Sending a DMM to Fluke, worried about possible loss.  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: turbo!
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 02:52:56 am
content: So, I am sending something in for service and I am told that they do not insure their outbound shipments! In the consumer service area , this would be absurd. The shipping to them is on you, but the shipment back to you is on them. I know Fluke primarily works with large corporations, universities and such. Is this the norm in business-to-business shipments?

author: kberlen
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 03:10:07 am
content: I just left a career at a land mobile radio shop. We made multiple UPS shipments every day. Over a 30+ year time period, I cannot recall a single shipment that was ever lost, or required us to file a claim for damage/loss. Early on, we insured about everything that left our shop. After several years experience, we made the business decision to discontinue insuring shipments based on the UPS track record and our experience. Since we discontinued sending the shipments insured, we saved thousands of dollars in insurance fees. Just our experience with one carrier.

author: echen1024
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 03:20:25 am
content: Depending on your country, I have never had a lost package with UPS, FedEx, or DHL. I had a USPS parcel that got lost for 3 months and miraculously turned up the other day though.

author: quarks
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 04:21:43 am
content: In my personal experience, things get lost, stolen or damaged. If someone sends you worthy goods you paid for he should be made responsible to cover any trouble you have until it arrives safe.BTW I had to learn with Fedex, they will do anything not to cover transport damage even when insurance is paid.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 06:12:50 am
content: Here every carrier is the same. Bad.Things get stolen, damaged, sullied, lost, misplaced, tampered with. Completely independent of carrier. They all use minimum wage workers with minimum work ethics.And they all play all the stupid games. A building that guaranteed didn't moved since several hundred years suddenly doesn't exist for the delivery guy. Scheduled delivery means they will guaranteed not not show up during the scheduled time frame. Fragile stickers are interpreted as "kick me harder". Doorbells magically never work when the delivery guy comes around. Mysterious signatures from mysterious, non-existing neighbors appear for parcels that never show up. Parcels delivered straight into the trash can, on trash collection day, before the trash collectors did come around. The delivery truck breaks down, repeatedly, always when it is about to deliver a parcel to a remote area, always right at the end of a working day, to be magically working again early the next day, until it is time to deliver that one parcel to a remote area again, then it breaks down again.Unfortunately, a lot of sellers do believe the shit from their brand consultant clown and print their company names and logos prominently on the shipping boxes. Free advertising to the thiefs where to find valuable itemsInsurance doesn't help. The do all the tricks in the book to make sure they don't have to pay.The sad thing is, there is no alternative if you can't pick it up yourself. So just let it happen and hope everything goes OK.

author: HackedFridgeMagnet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 06:32:26 am
content: Yeah you need to know your carrier and who they sub contract to.I had Dell lose a laptop once, I forgot the main carrier but the ones who actually lost it were Star Track express. I tracked it to Melbourne but then it disappeared. Dell did replace it but I was delayed by about two weeks while they conducted an investigation.My favourite (within Australia) is Australia post. Never a problem.From china normally good but once had some heavy impact damage.From digikey I once had major impact damage, as if someone had put the fork of a forklift through the package. Digikey replaced really quickly, I think the courier must have owned up to it. I didn't notice until after the courier had left.I would say 95% of the time perfect, but not always.So if you can trust your carrier to try to do the right thing and can wrap up the parcel well, then skip insurance.Otherwise what is it, 2-10% extra or so for insurance.Fragile stickers:- maybe or maybe not.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 08:52:28 am
content: I guess different areas will have different experiences but I don't get the universal hate for couriers. By back of the envelope math our company sends or receives ~5k parcels a year (mostly with DPD). DPD have lost 2 (plus 1 damaged), Royal Mail 1 and Fedex temporarily lost 1.Thats around 0.1% failure rate but still you get people happy to drive a couple of hours to pick stuff up.I would say the really cheap and nasty couriers will treat stuff worse and have more frequent delays.

author: London Lad
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 11:01:29 am
content: I part own a company in the UK and we ship out about 2000 parcels a week. These contain an item attractive to thieves.We have used nearly all the courier services available here over the last 15 years and find Royal Mail to be the best by far when considering loss and damage. VERY, VERY few parcels go missing.We box and bag the items and do not show the contents or our company name on the outside.With regard to insurance and courier companies, we refuse to pay extra for insurance as the courier has a duty of care to deliver an item intact and undamaged. If they feel they may loose or damage it then it is they who should take out insurance not us.We service items and if we lost or damaged a customers item while in our care at our workshops we would repair or replace it, we wouldn't dream of asking the customer to pay for insurance to cover the loss.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 01:30:26 pm
content: Quote from: London Lad on May 06, 2014, 11:01:29 amThe 2 from DPD we had were limited to £50 under their standard terms, luckily the items were not worth huge amounts so we didnt even make a fuss.The RM one was worth ~£900 and was insured for £500, we had to fight tooth and nail to get £400. They used every trick and tactic in the book to wriggle out, finally they sent us a "take it or leave it" cheque.

author: ManateeMafia
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 03:01:30 pm
content: You could take the parcel down to the carrier of choice and get a quote for extra insurance. I know FedEx requires a signature on most , if not all, insured packages.Ask them if you can get a pre-paid label with added insurance. This can be included in the box with the RMA and specify that they use your label.I am sure many companies request Fluke to use their own account numbers for shipping. I would be surprised if Fluke would not want to honor your request. I have used Tektronix and they are very helpful with handling my gear.

author: AG6QR
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 04:40:47 pm
content: Quote from: turbo! on May 06, 2014, 02:52:56 amOthers have offered their opinions on the reliability of couriers. But from your point of view, the only issue is, "What happens if I never receive my DMM back from Fluke?" Who would take responsibility?As long as Fluke does whatever is necessary to make sure you get a working meter returned to you, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's Fluke's business decision whether they decide to do this by purchasing insurance on every package, or by sending them uninsured, and taking the risk that they'll have to replace a small percentage of packages. It sounds like they've decided it's cheaper to "self insure". They probably made this decision based on their experiences sending a lot of packages, looking at the loss rates, and looking at the costs of replacement versus the cost of insurance.

author: Holograph
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 05:37:54 pm
content: I wouldn't care if they insure the shipment or not. But if they don't insure it and I don't get it, they either send me a new one or I talk to a lawyer.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 06:06:33 pm
content: We used to use a certain courier company, as they delivered to outlying areas where others did not. they had insurance, and we took it ( 1% of value IIRC) and they were very efficient. Collected at 3PM, logged and signed for. Next morning an email to say it was lost, and by the afternoon a free waybill and payout of the value declared. So the process was send day 1, lost day 1, send again day2, lost again day 2, send day 3 and it will get there most likely. As we declared full retail value we actually were making money from them, basically free shipping and they were paying us to ship.No wonder the parent company ( Spoornet, AKA the railways) closed the division down after 2 years of running at a massive ( even more so than usual for them) loss.

author: scientist
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2014, 06:40:48 pm
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on May 06, 2014, 06:12:50 amWhere?