Tempest -Shipper flooded it in 2 feet of water!! UPDATE.

[journeymandt]

Yes, delivered shrink wrapped, not a word. My wife had him put it in the garage. I came home, opened it and had the proverbial oh Sh!@# moment.

Fucking weasels... they damn well knew it had been flooded. So much for integrity.

I'm sorry you're going through this... it's a shitty deal to be sure.

Dylan

 

[mattmatt]

Ok. I FINALLY resolved my dispute on this so I wanted to share some of the stuff I learned about shipping and making a claim, as I made a couple mistakes. At least I'm getting the majority of my loss paid for, and If I part out the rest, I think I can get pretty close to break even -- Since my time is worth $0/hr.

• I would recommend insurance, it is expensive, but unless you are in the business and have an inland marine policy, you are limited to a by the pound value on larger LTL carriers and I'm not sure any of these small guys carry anything, and It seems next to impossible to get the actual carrier to communicate with you once you have signed.
  • Look into something on your homeowners policy to see if it covers things you bought, but in transit to you... I'm not sure how that works, but it is something I'm going to look into.
• Make sure you have a bill of sale/receipt and probably documentation of the payment you made to the seller - so paypall F&F you probably need a memo .
• Inspect the machine upon delivery before signing -- obviously.
  • Make sure you are the one inspecting - not a family member
• If you see damage, don't sign for it -- seems like a no brainer, but the carrier was pushy to get a signature -- make a big stink and start taking photos immediately.
  • I really think that if I didn't agree to sign, and took photos right there, I would have had this resolved much sooner.
• Make sure you get detailed photo documentation on the ship day from the seller. It is best if you have video of the game working and good photos of inside and out. I would recommend having a video also of the guy loading the machine.
  • At the end of the day, the video really saved my bacon on this because it showed the game working and the outside/inside with no damage.
• If you find damage later, and you have to make a claim, do it FAST! Like the same day (this is what I did). Uship has a 7 day window to make a claim or you are SOL.
• The insurance company (uship) seems to get pleasure from making you suffer. They are also hoping a repair bill is less than replacement (obviously).
• Uship charges a "service fee" basically a deductible that will be deducted from the price/value.
• Uship won't cover the shipping charge, so hopefully your machine won't be a total loss because you will be keeping the machine.
• You will receive the lower of the repair charge/purchase price.
• You need to submit the repair estimate soon. They kept putting my claim in the penalty box because I didn't have the repair estimate, and it took a while to get one.
• Repair estimate needs to be from an actual business that they can verify. IE. has web page, phone and google presence. I think it would be tough to use "bob the guy on KLOV" to get a quote. They want someone "licensed".
• Also, things like acts of God, terrorism, etc., are not covered, but this is pretty standard. I was lucky that flooding wasn't on the exception, because then I would be looking at suing for gross negligence, and that would have cost more than the game is worth.
• The TNT guy was great to work with, very nice and helpful.
• Lyon's arcade did not return any of the 2 or 3 messages I left for them. Maybe because I'm on the other side of the country.
• Uship doesn't seem to be much cheaper than Beltman. I have had a few games shipped via Beltman, and they seem to do a pretty good job as far as freight companies go.
  • I'm not sure I would ever use a normal LTL/crossdocking company for one of these machines. I have seen how rough those guys are on shipments.
• Remember Uship is kind of like uber. They are just a marketplace and a broker. At the end of the day you are dealing with an unknown delivery driver, so read reviews, it may not be worth the $50 savings to go with someone with negative reviews.

Hopefully this is helpful to anyone looking to ship a game - especially via uship.

 

[KaBoom1701]

One of the reasons I've just grabbed my games personally and done the drive. No matter how far it is.

 

[Brentradio]

• Repair estimate needs to be from an actual business that they can verify. I think it would be tough to use "bob the guy on KLOV" to get a quote.

I think Bob might have something to say about that...



Good advice nontheless.
.

 

[mattmatt]

I think Bob might have something to say about that...



Good advice nontheless.
.

Yeah, "Bob" was just a generic placeholder name for one of the many people here who offer services. No offense meant for the actual Bob.

 

[Texas_Funnyhair]

• Uship doesn't seem to be much cheaper than Beltman. I have had a few games shipped via Beltman, and they seem to do a pretty good job as far as freight companies go.
  • I'm not sure I would ever use a normal LTL/crossdocking company for one of these machines. I have seen how rough those guys are on shipments.
• Remember Uship is kind of like uber. They are just a marketplace and a broker. At the end of the day you are dealing with an unknown delivery driver, so read reviews, it may not be worth the $50 savings to go with someone with negative reviews.

I thought Beltman also just contracted with independent companies to pick up shipments, so it's like uber but you have zero control over who actually comes to get your stuff.

Thanks for posting your experience though, sounds like getting an "official" repair bill for something niche is the key but also the hardest part.

 

[mattmatt]

I thought Beltman also just contracted with independent companies to pick up shipments, so it's like uber but you have zero control over who actually comes to get your stuff.

Thanks for posting your experience though, sounds like getting an "official" repair bill for something niche is the key but also the hardest part.

I think you are correct, but in my area, at least, they used Redman (United Van Lines) Moving & Storage. Their guys seemed to be familiar with moving strange items. They have a shorter semi with a lift gate, and they took time to unpack the shipment and asked me to look it over prior to signing. They seemed to be a little more concerned with customer service. I guess any time you use someone besides yourself to ship these you are taking a risk.

 

[Phetishboy]

Yeah, I've mentioned this before but NAVL/Beltman/whatever the fuck they're called these days has definitely gone downhill in quality and severely uphill in price. I used to know the actual semi driver who would come to pick my games up. Very nice guy, very personable and very concerned about the Safety of my games. After he retired, there was another guy that was almost as good. Not sure what happened to him as he only picked up from me two or three times and I never saw him again. The next thing I knew, every game was being picked up by a random band of Mexican dudes in a short box truck and they didn't even bring their own dolly. They literally asked to use mine with clicks,whistles and hand signals as they didn't speak English. I also had a very expensive game shipped to me on a pallet, and they managed to drop the fucking thing in transit after having the audacity to charge me $700 to have it shipped. I was able to fix the somewhat minor damage on the game myself and didn't even bother filing a claim, but looking back I probably should have. As things started to get a little bit shady with them, I haven't done a lot of shipping with them since.

 

[EVB]

Oof, luckily the 6100 is probably still good. Might just be cheaper to swap the monitor to another cabinet. There's a pretty good looking Tempest with no monitor in OH.

View attachment 786338

That's a pretty good deal. He should get the claim resolved for a totaled game and get this one.