Never Use Ups For Shipping Fossils !

[THobern]

Found a lawyer yet?

[VisionXray23]

Found a lawyer yet?

I'm going to start looking into getting a lawyer today.

[Paleoworld-101]

Kinda reminds me of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2sObM9p9mQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Mikey

I hope it's okay to post this on the forum. I cut and pasted the link and I didn't see a copyright thing. Just trying to cheer you up bud.

That video made me laugh so hard!!! Wow, brilliant lol.

On a serious note, i really do feel for you VisionXray23, this is just horrible and completely wrong. How could such a fossil become so badly damaged from a few "bumps" or maybe even being dropped? The answer is it can't- for the skull to end up in so many pieces like that means this was either done deliberately or dropped dozens of times which i highly doubt. The evidence is obvious.

I really wish you the best with catching out the people who did this to your fossil. Customs has made a serious mistake with this one, theres no way you or your customer should suffer because of this. Fight it mate!

Edited February 13, 2013 by Paleoworld-101

[THobern]

I'm going to start looking into getting a lawyer today.

The sooner the better. Keep everything and document everything. Get screenshots of the online tracking and any correspondence. Photograph everything as soon as possible. You'll want to show that the handling went beyond any acceptable risk.

[THobern]

That video made me laugh so hard!!! Wow, brilliant lol.

On a serious note, i really do feel for you VisionXray23, this is just horrible and completely wrong. How could such a fossil become so badly damagd from a few "bumps" or maybe even being dropped? The answer is it can't- for the skull to end up in so many pieces like that means this was either done deliberately or dropped dozens of times which i highly doubt. I really wish you the best with catching out the people who did this to your fossil. Customs has made a serious mistake with this one, theres no way you or your customer should suffer because of this. Fight it mate!

If the lid was off, it may have been crushed. If it was broken intentionally, I assume that it would have been by customs looking for drugs.

[Paleoworld-101]

If the lid was off, it may have been crushed. If it was broken intentionally, I assume that it would have been by customs looking for drugs.

The crushed idea makes sense, hadn't thought of that. Surely customs isn't that dumb that they'd break a fossil like that then give it the all clear and send it forth to its intended destination in that state. It's like saying "Ok we just broke this thing completely, there was no drugs, better get it on it's way again and pretend nothing happened". Absolutely insane, customs don't have a leg to stand on here i'm afraid.

Edited February 13, 2013 by Paleoworld-101

[Captain Jack]

I seriously doubt customs broke that to look for drugs, there are far more non-destructive ways of searching for drugs that would not involve crushing it into a million pieces, and customs by and large are not usually completely crazy, I'm sure they can tell it's a probably expensive fossil that someone will be kick up an almighty fuss about if it's destroyed.

I think the more likely scenario is that the lid came off and it was crushed.

Edited February 13, 2013 by Captain Jack

[Paleoworld-101]

I seriously doubt customs broke that to look for drugs, there are far more non-destructive ways of searching for drugs that would not involve crushing it into a million pieces, and customs by and large are not usually completely crazy, I'm sure they can tell it's a probably expensive fossil that someone will be kick up an almighty fuss about if it's destroyed.

I think the more likely scenario is that the lid came off and it was crushed.

I agree. Either way compensation for this should be a no brainer. If they deny it was their fault, legal action is the best option without a doubt.

[THobern]

I doubt customs intentionally broke it either, but it makes more sense than it being wantonly smashed by UPS.

[Captain Jack]

I doubt any broke it on purpose, more likely it's just negligence like someone didn't shut it back up properly in customs, that or just a freak accident.

Edited February 13, 2013 by Captain Jack

[sward]

One thing you might want to consider the next time you ship a high-value item is to ship it directly with an airline, not one of the freight/package shipping companies such as UPS, FedEx, etc.

I work for an airline cargo operation and we frequently ship items marked as high-value. You have to pay extra for the high-value designation, and I can only speak for our operation, but I know that we handle these items very carefully to avoid any sort of claim being filed. In some cases, there will be a police officer posted with the package until it is loaded on the aircraft. In extremely high-value cases, a "cargo attendant" will travel on the aircraft with the package until it reaches its destination. In these cases, the package is not moved until the cargo attendant is present.

I'm sorry for your loss. It truly was an unreplaceable treasure.

[FossilDAWG]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a bit and ask some questions. Please don't assume I am attacking you or your client; although I am curious about the answers, I also think you will need to be able to answer these questions if you are going to be able to persue a claim.

1. Do you have any proof that the specimen was really destroyed, other than the claim of your client? Did he ship the remains back to you, or do you just have the photo?

2. Can you prove that the bits in the "destroyed specimen" photo actually came from the the specimen you shipped? Can you match precise details of the fine structure, such as the position of pits and the exact shape of sutures at the margins of the larger bone bits, to photos you have of the intact specimen?

3. What happened to the teeth? Surely they were not pulverized beyond recognition, but I don't see them in the photo you posted.

Although you may consider these questions rude, you can be sure that the shippers will demand such proof before they will pay, so you had best be prepared.

Here is a story from many (35) years ago when I worked for an express mail company. We had a fellow who shipped expensive camera equipment. One day he came in and claimed that a shipment had arrived empty, and that someone must have opened the shipment and stolen the equipment. The company paid off on his claim. A while later the same thing happened again, and again the claim was paid, but his account was flagged as no other customers reported similar problems. A while later when he brought another package to ship, security opened it and found that it was a styrofoam box filled with dry ice to give it weight, although he declaired the package as camera lenses and insured it as such. The packages were sent via the cheapest and slowest option, so they took several days in transit, and during that time the dry ice would slowly sublimate so the package would be empty without a trace of the dry ice at the receiving end. He would have gotten away with it, had he only tried it once or maybe twice and not been too greedy. The point is, shipping companies are well aquainted with fraudulent claims and they will be sure to ask lots of questions.

On the other hand, I also saw shipments destroyed by careless handling. One fellow in particular used to take perverse pleasure in attacking shipments he judged were carelessly packaged. I recall a large (and fragile) remote controlled airplane that was just strapped to the top of a wooden pallet. There was also a shipment of an engine block, again just strapped to a pallet. He used a forklift to stack one on top of the other; care to guess which one was on the bottom? I didn't see that happen, by the way, just saw the aftermath. Of course, that was over 35 years ago and my memory may have altered the details some.

Don

[VisionXray23]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a bit and ask some questions. Please don't assume I am attacking you or your client; although I am curious about the answers, I also think you will need to be able to answer these questions if you are going to be able to persue a claim.

1. Do you have any proof that the specimen was really destroyed, other than the claim of your client? Did he ship the remains back to you, or do you just have the photo?

2. Can you prove that the bits in the "destroyed specimen" photo actually came from the the specimen you shipped? Can you match precise details of the fine structure, such as the position of pits and the exact shape of sutures at the margins of the larger bone bits, to photos you have of the intact specimen?

3. What happened to the teeth? Surely they were not pulverized beyond recognition, but I don't see them in the photo you posted.

Although you may consider these questions rude, you can be sure that the shippers will demand such proof before they will pay, so you had best be prepared.

Here is a story from many (35) years ago when I worked for an express mail company. We had a fellow who shipped expensive camera equipment. One day he came in and claimed that a shipment had arrived empty, and that someone must have opened the shipment and stolen the equipment. The company paid off on his claim. A while later the same thing happened again, and again the claim was paid, but his account was flagged as no other customers reported similar problems. A while later when he brought another package to ship, security opened it and found that it was a styrofoam box filled with dry ice to give it weight, although he declaired the package as camera lenses and insured it as such. The packages were sent via the cheapest and slowest option, so they took several days in transit, and during that time the dry ice would slowly sublimate so the package would be empty without a trace of the dry ice at the receiving end. He would have gotten away with it, had he only tried it once or maybe twice and not been too greedy. The point is, shipping companies are well aquainted with fraudulent claims and they will be sure to ask lots of questions.

On the other hand, I also saw shipments destroyed by careless handling. One fellow in particular used to take perverse pleasure in attacking shipments he judged were carelessly packaged. I recall a large (and fragile) remote controlled airplane that was just strapped to the top of a wooden pallet. There was also a shipment of an engine block, again just strapped to a pallet. He used a forklift to stack one on top of the other; care to guess which one was on the bottom? I didn't see that happen, by the way, just saw the aftermath. Of course, that was over 35 years ago and my memory may have altered the details some.

Don

Yes we have emails reporting damage with pictures from ups. For some reason it was delivared anyway. We have plenty of evidence for this case.

[Down under fossil hunter]

Wow wow wow, I have had the same thing happen as a customer and a dealer and it is horrible!

Australia is far away from Europe and the US and there is a lot of time for things to go wrong sometimes I have been able to repair the damage and on other occasions it was like the fossil exploded.

It is heartbreaking to think that croc survived millions of years in the ground only to be destroyed by some careless or even worse malicious act.

Just trying to decide what makes me angrier, smashed fossils or fossils that just disappear with no trace.

Hope you get some resolve soon.

[Down under fossil hunter]

BTW I have probably seen that movie a dozen times and still fell on the floor laughing at that scene.

Thanks

[NetDoc]

Wow... I don't even see the teeth in the "after" picture.

[Govinn]

I'm sorry for the loss and what happened to you and your client. I couldn't imagine his dismay when the package was opened after waiting with bated breath.

Just tossing another possible explanation out there... Fossils are known to be radioactive. I've taken several samples and conducted gamma spectroscopies on them. Depending on the location some are much more radioactive than others. I also know that radiation detectors are being used more and more these days. I have a friend who travels around the country calibrating various meters... It would amaze you to know the different industries that use them. Some of her larger clients are landfills... I work in the nuclear industry, and trust me it's a good thing that these companies check for radiactive material. With all of that said... if your fossil was radioactive they, meaning Customs, might have detected that. They wouldn't have known that a fossil can be radioactive and probably commenced to pulverizing it to find the source. Due to the fact that your skull was fairly large it may have emitted more radiation than the smaller fossils that you ship which may have gone undetected... Even if this was the case there is absolutely NO justification for damaging anything to that degree...

[Atomic Dog]

You will never know the true story sadly. The damage looks intentional. I also notice very few teeth in the damaged photo which seems odd.

[Missourian]

3. What happened to the teeth? Surely they were not pulverized beyond recognition, but I don't see them in the photo you posted.

Perhaps the skull was pulverized because someone wanted the teeth.

[VisionXray23]

Perhaps the skull was pulverized because someone wanted the teeth.

The teeth are in there. I have more pics, I just to lazy to load them up.

[NetDoc]

I would count them to be sure. Your before pics are excellent, so it shouldn't be too hard. If you can prove that theft was the motivator, I bet you'll have a stronger case.

[Missourian]

If you can prove that theft was the motivator, I bet you'll have a stronger case.

If theft was the motive here, then it'd be something right out of a Pink Panther movie.... "Inspector Clouseau foils fossil thief, destroys priceless collection."

[Raistlin]

I would count them to be sure. Your before pics are excellent, so it shouldn't be too hard. If you can prove that theft was the motivator, I bet you'll have a stronger case.

I think if theft was the motivator the whole thing would go missing. The teeth are cool and all but to own the whole thing would be amazing. Even if stealing to sell the whole thing would bring a better price than the teeth.

Not saying the idea is not plausible, I just think that if the risk vs gains are looked at taking the whole thing undamaged would be the best way to go. I should stop thinking about this though. It really makes me feel ill knowing the lose here. Such a beautiful piece.

[NetDoc]

Thieves are idiots for the most part. They are incapable of making good decisions which is why they resort to thievery in the first place. If they tried to take just one tooth as a souvenir and the skull broke, there is no telling what they might do to cover it up.

[Scylla]

Sorry for your loss Are there hammer marks on the fragments?