Hip Hip Hooray!!!!!!! Monday Ramblings
Posted by Dr Diecast at 11/27/2007 6:27 AM and is filed under uncategorized 
Ok..... its Tuesday morning and I have sometime before I start my polishing out of the almost perfect 9 cars I clearcoated yesterday. Cocky huh ? Hey you hear when I mess up you will hear when I hit a home run. Man they are one nice batch of clearcoated cars.
Anyway...... if you remember the way early post about my battle with Fed Ex I think I posted here I have another carrier damage claim story. First off for those who don't remember I will give you the quick update.
Upon relocating to AZ I shipped 55 boxes of cars, parts, clothes and other belongings to me here from OR via Fed Ex my carrier for over a year. For the record 99% of my customer projects were shipped in my car with me so there wouldn't be a problem. Anyway..... of the 55 boxes 2 were missing all together and 5 had damage. Mind you these were MY cars...not junk but my personal cars and personal belongings. Long story short I had a 4 month battle with Fed Ex to pay the $1800.00 claim on these. At one point they refused all of the claims and then we settled on 50% of THERE amount which was to be about $750.00. I had already left them for UPS but still made them believe they were my main carrier. In the long run they paid $1435.00. So..... even though it was almost double what we agreed too it was still less than the original claim but I was happy. Happy and DONE WITH THEM. Worse claim experience I ever had.
So lets skip ahead to this Red 71 Cuda I did for a customer in CA.
Well...this car is loaded up with what I call extras. From the repaint to the billboards, the deck spoilers, chin spoilers, vinyl top to the little orange Union 76 ball on the antenna it had about everything done to it.
So when completed I do what I always do. Spray the car with a liquid silicone and roll the body in 5 feet of 3/4 -1 inch bubble wrap. Then I take a 12X12 piece fold it over and tape it to the ends. I have tested this over time and you can actually drop the car on the ground with no damage.
Anyway.... I ship it to him. Oh yeah.... the silicone is so the bubblewrap doesn't stick to the car but I would hope your all smart enough to know that, LOL. So he calls me the day he gets it.....Oct 18th. Tell me the car has problems...... bumper is off, deck wing is off, 76 ball is missing all together, rocker trim missing and the passenger side door wont close. I first ask if the box is damaged he says no. I ask what it looked like when he opened it..... he says the bumper and spoiler were laying in the corner of the box, like someone took it out, broke it and put it back in. So I told him to wrap it back up and I would file a claim.
I call UPS that day to get the ball rolling. Because I do not own a fax machine I tell them to mail me the forms to my PO Box where all my mail goes. 2 weeks go by and nothing, so I call them again. They act stupid and say we will mail out another set. I said ok.... but in the mean time I get a phone call from there claims department. Nice woman...... says we will pick up the damaged item for inspection. Fast forward 3 days from that phone call and the car is delivered back to me. So I inspect it....... really really strange how this damage could happen to a car rolled like a Egg Roll but in bubblewrap.
I then get another call from thier claims department.. this is last Monday or Tuesday.... women says they will be denying the claim for insufficient packaging. I precede to describe in detail how I package and ship all my cars and have for years. I tell her I will forward pictures of the car with the bubblewrap and receipts from the company I buy my boxes and bubblewrap from to prove what I do and how I do it. She then says, ok , I will approve it. Just fax or mail the paperwork back in once recieved. So on Tuesday that shows up, FINALLY, and I fill it out and use a free on line fax service to fax it back.
On Wednesday they call me and leave a message since I was apparently busy and didn't get to call them back but the woman says call me first thing Monday so we can get this wrapped up. I did so yesterday.... and get this, its all approved and I will have the claims check for the repairs in 7-10 days. Geeze..... in reality how simple was that. Even though it started out bad if this is paid in anything less than 4 months I have to be happy, LOL.
The question that still begs for an answer though is how could the car get that weirdly (my word) damaged when the outter box looked fine. I didn't see anything that made it look like anyone else had removed the car. I have had a few people think maybe the customer dropped it and thats where the damage came from. Makes some sense but I asked him straight up if he did and that I would fix it for free.... but he claimed all he did was take it out of the box and was perplexed that the bumper and spoiler were in there separately. Oh well I guess we will never know.
Well im off to make a Union 76 ball again......and to hopefully shoot a pic of the 9 clearcoated cars. Looks like the sun will be out today..
Im out......
Anyway...... if you remember the way early post about my battle with Fed Ex I think I posted here I have another carrier damage claim story. First off for those who don't remember I will give you the quick update.
Upon relocating to AZ I shipped 55 boxes of cars, parts, clothes and other belongings to me here from OR via Fed Ex my carrier for over a year. For the record 99% of my customer projects were shipped in my car with me so there wouldn't be a problem. Anyway..... of the 55 boxes 2 were missing all together and 5 had damage. Mind you these were MY cars...not junk but my personal cars and personal belongings. Long story short I had a 4 month battle with Fed Ex to pay the $1800.00 claim on these. At one point they refused all of the claims and then we settled on 50% of THERE amount which was to be about $750.00. I had already left them for UPS but still made them believe they were my main carrier. In the long run they paid $1435.00. So..... even though it was almost double what we agreed too it was still less than the original claim but I was happy. Happy and DONE WITH THEM. Worse claim experience I ever had.
So lets skip ahead to this Red 71 Cuda I did for a customer in CA.
Well...this car is loaded up with what I call extras. From the repaint to the billboards, the deck spoilers, chin spoilers, vinyl top to the little orange Union 76 ball on the antenna it had about everything done to it.
So when completed I do what I always do. Spray the car with a liquid silicone and roll the body in 5 feet of 3/4 -1 inch bubble wrap. Then I take a 12X12 piece fold it over and tape it to the ends. I have tested this over time and you can actually drop the car on the ground with no damage.
Anyway.... I ship it to him. Oh yeah.... the silicone is so the bubblewrap doesn't stick to the car but I would hope your all smart enough to know that, LOL. So he calls me the day he gets it.....Oct 18th. Tell me the car has problems...... bumper is off, deck wing is off, 76 ball is missing all together, rocker trim missing and the passenger side door wont close. I first ask if the box is damaged he says no. I ask what it looked like when he opened it..... he says the bumper and spoiler were laying in the corner of the box, like someone took it out, broke it and put it back in. So I told him to wrap it back up and I would file a claim.
I call UPS that day to get the ball rolling. Because I do not own a fax machine I tell them to mail me the forms to my PO Box where all my mail goes. 2 weeks go by and nothing, so I call them again. They act stupid and say we will mail out another set. I said ok.... but in the mean time I get a phone call from there claims department. Nice woman...... says we will pick up the damaged item for inspection. Fast forward 3 days from that phone call and the car is delivered back to me. So I inspect it....... really really strange how this damage could happen to a car rolled like a Egg Roll but in bubblewrap.
I then get another call from thier claims department.. this is last Monday or Tuesday.... women says they will be denying the claim for insufficient packaging. I precede to describe in detail how I package and ship all my cars and have for years. I tell her I will forward pictures of the car with the bubblewrap and receipts from the company I buy my boxes and bubblewrap from to prove what I do and how I do it. She then says, ok , I will approve it. Just fax or mail the paperwork back in once recieved. So on Tuesday that shows up, FINALLY, and I fill it out and use a free on line fax service to fax it back.
On Wednesday they call me and leave a message since I was apparently busy and didn't get to call them back but the woman says call me first thing Monday so we can get this wrapped up. I did so yesterday.... and get this, its all approved and I will have the claims check for the repairs in 7-10 days. Geeze..... in reality how simple was that. Even though it started out bad if this is paid in anything less than 4 months I have to be happy, LOL.
The question that still begs for an answer though is how could the car get that weirdly (my word) damaged when the outter box looked fine. I didn't see anything that made it look like anyone else had removed the car. I have had a few people think maybe the customer dropped it and thats where the damage came from. Makes some sense but I asked him straight up if he did and that I would fix it for free.... but he claimed all he did was take it out of the box and was perplexed that the bumper and spoiler were in there separately. Oh well I guess we will never know.
Well im off to make a Union 76 ball again......and to hopefully shoot a pic of the 9 clearcoated cars. Looks like the sun will be out today..
Im out......
Aw, what a bummer JF. Hey, shoot me an email about the E-body project for me. Thanks. Keep up the stupendous work. Did I spell stupendous alright? Oh well.
Chris.
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What project ???..... im so confused, LMAO.
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