Is it necessary for me to record myself packing the box? I mean if anything happens, will anyone even look at, or consider, my video?
I have heard and read a lot about this taking pictures of the packing and so on.
I have first hand experience with this one.
It's a long story but it proves that taking pictures and buying insurance is a waste of time in some cases. Insurance is most likely only going to pay out if the box disappears in transit.
I listed and sold a beautiful 105 year old Ruby Glass double mantle hanging oil lamp. Went way overboard on packing materials and double boxing and finishing it off by placing all this is another much larger box with more packing material between the final box and the double boxed lamp inside.
This was an extremely high-dollar sale and a high-dollar shipping cost including insurance for $2,000.00.
Shipped it UPS. My buddies. God Bless UPS. OK, only bless the good ones.
A super nice lady in South Carolina had the winning bid and we talked over the phone and were both concerned about a safe trip for this lamp. I took pictures of the whole packing process by layer and more when I left it at my local UPS yard.
At this point let me add that I have sold and purchased some irreplaceable antiques on eBay and when packed appropriately none of them ever had a problem.
Money is money. Money will not ever replace this lamp.
She owns an Antique Store and this was to be her center piece in her front store window.
On day 5 the dreaded eBay message comes from her. The lamp arrived and the glass shade is in a million pieces.
A signature was required upon delivery so I was happy to hear she saw this box looking like it had fallen at least 10 stories and asked the delivery driver what the hell happened. The driver said it was loaded in this condition and because the box was not blown open, he had to deliver it.
They shook the box hard enough that she could faintly hear the sound of broken glass moving inside. The driver at this point told her well, it must not have been packed correctly but it is insured so contact this number and have UPS send out an inspector that will check it out and either approve or disapprove an insurance claim.
This is when she sends me the news through eBay.
She called them and I called them from my end too. The next day UPS had it picked up and brought to their yard, inspected it and then denied the claim to pay anything towards the dollar loss.
Naturally I got ballistic about this but kept cool and called the UPS yard that had it. I wanted to send pictures of the packing process and challenge their decision to deny my claim.
Here is what pictures get you:
UPS representative tells me that he completely understands where I'm coming from but I need to understand that UPS gets many claims per day on damaged goods. 90% of the time the damaged item is poorly packed and that clearly releases their insurance from paying for damages not caused by UPS. If the damaged box in question is broken open and the item comes out then they would cover that claim because UPS would be responsible for damaging the box.
He apologized for me being misled about pictures proving damage in this case. He said while he is sure that I am an honest customer and I am telling the truth that it does not change the fact that many customers are not honest and take advantage of their insurance coverage daily and they have to set a guideline to what is covered and what is not and they will not sway away from that line.
I could hardly believe this garbage response but remained calm and said OK, at this point it is crucial to me that this lamp be returned to me ASAP as half the value is the frame, chains, crystals and the double burner oil lamp itself.
I now had to fully reimburse my buyer for all money she paid me for this lamp.
UPS said I could use the same tracking number to follow the progress of the lamps return to me.
After 3 days of no progress of this item traveling back to me I called UPS again and asked what's happening here. After almost ten minutes on hold I get a different guy come on the line and tell me that too much time had lapsed and the package was probably tossed in their dumpster. He said it's broke so they don't want it and they can't find it !!!
As I started wiggin out on the phone from this response he said give me a minute and let go see if it is in fact in our dumpster.
Another 5 minutes on hold and he comes on and OK I found the box and what looks like a hanging lamp frame and some broken glass. He is going to re-box it in one of their UPS shipping boxes and get it sent out same day.
That evening the tracking number did show it was in transit.
Four days later this box is delivered to me and it is my original double box, the outer box was gone, and it was taped up enough to stay together while you can look through the clear packaging tape an see the lamp frame inside.
I opened the box to find the frame intact, the chains were all there, half of the crystal prisms were missing and the double burner oil lamp was not there. The original 105 year old antique glass chimney (the most fragile of all the lamp itself) was wrapped in news paper and was intact !! No traces of any broken red lamp shade was found.
FYI:
I went directly to my UPS Center and asked why they sell insurance if it is denied when something gets broke. I told them next time I am bringing the item I'm shipping to them and I'll pay them to package it and insure it and if anything happens in transit, they owe me the full amount of insurance purchased.
He simply said we don't pack anything here, you would have to take it to a UPS STORE and that would remove the risk for me.
I went directly to the UPS STORE just a few miles away. Their estimate to package this lamp based on the pictures I showed them would cost me around $125.00 including safely packing, insuring and shipping.
The manager of this store was very clear in telling me that as fragile as this lamp is that they would not be responsible for breakage if the item gets broke inside the box while being handled normally and no visible damage to the box it was in during shipping. The item is simply too fragile to be shipped via truck. Period.
Do you sell expensive items to members with no/little feedback? 
