A number of years ago, I shipped a 421 block to a guy in the upper mid-west. I put a piece of dense half-inch foam on a pallet, banded it to the pallet, then built a crate around it. Since I was an individual, the trucking company that had the best rate for an individual required me to pay with cash or certified check. The block was wrapped in plastic wrap and had a large garbage bag over top of it. Before I built the crate over it, I wrote my name on it in permanent marker on card stock and plastered multiple address labels on the bag. I also wrote my name and phone number with permanent marker on the 2x4s I used to build the pallet.
I paid in cash and got a receipt from the shipper. A few weeks after I shipped the block, the guy receiving the block called me and said it had not arrived. He called the shipping company and gave them the paperwork number I had, and they claimed that shipment did not exist. I called the shipper, who said that was one of their numbers, but they had no record of the shipment. The recipient was beginning to think I scammed him, so I paid a visit to the trucking company myself. I found that the guy who handled the paperwork had been fired that day, and they had no record of the shipment. I showed them a copy of the paperwork, but denied it had actually been delivered.
The back and forth went on for a couple of months. Then out of the blue, I got a call from a guy at a shipping facility about an hour from the destination. He said he had a pallet there that had been damaged had something leaked on it. They tore into it and found my address and phone number, so they called me. I called the recipient, and he decided to drive to the facility to pick it up because neither of us had any faith or trust in this shipper. When he got there, he found it dirty but undamaged.
I am a design engineer. My employer ships industrial UPSs and power distribution equipment all over the western hemisphere. We are seeing massive damage from shippers, and they are claiming improper packaging and it was damaged before it was shipped. I don't know if the shippers are understaffed and are pressed to meet schedules, or if they're trained apes that don't care. I'm seeing pallets crushed in a manner that most likely occurs when a forklift rams one pallet into another and keeps pushing. The damage we're seeing is unreal.
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