The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    I've shipped dozens of guitars with FedEx, and as with any company you can have issues if you ship enough stuff with them; but I can assure you it's better than the alternative. You don't want to use the USPS or UPS. The horror stories from either one are abundant in guitar forums, not to mention my own tragic experiences. For example: if you insure a guitar for 3k with the USPS and the guitar arrives in pieces, there'll be a long investigation on how it was packed and then you have to show proof of the price, and then they will only pay you what the guitar is worth used according to their own guesstimation!
    You might not get the 3K even though you paid insurance for 3k, it's insane!



    Cheers,
    Arnie..

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

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    Fed Ex has a maximum payout of $2,000 for guitars. For example if you insured a guitar for $5,000, the maximum they will pay will be $2,000. I verified this with 3 different Fed Ex staff members. Once I found that out, I don't ship via Fed Ex. I've tried to get to Fed Ex management yet no luck so far. Only way I'd ship Fed Ex is if I had a separate insurance policy.

  4. #28

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    I have had experience with most carriers. The most recent problem was last month with FedEx. The Super Eagle was scanned in at a FedEx hub in the Chicago area and got lost there. I placed many calls over the next 10 days, always beginning with some off shore person who wasted my time and made promises I'd receive a phone call within 24 hours. Eventually FedEx offered to pay me the insured value.

    I learned a lot about FedEx's security. Workers go through a metal detector as they enter the package area. They cannot carry purses or lunch boxes. The guitar box could not get on a truck without being scanned since that takes two people to monitor packages exiting. So the FedEx claims person the guitar was somewhere in the massive hub. She said they were way behind in entering unidentified packages with corrupt bar codes into their database and that could take some additional weeks.

    Fortunately I had photos of the box from four views, all of the packing material, the guitar in the case with the colorful padding, and the box measurements. I asked her to keep looking. They found it a couple of days later and successfully got the guitar to the West Coast.

    I strongly recommend that you put two copies of your shipping label on the exterior of the box. Last year I had four instances at least of the bar code or the entire label being damaged. That creates a delay since they need to print another one. I also suggest you put another label inside the box in case the external label gets detached. You can print these labels at home if you have a FedEx account.

    One complaint I do have about FedEx is that they don't cover return shipping if the guitar is damaged in transit. UPS does. Also, FedEx doesn't cover loss of value of an instrument after repair while UPS does. I had an example of a guitar getting a cracked top from it being dropped in route. UPS paid for the repair and the reduced value. A friend of mine had his L-5 cracked during shipping with FedEx. They would cover the repair but not loss of value. This is their policy.

    One of the forum members sent me an upscale archtop that was double boxed and very well padded. It arrived with a cracked headstock. There was nothing more I could imagine that would have protected the guitar better during shipping. Back when Gibson was in Kalamazoo, Gibson sometimes sent an employee to fly with the guitar being delivered to an artist. Ren Wall did this. Gibson bought two tickets, one for Ren and one for the guitar.