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One night, I was talking to my parents about Macs and I said, “Oh, I should check eBay to see how much my iMac G5 goes for nowadays.” I got on and found out that several had sold for 800 dollars or more. Wow! Considering that I paid about 1200 for it 2 years ago, that’s pretty good! Especially when you can get a new mac today that can run windows/linux and is about 4 times faster for just 400 dollars more.
So, needless to say, I put my iMac G5 up on eBay, so that I could afford a new Mac (I had been itching to get one, especially since I was now working on stuff at work where I could really use a PC). A week later, my iMac sold for 850, I packed it up, and shipped it out, with insurance. At the UPS Store, the sales rep/co-owner told me that “Oh, these “fragile” and “this side up” marks on the box will get ignored by all the workers”–great!! Well, good thing I packed it well.
On Monday, I got an angry (deservedly so) email from my buyer, who informed me the computer had been damaged during shipping. So, I had to refund him his money (losing about $100 from eBay/PayPal fees and another $25 so that he could ship it back to me). I looked up the insurance policy on UPS and pretty much the only time they will give you anything is if you have them pack it. Otherwise, you’re SOL.
I got the computer back on Friday and brought it into the Apple Store in the afternoon. It clearly had been damaged by someone dropping the box. The actual stand had been bent and the power supply was damaged. Estimated cost of repair? $250 (so now I’m down $375, if that’s all it takes to fix the thing). Granted, the computer will be good as new and I will either send it back to the original buyer or put it back on eBay, at a loss of $375. So much for getting a new computer for only $400.
Moral of the story: If you send it by UPS, have UPS pack it. Otherwise, there isn’t any way you can prove to them that they damaged your parcel. Hopefully, on Mars, there isn’t any need to transport parcels and UPS Store employees will be stuck doing whatever it is that “UPS Stores” sell besides shipping materials. Good luck with those mailbox sales!
