Thank you UPS ... you scumballs!! Below are pictures of how my computer looks after I sent it back to my friend to fix. I sent it overnight at an expense of $61.44 and this is the 'Thank You' that I get from UPS. You guys are losers !!!!!!!

On a good note ... I did at least have the common sense to insure it ... which I did for $1700.00. Now maybe I can even upgrade some stuff

You may have trouble explaining to you insurer how it also fried the processor! ;)

Seriously - That insurance is looking like a stroke of luck.
You ever sat on a plane and watched the luggage guys loading your really expensive and fragile musical equipment on to the flight? I wouldn't recommend it!

The last time I tried to send an electronic component via UPS they would only take it if it was shipped in its full original box and packing material, which implies that they know the ride will be rough. Is that how you shipped yours?

Dave

What I did was packed the computer in the original Lian-Li case box. I did use the original styrofoam that held the case in place and added all kinds of bubble wrap along each side and on the top. I sealed it very well. I even went to the extent of making large shipping labels (printed out in Word ... so they could not say they could not read my handwriting) ... that said:

PLEASE HANDLE WITH CARE ... COMPLETE COMPUTER INSIDE ... NOT JUST CASE

I had labels on the top next to the address label as well as on the sides of the box.

My buddy said that I may as well have put a bullseye on the box. That was just an invitation to throw it around. It had to get slammed pretty hard to break the lugs off the motherboard like it did.

Unfortunately I did not have access to ship via FedEx ... who is who I would have rather used. When he originally sent this down to me that is who we used. He had a similar experience with UPS before when he shipped a computer he built for his Uncle.

I've received complete computers shipped both via UPS and Fed-EX. When they are shipped in a larger box (than the orig tower box)and cusioned with styrofoam they are shaken slightly and we just reseat the cards. When they are sent in the tower box - no matter how you pack inside the box, the come in pretty bad shape. Apparently there isn't enough cushioning for the 'ride' they take.

I hope you have better luck than my friend did with the insurance part. When they checked the box and it's contents, they said it was not packed properly and the claims were denied.

Flyboy

What I did was packed the computer in the original
>Lian-Li case box. I did use the original styrofoam that
>held the case in place and added all kinds of bubble wrap
>along each side and on the top.

I spent about 25 years of my career working with a packaging foam manufacturer and trained literally thousands of packaging engineers in how to design cushions to protect items during shipment. Contrary to popular opinion, merely shoving packaging material around the outside is not a good way to try to protect an item. You may be underpackaging (in which case damage may occur) or overpackaging (in which case it will come thru okay but costs you too much in shipping).

The original box was designed to protect the case only (and power supply if it was included in the original purchase). The original cushions were most likely totally inadequate to protect the case with many much-more-fragile components installed, that incidentally also may have added significantly to the unit weight.

Think about vehicle springs. A spring for a Mack Truck must of necessity be much heavier and stiffer than a spring for a Volkswagen. Both will do the job they are designed for, yet neither one will work very well if transplanted into the other vehicle. Package cushioning is no different - to work well, you must use a cushion that is designed for the job.

Adding ink to the outside of the package (warnings about content) does nothing to add to the capabilities of the package.

Lol! Where does the time go... I guess mwkirchner was off doing other things with his life for 25 years and packaged his parcel in the best manner he saw fit. Oh well, live and learn.

Are you saying that United Parcel Service damaged that PC?

If so, I don't think so. Get serious!

Whoever was inside that case to do the "fixing" damaged it!

Period!

Geez!

I would be having a serious conversation with that "friend" you sent it too.

What is that suppose to mean?

For your information ... I was on the phone this morning when UPS dropped it off. He opened it as we talked. He said ... "You are not gonna be happy ... they f***ed it up." I thought at first he was kidding. He told me he definately was not. He took pictures immediately and sent them to me. Those are the pics that are posted here.

I do not know where you get off saying that I should be looking at my "friend". I have known this guy for over 10 years and he would NEVER do anything like that. You have no business even suggesting that.

i also hate ups. i havn't had any damage problems, but their shipping is ALWAYS delayed. i ordered two day express and it took six days. i can't stand it. good luck with the insurance claim.

Just wondering why you've gone through the thread about your CPU, Help! , and edited out all the posts that you contributed?

The archives are there so people can search for answers when they have similar problems.

It's called covering your tracks.

I was being polite! :D

I was not trying to cover my tracks.
I have nothing to cover.
I made a mistake.
I apologize.

Sorry ... I thought that after something was as solved as it could be that one should delete the threads. I guess I thought it would open up space.

I apologize about that.

If this was true, why leave the "Hello" then "Hello AGain" in them.

It does not take a genius to see through your bullshit.

If you are looking for a character reference you have come to the wrong place.

They tell me ALL CAPS IS CURSING, so I repeat YOUR BULLSHIT.

OK, so explain to me how a CPU could be removed from inside a case without opening the case?

And how the tabs could be broken on the inside of the case without opening it?

To do that sort of damage, as shown by the pictures provided, it seems logical to me that someone had to go inside the case and do the damage shown.

You did not show the case cover. Was it damaged?

Did you provide a shipping box for it? IF NOT, that was just asking for trouble and you have the gall to blame UPS for that? Get serious.

You may not like my response to your post, but the responsibility lies with YOU to provide adequate packaging for whatever you ship.

Was it insured? If so, what's your problem? If not, then its foolish of you to complain about getting a damaged shipment.

Being irresponsible and blaming UPS for that irresponsibility is not playing with a full deck, even if UPS did damage the PC.

IMHO!

The CPU wasn't broken off, the HSF unit was. Heat sinks and fans can get pretty heavy, I see no reason to think that a drop or any other large impact couldn't snap off the heat sink and cause the damage he showed. Why are you people so hostile?

Lets see...enough lateral force to break both of the lugs on the socket, but amazingly the CPU fan pin and header are perfectly straight, and still connected. And from the close up shot, there doesn't appear to be any damage, not even scratches or nicks, on the capacitors surrounding the socket.

One way or another, that HSF was removed intentionally.

Uh-Oh!

Anybody with basic instruction in high school physics would know that the required amount of force to bust an AMD HSF off of the socket is going to be quite a bit, I would say that it would take a VERY hard kick squarely at the right hand side of the case, right where the HSF lies on the horizontal plane. Dropping it on the ground woudn't even do it, unless it was dropped quite a distance, and onto concrete... say 20+ feet for it to reach the required velocity, and even then I think the chances are slim that the HSF would bust both lugs off and still not cause any problems to any other components for the rest of the trip.

Uh-oh is right. Reminds me of those guys in WWI and WWII that would shoot themselves to get back home.

tough break. Any time something is shipped there is a possibility of damage. I prefer FED X for anything that is fragile. They seem to handle things with more care then any other shipping co. Ive used, but they are also more expensive. Insuring anything that's fragile is definitely the way to go. I've actually been fairly lucky. Hopefully you will be compensated and can get yourself some goodies to replace your loss's.

Garbru

I have seen some pretty badly damaged items shipped through all the companies, including Fedex, and UPS. It is usually due to poor packing. People don't understand that packaging is designed to be used with a certain weight of the packed object. Increasing the weight of the original object can result in the packaging no longer being adequate to provide protection. We use a packaging engineer to design our packaging.

We ship hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of electronics, our preferred carrier is UPS. Our equipment nearly always arrives intact and on time. We never insure our shipments, and just one box may be worth $10,000. What we save on insurance costs would pay for any loss or damage we have had in any given year a hundred times over. This is not supposition we have twenty five years of records to verify it. We only use other carriers than UPS when our customer requests it and at his cost.

Wow, Shelly I'm surprised to hear that you ship stuff with a net worth of that much and don't insure it. You must really spend some extra bucks on the packaging end. I agree that if stuff is packaged right your pretty safe unless there is some really bizarre accident or something. My older brother works for fed X. He says they are pretty good about reimbursing people when things are damaged but he also tells me that some people take advantage of the system. Some people take a component that is already broken then ship it with insurance then report that the item was broken when shipped so they can get some $$$ for their junk. Thats pretty shabby but it doesn't surprise me that it happens. Whenever there is a good service out there to protect people there are people that will take advantage of it to cash in. That sux because we all pay for it in the end.

Garbru

When you buy shipping insurance, you are betting against the insurance company that your losses will exceed your premiums. The insurance companies use statistics to set their premium levels. Over time the insurance company always wins the bet.

I too have statistics that my decision to, in effect, self insure our shipments has saved our company tens of thousands of dollars.

The "Brown Shirt Boys" piss me off too. I was home one day and they dropped off a package right in front of my closed garage door on the driveway. Luckily I saw the truck on the street. Otherwise I'd back my car out of the garage running over the unseen package and destroying it.

Laurie

I think that goes for the mail system in general. Ive been waiting for my 1st copy of MSDN for months and I know Microsoft sent it because I got an email saying its on its way.

What I want to know is...what kind of digital camera did he use to get those great shots!

I am not sure what the point is of your post but when I was in the industrial controls business, we shipped between 10 and twenty electronic devices a day. For the six years I was there, I don't recall a claim against UPS for damage. We did pack things according to UPS directions.

Gary

>> For the six years I was there, I don't recall a claim against UPS for damage. We did pack things according to UPS directions.

And the point of YOUR post would be??

From what you posted, I would presume your point is that since your company never had a claim against UPS in six years, there is definitely no possibility anyone else could conceivably have any type of legitimate claim against UPS, as long as they packed according to UPS directions of course.

Is that about it??

EDIT: removed an unnecessary comment.

Randell

As far as I'm concerned mwkirchner was upset that his 'puter was damaged. He vented his feelings on this forum. In his mind he packed it to the best of his ability. So when it arrived in a damaged condition he was angry (jusifiably so).

But did his post get him any sympathy. NOOOOOO. Reading between the lines he was accused of poor packing, crooked friends and rigging the whole episode for insurance.

All by just looking at a photograph.

Ya know, the nastiness in this forum is gettng to be utterly rediculous. I havn't been posting much lately because EVERYthing seems to turn into a damn argument and name calling. I don't know if everyone took there snide pills or what, but DAMN, lets see a return to the FRIENDLY computer help here that this site has been known for !!! Were i to come here lately, i would have said screw this place, what a bunch of jerks. I wouldn't post out of fear someone would ASSUME i was lying or trying to cheat someone. Step back, take a few deep breaths, give people the benefit of the doubt until they show themselves to be devious in some way.

On the same note a quote runs through my mind.

"Some people find fault like their was a reward for it."

"nastiness in this forum"

Russ, you hit the nail right on the head. No more comment needed. :-(

Norm

Good point Russ...there has been a ton of nastiness lately.

But it appears to me that there is a ratio of crap creeping into this forum which is directly related to its success. As the word spreads about this forum being the "ultimate source" of 'friendly,' down-to-earth and no-holds-bared computer knowledge and solutions...more and more subscribers like you and I sign on. And welcome to them!!

However there is also a proportionate influx of posters, seeking to use this forum for other purposes....hacker-crap---"lost my product key"----etc. Some of them appear to be trying to use this forum to validate their bullshit, and to vent their 'rage' with suppliers, shippers, etc. In other words.."if it appeared on PC-911, it must be true!"

Eventually it comes down to instinct, I guess. Mine is that UPS is not the culprit in this thread.

OrchidBill

OrchidBill
I agree. Looking at it calmly and sensably I see no way that kind of damage would occur if the packaging was up to snuff. I do not think that I would ship a pc with the hsf and cpu in the socket with all the weight of the hsf just hanging there. Bad idea. There is also no way that I would ship it to a more knowledgable friend (if I had one). How the hell are you going to learn anything that way. If it were a matter of expediency where he absolutely had to have it fixed right now, why ship it in lieu of local support. I detect a feeling of desperation, the defeated feeling one gets from repeatedly banging one's head against the same wall. If I felt this way I would just buy a Dell. This is the good fight!}>

So, has Dell and Compaq started shipping the cpu and HS in a separate container so They won't be "hanging there? Lacking an OEM container, I would say that he chose to use what he considered an acceptable substitute. It seemed to have not been adequate and if UPS had thought so, they should have rejected it. Wise decision on his part? Apparently not, but not an indication of some sinister intent.

My reading of this whole. overblown thing is that he shipped it back because the friend was the one that built it and he transported it to his place by some other means. That was when his troubles started. I think a reasonable person would want the assembler to be the one to provide support.

Russ, I agree that many of the threads have degenerated to the lowest level of name calling and abuse, very little of them justified. Since I link back to the Winmag days, I think I can make that statement with some knowledge of the history involved. It's understandable that the growth of the forum can be an explanation, but the original group was about as diverse as you can find anywhere. Hpoefully some degree of restraint will evolve and people will stop assigning the basest of instincts to every post that seems to be a flag to their suspicions.

Bob,

First, I agree that the name calling in this thread and the response thread is out of line.

I do think that mwkirchner should have provided a digital photo of the outside of the shipping box along with the pictures of the damaged portions on the interior of his PC. He suggests in the original post that he insured the contents for $1700 and planned to be able to do some upgrades at UPS'insurance company's expense. As Shelly pointed out, regardless of the amount of insurance he paid for, he can only collect actual losses. If the outside of the shipping container was undamaged, he may find it tough to collect a dime for the damage on the inside. Whenever you ship fragile goods, they should be packaged so that they could sustain a drop from a high shelf to a hard floor. If mwkirchner had shown a picture of the box with a break in it from a fork lift of something similar, people would be cheering him on. I just don't want to see a new thread where he refers to UPS as "scumballs" and "losers" because he was unable to collect the full $1700 in insurance he paid for.

I'm not making any assumptions about the veracity of mwkirchner's story. I simply wanted to point out that I didn't think he would be collecting a large insurance settlement based on the story as he told it and also to challenge him to support his characterization of the UPS company (I'm no big fan of UPS, it is the concept of name calling without supporting argument I don't like)

Valid points, Steve. Apicture of the container would have said, let's see, a thousand words. :P I'm just mainly commenting on the "attack dog" tone that the thread assumed and it's relation to what I see as a trend showing up on the Forum. Suddenly it's guilty until proven innocent. He'll get his lesson when he tries to press his claim.

I agree Steve. It is unfortunate that you can find a website these days about just about any company with a URL of www.-------Sucks.com. This unpleasantness from everyone who has suffered a real or imagined slight is becoming pervasive, and it is not surprising that people bring it to our forum. Part of it is from frustration, part from immaturity, and a lot of it is just perversity from people with too much time on their hands.

We are not about to start limiting free speech here, but it would be nice if responses to reasonable posts were factual rather than accusatory. Try to understand the feelings of the poster, there is no requirement that we answer a post we feel uncomfortable with at all. Sometimes it is better to let a post drift off into history unanswered at all.

How do they learn what is appropriate content in postings if they don't get replies to them in the first place?

Maybe some the aggression spoken about here comes from a frustrated desire to attract personal attention. :(

IMHO, the PC911 Forum has nothing to fear from the future, so long as it used for what it was intended, which I assume was and is the free transfer of knowledge from the wise to the uninitiated, or those less wise?:)

Ps I'll bet that attracts plenty of replies? NO attack intended, merely an observation which I hope is in context.

Mitch wrote,

"Could I ask, very politely and without prejudice, what avenues are open when people find a lot of their posts going unanswered?"


Mitch, if the post is about computer problems – or OT for that matter – someone with knowledge and interest in the subject will answer. You might notice on occasion an original poster will re-visit the post and write ‘Bump’ in the second post to drive the item back to the top of the page to be noticed.

Take a quick look back over the last three pages, anyone get left out? Precious few go away without an answer. Perhaps if that happens it is because the writer was unable to explain his/her problem fully.

Derek

Mitch, Very few questions go unanswered here. I try to answer any question to which I have some insight of the correct solution. I do not answer questions that have already received a correct answer, unless I can make the answer clearer. I usually do not bother to even read a question that has a dumb headline like UPS SUCKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!. I only read this one because it was a slow night.

I also pass over any post that is obviously not in need of anything I can supply. There are a nunber of questions so poorly written that I can't even figure out what the heck the poster is asking. These I quickly abandon on the assumption that a poster that inarticulate would not be able to comprehend anything I wrote anyway.

The surest way to get ignored by anyone here that could actually help, is write a meaningless headline, and ask a question using incomprehensible language. I gave up code breaking when I returned to civilian life.

Thanks, Shelly, for such a comprehensive reply.

I appreciate the time and thought which you so obviously put into it.

Thanks again. I've learned a great deal here in a short time and I'm looking forward to learning a great deal more.:) :)

I don't think as many eyebrows would have been raised if he had not deleted every one of his posts on his other thread concerning what appears to be a bad processor. Which JUST happens to be the thing that he said was damaged in shipment... I really hope it was just a mistake or an error in judgement.

EDIT OK, on a another look, nothing was said about the processor being damaged in shipment.

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/dcforum/computer/45804.html

Steve, I was an insurance adjuster, both auto and property, for over 30 years. My last 20 years were as a catastrophe adjuster and my last storm was Hugo in 1989 and I worked on it for 7 months.

It is sad what people will do to collect from an insurance company. I went into storm adjusting because no one could start their own storm, unlike fires. But people still take a legitimate claim and exaggerate it.

For instance, me. I bought an old Zenith Trans-Oceanic Radio, for like $300.00 and when it came in, it would not turn on and it had a small dent in the metal grille. It was shipped thru UPS and insured. It had been raining all across the country for about 3 days and in Atlanta for 10 days. UPS contacted me and was going to pick up the radio. Meanwhile, I tried it again, and it worked fine, so I figured it had just gotten damp, or cold. But then I decided I might just scam UPS for a little appearance damage to the grille.

UPS has, and I am appreciative of it, a policy of picking up whatever is paid for period, no exceptions. So I kept the radio, look at the dent, which may have been there forever on a 50 year old radio.

You will not believe the number of times the same roof was purchased by some insurance company on hail damage claims in the tornado alley. Some of the people know more about roofs and measurements than the adjuster. I never will forget this little old lady in Wichita Falls, Texas, who told me how many squares, the flashings, and other information indicating vast knowledge of claims. Come to find out, this same roof had been paid for 4 times and when I told the sweet little lady the news I was not going to be paying her the 5th time, she said, "Oh Well." Now this lady would never steal from the collection plate at church. But insurance companies are fair game.

But on the other hand I have almost had pictures of a guy setting his house on fire in towns without a knowledgeable fire marshall and the insurance companies refused to deny the claim. Further, they pay what is called nusinance claims where they know damn well they have a fradulent claim and just do not have the balls to defend it. Besides, why should they? The losses paid eventually work their way back into the premiums.

Have you noticed how much your premiums have gone up in the me generation?

Well so much for my little tirade. He is running a scam here and on the deleting the post also. But hey, every dog has his day.

The only thing I cannot understand is that if he is running a scam, as you call it, on UPS, then why post on a Message Board. Doesn't make sense. For whatever reason his Computer got damaged, he got angry, blew off steam, wrote a Message (admittedly badly worded). Sounds logical to me.

We are reading a big conspiracy into a small matter. :-)

I wish he had posted on some other board instead of this one. This is the place I come when I need real help, serious help. I know that I could have bypassed his post but like all humans I am a curious creature. All this BS over some guy's inability to read the directions (how to install a processor/how to pack items for shipment via UPS) has lead to a waste of time. He should take up his problem with UPS. It is not like posting negative comments here about the worlds largest package delivery company is going to have any of us refusing delivery from them. Get real! Next time do it right and avoid all the shipping altogether.
Lets see...I could preface a post with "SHELLY SUCKS" and get all the negative attention I could possibly desire.

> I know that I could have bypassed his post but like
>all humans I am a curious creature. All this BS over some
>guy's inability to read the directions (how to install a
>processor/how to pack items for shipment via UPS) has lead
>to a waste of time.

Your post just wasted more of my time than his did. At least his has pictures to keep me entertained. It's not like you posting negative comments here about him is accomplishing anything, other than wasting even more of your time, so why bother?

It seems to me that the title of the thread makes it painfully obvious that this post is about somebody pissed off at UPS. If that doesn't interest you, then you could have skipped over it. Nobody forced you to click on it. YOU chose to give in to your curiosity. And yet so many of you are acting like he held a gun to your head and forced you to sit down and read it. Others are treating this guy like he eats babies and tortures kittens. Personally, I don't think it seems too unreasonable to believe that someone might expect it would be safe to ship their PC in the box the tower came in. I transport my PC that way all the time. And it's a perfectly good way to transport it as long as nobody is dropping it or throwing it around.

My take on this is: This forum allows off-topic posting. Other people have posted off-topic for no reason other than to vent about something that has pissed them off, without a quarter of the b**ching this post has gotten. And no matter what some people seem to think, nobody except the original poster KNOWS whether he is telling the truth. I don't see any reason to doubt him, as i've actually seen what goes on in a UPS shipping warehouse, and because there's no good reason for him to come here and lie about something so stupid. It makes no sense.

Now this post has gotten much longer than i intended it to. I do hope you don't waste too much of your time reading it, but given your curious nature you may not be able to resist.

>> It is sad what people will do to collect from an insurance company. I went into storm adjusting because no one could start their own storm, unlike fires. But people still take a legitimate claim and exaggerate it.

No question, I agree with you completely on the widespread dishonesty involved in insurance claims... but, as with most stories, this one has two sides also. It is a disgrace what many, of not most, insurance companies will do to prolong and/or lower the value of many legitimate claims.

Two of the more unpleasant experiences I have had in the past involved dealing with insurance claims on a completely non-controversial fire started by lightning(observed by 11 eyewitnesses) at a marine business we owned at the time(business doing well, no arson motives)... and a head-on accident involving my wife and twin 10 yr old daughters, at that time, caused by a young lady on drugs crossing over to my wife's lane on a town thoroughfare at 45 mph. The $185,000 lightning claim took 5 mos... with lost papers, insurance office moves, claims adjuster quit-new guy wasn't up to speed yet, etc... all a delaying tactic on a done-deal because of the amount of interest that amount of money was worth. The claim on the wreck was a total hassle purely because the adjuster had the reputation of saving his co. as much money as possible on every claim.

While I'm sure it didn't apply to you, the working motive of many adjusters is simply to keep the company's loss at a minimum, even on legitimate claims, having nothing to do with what is fair or honest.

Again, not excusing the many dishonest claims made by folks, but insurance companies in general are certainly not paragons of honesty and fairness on many legitimate claims.

Randell

c'mon guys, play nice and give him the benefit of the doubt. he described in detail how he packed the pc very well in a proper box, labeled it appropriately, and insured it. i would have done it exactly the same way.

i can also see how the damage might have happened. you all know how heavy those heatsinks are, and how they are hanging at a 90 degree angle from the mobo when the computer stands upright. if you drop the computer from several feet straight down onto a hard surface, the momentum of the heavy heatsink could very well be enough to break the fastening tabs off the socket and result in what the pix show.

no need to make wild assumptions and call somebody names. let's be civil here and show some respect to each other, ok?

mwkirchner, for what it's worth i'm sorry this happened, i would be pissed, too, but at least you were smart enough to insure it. while you might have to go through some hassle to file the claim, at least you'll eventually get your money to repair the machine.

Alex,
He does deserve the benefit of the doubt. At the same time, he should have considered that it is possible, even probable with the number of forum visitors we have that someone working for UPS or their insurance carrier might be reading his posts. In light of that, let's hope that he was entirely honest on his insurance claims and that he was more civil with UPS in person than he was on this board. I've had trouble with shippers myself but I try to avoid giving them bad press when I might need to work with them in the future!

Steve

Alex,

I agree with what you are trying to get across.

It seems we are now seeing a lot of people playing Judge, Jury, and Executioner, with out knowing all the facts. Now you are guilty here until proven innocent.

Kind of skips the *friendly computer advice* that you built the forum on.

Edit: spelling

:)

Ed W.