Holidays

MIAMI (CBS4) ― As the holiday season draws closer Americans will be shipping a lot of gifts to friends and relatives. When it comes to shipping your packages, where you go for service, can make a big difference.

Sheri Garay says her hard lessons about shopping packages began with the sound of broken glass.

"You can shake it and you literally hear the contents," Garay explained to CBS4 Consumer Investigator Al Sunshine.

The contents of her package were broken when Garay sent some fragile items from a Post 'N Pack store in Miami to her home in California.

"And I'm saying, Oh my god, what did these people do to this!"

Hard lesson number 1: The shipping business can be rough. According to its website, UPS gives no special handling for packages marked "fragile."

Garay was frustrated. She paid the Miami store almost $50 for shipping through UPS and insurance. She immediately dialed their 1-800 number for UPS customer service and that's where she learned hard lesson number 2: She was not a UPS customer.

They told her, "We cannot speak to you because you are not the owner of the box." UPS claimed that the box didn't belong to her but to the Pack 'N Ship store in Miami.

"That's ludicrous. This is insane. I shipped it. I paid for it. I own the contents," exclaimed Garay.

Even though UPS has 26-thousand shipping outlets around the world, only a few of them are actually owned by UPS. Even brand-name UPS stores aren't owned by UPS. They're actually independent businesses, which means if anything goes wrong, you have to deal with them, not UPS.

Consumer attorney Jim Sturdevant says all that confusion benefits the company, not the customer.

"UPS has set up a system, to deny liability, and deny responsibility," explained Sturdevant. UPS denies that characterization of its business.

As for Garay, she had to call the store in Miami, which in turn called UPS, which sent a truck to her house to pick up the box for inspection. And then UPS denied her claim.

"They said they examined it. And because I packed it improperly, they cannot be responsible for it," said Garay.

That's hard lesson number 3: Beware of the fine print. For example, there's an exception in the shipping order where it states: "If you pack it yourself, you may not be covered for damage."

Which brings us to hard lesson number 4: The coverage you buy that you think is insurance, really isn't. It's something UPS calls: "Declared Value Coverage."

What's the difference? Because it's technically not insurance, which would be regulated by the state, UPS gets to make its own rules for paying claims.

"It seems potentially deceptive to sell someone an add-on to the shipping price, characterize it as 'insurance' that will replace something that is lost or damaged, then have it turn out to be not exactly insurance at the time you have to file a claim," said Sturdevant.

After denying her claim, UPS sent it back to the "rightful" owner, to the Pack 'N Ship store in Miami, which then told her to come and get it, but Garay was already in California. "How was I going to get it?" said Garay.

No problem, they said, she could simply pay for the box to be shipped back to her by UPS.

UPS now claims the Miami store isn't an "authorized" UPS outlet, so it says Garay's experience can't be considered that of a typical customer. UPS also decided to give Garay a refund of $328.00.

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