Which company ships scopes safely?

Does anyone have an opinion about which of the major international shipping companies is best at handling well packed astronomy equipment with care?

Well, here's my USPS international telescope shipping
horror story:

Shipped a scope from Netherlands to Baltimore, Maryland,
USA via overnight Express Mail. Big bucks for scope and
shipping. After two days, no scope. Checked the
tracking -- there is entry at my local post office on
day it should have been delivered, followed by delivery
next day to a zip code in FLORIDA. I went to local
Post Office and asked if they had seen my package.
They said they could not talk to me, and that the
Shipper in the Netherlands could file an insurance claim
for the package after 30 days. I was completely
stone-walled by these people. The shipper in
Netherlands was no more helpful ... "The scopes in the
USA; its not my problem. Good luck."

I spent the next three weeks playing detective and
making phone calls, and finally figured out what
happened. One of my neighbors said someone couple
streets over had just moved to Florida. I got this
person's new address, called him, and indeed the USPS
had delivered a huge package a couple weeks ago. He
still had it; no one had come to take it back.

Even at this point USPS was nearly impossible to deal
with. I finally got my Regional Supervisor for Express
Mail to call the Supervisor at the post office in
Florida where the scope was delivered. At last I
got some action ... some wonderful USPS staffer in
Florida went and got the scope, and over-nighted it
to me at no added cost. Finally got my scope after 4 weeks!

The bottom line, is that USPS was EXTREMELY hard to
deal with once things went wrong. No one would talk to
me, and no one cared. They even had trouble
figuring out what the proper claim process and which
forms to use. Even worse, the burden of filing
the claim is on the shipper (person purchasing the
insurance), who in this case had his cash, shipped the
scope, and was done with the transaction.

Sorry for being long-winded.... My advice is only to
buy from reputable international dealer, who will stay
involved until you have your scope and are "satisfied."
Don't use USPS. Use some other company that does
international shipping as its bread and butter.
Good luck. - John B.

I agree with the negative comments about UPS. I will not willingly deal with them after they damaged more than one shipment to me, and even though the shipments were insured, they just fobbed me off to their local carrier saying I had to deal with them, and their local carrier said the opposite. I even had one claim where someone (finally) came to check the damage, and despite having the damaged boxes showing obvious mishandling, was told that no claim would be allowed as the damage could not be proved as being done by their carriers.

FedEx is just as bad. I have had more than one shipment damaged by them and had all attempts at an insurance claim ignored. Not rejected, just ignored!

Also one problem with both of these shippers. They do not deliver to the person to whom the package is addressed! Here in the US, they just dump it with anyone handy. In Australia, they just dump it at your front door!!!

One international shipper that I have had good dealings with has been DHL. I have found their staff (in Australia) very helpful, and when delivering packages, deliver to the person, not just an address. Also, I have not had them damage anything.

Good luck!

Maurice

You guys owe me bigtime!! I lost a lot of sleep over your horror stories since this post started. That was the same day my new second-eye AP 155 EFDS started its cross-country journey via FedEx. As I tracked its progress, I thought I could hear shattering glass at each of its many stops. It was due here tomorrow and all I could think of was how to can I explain to my wife why I had paid so much for a box full of broken glass and bent metal.

When the phone rang at 8am this morning, and the caller identified himself as FedEx, I was sure that they were calling to tell me that they didn't even have any body-parts for me to bury. Instead, he asked if it was ok to deliver it a day early? My regular driver, Phil was concerned that if I wasn't home and he left it outside, it might get wet.

Well it just arrived and it is pristeen!!

Maybe it was because of the large declared value, or the fact that it was sent Express Saver, but FedEx gets an A+ on this one. And you guys? Well, as I said ...