Advice on a damaged packaged being shipped via UPS

I'd choose option 6 but with her doing the cat daddy.

 

You're pretty much screwed. UPS seems to destroy broken packages once they find out it is beer way more often than not. Fedex seems to return them to sender more often than not.

You can file a damage claim, but since they know it is beer, they're probably not going to pay it.

Lesson learned - use a styro shipper or pack better next time.

 

yr screwed. you reship all the beers.

 

Honest, helpful advice is that you're getting answer like this because it is one of the easiest to search topics on BeerAdvocate:
July 29, 2013
July 3, 2013
I could go on - but if you put the same effort into packing your box that you did looking for advice before posting, the problem probably wasn't UPS.

 

At least he is not a 2012'er.
Great advice above. Of course, the most basic advice will keep it from happening again. That advice is to read this, all of it, and do what it says. It was written by a UPS driver.

http://alewatcher.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-trader-tips.html

If you don't feel confident to drop your box ten feet onto concrete, it isn't packaged well enough.

 

Okay, here is more helpful advice.

Check the temp and weather where your box is going before you send. I will repeat, check weather before you send. If it is bad, i.e. very hot, very cold, hurricane, either don't send, or communicate with partner and get permission to send, and make clear that any weather related damage is now on him. Repeat, if partner says send, despite weather, weather damage is on him.

You say you think you packed well. I pack so it would take a fork of a forklift shoved through my box to break my bottles. I pack so if it falls ten feet onto concrete it won't break. You think you packed well. Maybe you did. I have sent over a hundred boxes and not one bottle has broken. Maybe I am lucky?

Read all of Alewatcher's blog, linked above. Shoulda been first thing you did before trading, If you did read it, I am willing to bet all the money in my pocket you didn't do what he recommends. Reread it, do what it says.

Trading is too expensive to not pack well, and not pay attention to the weather where you are sending. Having to send more beer now may be the wakeup call needed to get you to take it more seriously.

 

He says double box. You double boxed?

 

You may very well have packed fine - sometimes stupid shit like a forklift driving into the side of a box happens, and even a styro won't hold up to that. It unfortunately doesn't change much. The beer is gone, UPS won't do anything about it, and you still owe bottles.

Talk to your trade partner and see if he is open to alternative bottles, or shipping back his beer (assuming you haven't drank it yet) plus extras for the hassle. Otherwise you're still on the hook for those bottles, which you'll need to obtain via other trades.

Two more good rules of thumb for others to learn from this:
- If you trade your only bottle of something, don't ever drink somebody's beer until your box has arrived safely.
- If you trade your only bottle of something, wrap that bottle up to the point that you'd punt it like a football.

 

sometimes shit happens. sorry that you didn't like my post because it isn't what you wanted to hear. ups isn't giving you a damn dime. you are responsible for getting those beers to the trader. you have not yet done so. you still have to, intervening events notwithstanding.

 

Look, I have tried to be nice about this. IIRC Alewatcher says to wrap in one box, wrap that box with a garbage bag, and then wrap the garbage bag wrapped box in another box with packing. If your box was rammed by a forklift and a fork went through it, there is nothing you can do. However, if you didn't wrap it the way I just described then you didn't wrap it well enough. If you didn't wrap it so that even if a bottle exploded nothing will leak out the box you didn't wrap it well enough. I hate to have to drag you to the realization that you don't know everything about shipping beer, and that you didn't follow the instructions given in a helpful blog you already read.

It sucks that you sent two rare beers, ones you don't have to resend, and they are gone. If you were rammed by a fork on a forklift there is nothing you could have done would have saved your box, but while you believe your description of your packing proves you packed adequately, it actually proves you didn't.

 

Sounds like an all out effort. Seems you forgot the garbage bag...

 

Garbage bag the inside, or I prefer to use individual jumbo zipper bags with those plastic slider things for every bottle. I also typically dont lay bottles down horizontally if I dont have to - puts more pressure on the cap. The one issue I've ever had in shipping was because a cap blew off a bottle: bottle was perfectly fine. That's why I double wax the caps of every bottle I ship now too (yeah, overkill, but it works)

But this isnt about packing, really. If UPS saw the contents and destroyed the box, you're 99% likely out of luck. I'd still call, play dumb, and see if that 1% might come through, but otherwise you're on the hook for the beers and either need to send back if you've received already, or make good with the other guy. Sorry to hear this happened.