A near miss
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,218 ✭✭✭✭✭
See the gate in this picture?
That's our front gate, and the road, despite being relatively far out in the rural boondocks, does see a fair amount of vehicular traffic.
I am a night worker and sleep during the day. A phone call this afternoon awakened me. It was my wife. She advised me that a UPS driver had called her to say he'd left a package outside the gate. She asked me to get dressed and retrieve it, which I did, grumblingly.
Sure enough, there was a smallish rectangular box hanging inside a bag on the gate, luckily on the outside, so the dogs hadn't shredded it.
Initially I was impressed that the UPS courier was considerate enough to 1) put it in a clear plastic trash bag so it wouldn't get drenched in the rain- like the last one they left, exposed and bagless- and 2) that he'd not just left it INSIDE the gate for the dogs to shred, as has happened at least twice, and 3) that he had bothered to call my wife at all.
But upon closer inspection, my appreciation turned to suspicion.
Wait a minute... that had better not be what I think it is!
Oh. Yep, sure enough. It was my latest PCGS submission, freshly returned from Newport Beach.
Nearly a thousand dollars' worth of coins, dangling prominently from our front gate in a clear plastic bag, unattended, mere steps away from an isolated yet actively traveled road, where any wannabe "porch pirate" could have nabbed it and been off with it in eight to ten seconds.
No pickup slip in the mailbox. No knock at the door. No phone call to ME.
Which raises some questions.
1) If I pay the expense of sending my coins TO PCGS via USPS Registered Mail, I would love to know why they are not coming BACK to me the same way, which I also paid for? I will recheck the forms, but there is certainly no way I would have deliberately chosen UPS.
2) Why was no signature required, even though the label on the box expressly stated this?
3) How is it that my wife- who was not home- got a phone call, while I did not? How did they even get her number? It was MY phone number on the UPS label.
4) What would PCGS have said if somebody HAD nabbed the package, and I later asked where my coins were, and they checked up on the delivery status? Signature? WHOSE signature? The UPS driver's? Who would have been held responsible?
I am a bit miffed, to say the least, and did not feel like waiting the stated 26 minutes on hold that I was told I'd have to when I called Customer Service. And I know painfully well from recent (pre-COVID) experience that it is all but impossible to get anything other than a canned auto-response to emails from them.
So there. Now I have vented, and that should be the end of it, but I'd still love to hear some answers.
This was a World Coin submission, so maybe I'll post the TrueViews of the coins later, now that my rant is done.
Comments
TL;DR. SHOW US THE COINS!
To answer your questions:
1. My assumption has been that PCGS has third party insurance which does not obligate them to use registered mail. Some dealers I know have something similar.
COVID? USPS has been doing this as well.
How indeed does the UPS driver have your wife's number? Sounds like you need to have a serious conversation with her! (kidding, obviously).
Not sure about this one. But, for the coins I am submitting they are worth a very very tiny amount compared to other submissions. My question is - does the value of the submission dictate the return route?
(Oh, what was the turn around time?)
My current "Box of 20"
This was the Economy portion of my submission. The higher tier portion arrived some time earlier.
I think the onus is probably on UPS here, for their driver ignoring the signature requirement. I'd go growl at them, but don't need to deal with any more robots or "virtual assistants", or to hold on the phone forever for some poor human being (perhaps in India) who doesn't need the grief, either. Not worth the hassle.
~ sigh ~
Two words (actually three words contracted into two): PO Box
Usually, that would be the common-sense solution, yes. The added expense and hassle, however, are not worthwhile for me, since the post office is 25 miles one way from my rural home out on the fringes of the county, and a couple of miles removed from my daily commuting route. I don't receive enough valuable shipments to make that worth the trouble on a routine basis.
Under normal circumstances, with a signature-required package (from USPS), I'd get the orange pickup slip in my mailbox, and then go downtown to the PO on a day when I've got stuff to ship.
I have a PO Box, because of coins obviously. But that is no guarantee of a safe delivery. I have had stuff delivered to other addresses and just yesterday I received a registered package containing paper money from Ireland - just in the box - no signature or anything.
Unfortunately, foreign Registered Mail no longer warrants Registered status in the US. I don't know when and why that was changed, but it was. But wouldn't you rather your valuables sitting inside the air-conditioned post office rather than outside tied to the fence exposed to the elements, possible thieves, and the mastications of your best friend?
@lordmarcovan it's a trade off. I don't like driving to the post office either. But I value actually receiving my packages safely and without environmental damage.
The question of liability should be answered by UPS or other delivery services, in case of "mysterious disappearance or damage of goods " from the time the driver 'hooked it up' to your gate and the time You did or did not receive it .
Perhaps PCGS also has some input here? small print somewhere perhaps? Ignorance by blaming Covit perhaps?
Can THE FED or any Gov simply degree that because of covit, delivery services can deliver however they want?
Dang Rob! I would be upset too.
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Recently I had a UPS delivery which was supposed to be "adult signature required".
I offered to "sign" her signature machine but the woman who delivered the package told me that UPS was not collecting signatures due to Covid.
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Around here they weren't collecting signatures before Covid - driver probably just scribbled on their handheld device with the pen.
I like how they still call it "customer service" rather than what it really is; "Customer Disservice". Companies don't compete any longer and each is worse than the last anyway so when phone trees are aren't enough to get you to hang up then they put you on hold for 26 minutes.
A friend of mine had a $30,000 shipment left in the common area of an apartment complex. It's nature was clearly visible. It's a wonder so many of these actually get to the intended recipient.
Love those Liege tokens with the skulls!
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A belated point which just occurred to me: a PO box would do me no good anyway, if PCGS ships my stuff via UPS.
And if UPS consider's their driver's signature adequate for the signature requirement, where's the liability if a porch pirate makes off with my coins while they're left exposed in a highly visible location, which in my case is nearly inevitable?
Would UPS say, "nope, they were signed for- we delivered them." ?
Because that is unacceptable. It negates the whole point of requiring a signature, in my opinion.
I was in Atlanta this past Feb. for the mid winter ANA. Went down a couple of days
early to send PSA a group of cards. Total value 35K+. The dealer I sent them thru
helped a great deal as this was my first time. They came back in 4 different installments
over the last six months. Each return package was approx. same value but different
sizes. All come back with USPS or FedEX. Left on porch no sig. Asked at P.O. and they
told me that because of COVID they didn't require the carrier to obtain a sig. Never asked
FedEx about it.
My dinky submission was a drop in the bucket compared to something like that.
But still would’ve been a painful loss. And I’d have been on the warpath, had it been stolen.
The question is: who is liable if the package is stolen? PCGS? UPS? or are you SOL because they'll say it was delivered.
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Don
Check with your Post Office. You can now have UPS and Fed-Ex delivered to a PO Box. I'm not sure if you have to fill out any paperwork but it is addressed to the Post Office with your PO box like an Apartment number. I'm not sure if have the details exact but I know the option is now available.
My exact question.
Thankfully I did not have to investigate that.
Except I do not have - or want - a PO box. Nor do I want UPS delivery.
(Though I’d be OK with it if someone was actually home when they delivered.)
My suspicion is that during the summer shipping special, where PCGS is paying for the shipping on many orders, they are using the cheapest service for them.