss" is. For software like in my case, I got a lot of flack from the postal employee in trying to prove loss (she looked at the contents of the box and said they were fine, and couldn't comprehend that the box itself was part of the value). For something like a monitor, damage is fairly easy (shattered glass, shattered casing, etc.). For a vintage computer, it might be tough to prove loss since, even with a battered case, the thing might still turn on and function, and the USPS has no way of proving that it wasn't SHIPPED with a battered case.

My ultimate takeaway from the experience is that there's no way to insure against damage. I have since shifted my efforts into providing the seller with more money for packaging -- meaning, I fully explain to them that I am a collector, that this is a piece that will be exhibited, and that "if they need $10 or $15 more for proper shipping materials I am happy to pay extra" so that they ship it properly. That kind of effort has turned out to be more valuable than any insurance I've ever bought.

All things equal, I do actually purchase insurance for things where damage is easy to prove. If you show someone a shattered monitor, they're not going to fight you very much on the value you insured it for unless it is 10x more than what they think a monitor should cost. Meaning, CGA monitors are rare, but they're not "$5000 insurance" rare, and values like that are red flags.

For handling and insurance, most people I've talked to recommend Fed Ex, if that helps.
 
Trixter said:
I was previously confused about USPS insurance when I wrote that post in 2006: I thought you were paid money if something was damaged.
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That would be my expectation, as well, in purchasing insurance from USPS. Hence, when I read your linked post about having to forfeit a partially damaged item to receive a small payment, and your feeling "shit out of luck" about the experience, it confirmed my worst suspicions about USPS insurance.

Your advice to offer extra cash to sellers "so that they ship it properly" is novel, to me at least. You still might receive an item damaged by the shipping company and have no recourse. When I bought my IBM 5155 last year, I had it packed, insured, and shipped via Fed Ex. It arrived in perfect shape, but if it had been damaged, I was hoping that since they packed it, they'd honor their insurance. What I still don't know is how they interpret the concept of honoring their insurance.

But thanks to you, I know how the USPS honors (or doesn't honor) their insurance. Thanks.
 
FedEx wanted me to surrender the Apple IIe and monitor I bought from eBay.

iie_crack_1.jpg iie_crack_2.jpg

Well, the thing is, the color Apple monitor is worth more than the price I paid, and it was undamaged and pretty hard to come by. So I decided to eat the loss. I haven't had any luck finding an empty case for the Apple II, so I'll probably just sell the motherboard and cards from it to make up for the difference, and buy another Apple II. Or I will glue the case back together and just put the machine in a corner where that part of the case doesn't show.

Also, when telling the seller to "pack the item carefully" I didn't think I needed to tell him that the monitor should not be placed on top of the computer in the box. FedEx probably would have denied the claim anyway if they had known that.


Here's the best part. I ordered a DuoDisk drive from a different seller. He shipped it by USPS parcel post in a box with absolutely no packing material at all, and the box was almost completely disintegrated by the time it got to me. But the drive looked and worked perfectly anyway!
 
Sorta makes ya wonder if insurance is just a scam or if it's ever worth it.. perhaps it's worth it shipping a vase or just a monitor but other computer items may not be good qualifiers if it means they have to completely destroy the item for you to not want to salvage it and get the $XX it was insured for. Then of course the worth battle which it'd be easy if you print out ebay auctions but say you got if for a deal (hopefully) then yeah you'd be low balling yourself too. How frustrating. It's funny, I even recently was fooling myself into thinking that insurance was worth while on some shipments or to call them on damaging an item in transit. Makes me wonder what their (courier) motivation is at this point to ever be polite to a shipment. If they're by default not responsible for cracking and shattering items, and even if they are they treat the customer as always wrong .. hm.

Wasn't USPS almost bankrupt anyway? I thought I recall them having only enough for a few more months of operation a year ago.
 
Today on eBay, mine was the winning bid on an LCD monitor. After reading all these horror stories, I'm really worried about whether it's going to make it to me in one piece.

Actually, I've bought a lot of stuff off of eBay and only had one item arrive damaged, an LGA 1155 mb with lots of bent cpu socket pins. I emailed the seller with a photo showing how the protective plastic over the socket had come loose and allowed another item in the shipment to damage the pins. Surprisingly, the seller just told me to keep the item and he refunded what I had paid for it. (You're all wondering if I was able to straighten the pins and use the mb. Yes, I was. I don't trust it for crucial tasks -- I bought another mb -- but it's in a spare computer that hasn't failed in two years.)
 
Chris Hafner said:
Seems like quite a few people have had IBM 5153 monitors break in transit - I'm the same way. The seller of my first IBM 5150 used only packing peanuts for padding (and not much - it was a thin box, and not much bigger than the computer/monitor). There were shards of the 5153's casing all over the inside of the box, and some pretty significant damage inside as well. Thankfully, the 5150 and the keyboard came through okay.

Cheers,
Chris Hafner
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As you already know, we can add two more dead 5153s to that list that died in transit to my house! I have complained enough about this (with video!) in another thread. If I kept the old 5153, I could've potentially combined the two into a single working one!
 
Gib said:
Today on eBay, mine was the winning bid on an LCD monitor. After reading all these horror stories, I'm really worried about whether it's going to make it to me in one piece.
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I had a used 24" LCD make it here without a problem. The buyer recycled a monitor box with the original inserts from a different brand and model.... but it worked.
 
I run into several incidents of poor packing that caused damage to ebay purchased systems. I posted the information on a PowerMacintosh 5500 AIO that was poorly packed and nearly destroyed. DHL required I send it in to their Claims Office in the original shipping box before they would consider paying for the damage. They determined it wasn't packed well enough and refused to pay for it. They sent it back to me in a bigger box with even more damage than when I dropped it off at their office.

My experience with USPS on claims is they will pay for the repair of an item if the repair cost is less than or equal too the insurance coverage purchased. Then you can get the computer repaired and keep it. The problem I have run into is they require a written estimate for computer equipment repairs from a commercial business or they refuse to accept the figures. Most regular computer repair shops will not give an estimate on repairing vintage systems since they can't get new replacement parts. Unless you have access to a vintage specialist repair shop, you can't get an estimate USPS will accept. Of course, if the computer repair estimate is more that the coverage purchased, USPS will only pay up if you turn the computer over to them.
 
cr1901 said:
As you already know, we can add two more dead 5153s to that list that died in transit to my house!
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I took my 5153 with me to Utah for a demoparty and I packed my monitor thusly:


  1. Purchase $10 package of bubble wrap
  2. Use all of it to wrap the monitor completely in bubble wrap (was roughly 4-6" think on all sides)
  3. Put in box

Worked both ways in a plane's cargo hold. Bubble wrap was the "big bubble" kind.
 
All of these horror stories worry me. I have two LCD monitors in shipment + a brand new desktop pc.
Darn I hope luck is on my side.
 
The LCD I mentioned above arrived undamaged. But it's a different make, model, and color from the one I bid on (eBay)! This is the second vendor in a row that "substituted" what they thought I'd be willing to accept in lieu of what I paid for. No problem with FedEx in either case, and the vendors sent return labels and refunded my money promptly, but what the heck is going on with eBay auctions?
 
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