Warning re: Mailing Parts

[sheepherder]

A member kindly sent me a barrel blank I needed; the parcel arrived today. The box was empty, with a rip in the corner.

It was sent flat rate/insured, so the sender should be able to get the insurance plus postage. I've sent him pics of the box plus I notified my local post office supervisor.

This is the second time this has happened to me; I had an M16 barrel sent UPS from California to me a few years back; the box arrived empty with a nice round hole in the end.

Postal and airport machinery for loading/sorting parcels is to blame, not human error. Conveyors, paddles, steep drops to wheeled hampers all contribute to boxes breaking down. Trying to find the lost part is near hopeless, as the post office and the airlines don't have an interface for identifying and listing lost items. It goes through too many stops, and their is no way to notify all of them.

Reinforcing the packing, not using plastic packing peanuts; wedging the part in the box securely are good, but most important, anything put in the box should have a label taped to the part, with the sender's name, address, and phone number. That's the only chance that the part will be recovered and returned. This applies to USPS, FedEx, UPS, whatever. If they can forward it, they will.

I worked for the post office for 29 years, with six months of that in an airport mail facility, and the equipment (both postal and airline) used for parcel shipment is almost all automated. The scanners and paddles used to whack a parcel off the conveyers are not gentle. There are postal mechanics who sweep the equipment at the end of the day, but there's no way to know where a loose item belongs. The box it was shipped in is long gone.

I'll scream at my mailgirl next time I see her, but she retires next month so she won't be too upset.