Arlene O’Connell sits with items that were damaged when they were shipped by UPS. (Credit: Bob O’Connell)
When you send a package, you hope it arrives in one piece.
But accidents happen and packages can be damaged.
Sometimes, they can even look like they were “sat upon by a giant elephant.”
That’s what Arlene O’Connell said happened to a package she sent via UPS in August 2018.
The company promised to make it right with a $500 check, O’Connell said.
But six months later, she said, she hadn’t received the payment and her contacts at UPS stopped returning her calls.
Here’s what happened.
Arlene O’Connell (left) and her husband Bob (right), with O’Connell’s aunt Shirley Skibins and uncle Herman (Skip) Skibins, circa 2008. (Credit: Arlene O’Connell)
O’Connell, who lives in Cedar Grove, always helped out her aunt and uncle, who lived in Miami, Fla.
“Unfortunately, Uncle Skip and Aunt Shirley never had children so when Uncle Skip died suddenly in February 2012 at the age of 85, Aunt Shirley, who was a few years older than he, couldn’t take care of herself in the house,” O’Connell said. “So my husband and I brought her to New Jersey where she lived until she passed away in 2015.”
The O’Connells kept the Miami home, hoping they could use it for themselves and their family. But over time, they decided it was too expensive to keep, so they begrudgingly put the house on the market, O’Connell said.
Part of that process was cleaning out her aunt’s and uncle’s belongings.
A photo of Herman (Skip) Skibins wearing his U.S. Customs Service uniform, taken about 25 years ago. (Credit: Arlene O’Connell)
O’Connell said her uncle, who gave decades of service to his country, had accumulated a lifetime of valuable and sentimental items.
Right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the Navy at age 17 with his parents’ permission, O’Connell said. After World War II, he continued his career with the Air Force and served as a navigator during the Korean War. He traveled more with additional military service, finishing in career with the U.S. Customs Service, which has since been renamed the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection.
And over the years, he brought some of his memories home.
“There were items from all around the world that were sentimental and things that I wanted to bring home to New Jersey to remember him by,” O’Connell said.
O’Connell decided it would be too much to carry on the plane home, so she got an 18×18 inch box from UPS and they started packing with bubble wrap.
“I carefully wrapped the authentic German beer steins, the Hummel figures, the antique Limoges coffee pot, Franklin Mint plates and things of that nature into this box,” she said.
She also packed some of her aunt’s collection of Avon perfume and shaving lotion bottles, which O’Connell’s real estate agent said “were quite valuable.”
O’Connell said at the UPS store, a clerk inspected her packing job, sealed the box and marked it with the word “FRAGILE” in all capital letters in several places on the box.
“We shipped out the box and when it arrived to our home on Sept. 5, it looked as though it had been sat upon by a giant elephant. It was crushed,” she said. “Several of the items were damaged beyond salvation or repair.”
This is what Arlene O’Connell’s box looked like when it was delivered by UPS. (Credit: Arlene O’Connell)
A broken Hummel that Arlene O’Connell said was in her UPS package. (Credit: Arlene O’Connell)
O’Connell said she immediately called UPS to file a claim, and within 24 hours, she received a call.
“[The UPS representative] told me that the claim had been approved in the amount of $500 and that I need not do anything further,” she said.
Several weeks passed and O’Connell heard nothing further, so she texted the UPS rep on Oct. 2 to see if she should be concerned, text records show.
The representative suggested she contact the UPS store.
So O’Connell said she called the store, which looked into the claim. It was denied, she said she was told.
But based on what the first representative said, that couldn’t be, she said. The claim had already been approved.
Over the next three months, O’Connell said, she called several times and tried to get the store and corporate UPS to be on the same page, but each time, the store representative said the claim was denied, she said.
Finally on Jan. 3, O’Connell said, she connected the two representatives. They said they would try to find out why there was confusion and such a long delay, she said.
O’Connell was patient, but since that day, neither representative has answered her phone calls and neither of their voice mail boxes are taking messages, she said.
“Frustration takes on an all-new meaning,” O’Connell said. “I cannot get this problem resolved on my own and am respectfully asking for your assistance.”
We reached out to UPS with the customer’s story, documents and photos of the damaged items.
Within hours, the company said it was investigating, and in a few short days, we had a resolution.
“I just received a call from UPS in Florida and the claim has been approved by the insurance company,” O’Connell said.
Now she’s just waiting for the check.
We asked UPS what went wrong.
“Confusion with the claim was related to the designation of the package changing from self-packed to store packed,” said UPS spokeswoman Kim Krebs. “Once it was determined The UPS Store did assist with the packing, the claim was moved through the process without issue.”
Also, she said, the employee who originally assisted O’Connell is no longer employed at the store, which Krebs said contributed to delays in gathering information for the investigation.
We also asked what customers can do to avoid a situation like what happened to O’Connell.
Krebs said the best thing to do when shipping breakable items is to “have the experts at The UPS Store pack the items for them.”
You can read more about the company’s shipping guarantee here.
And if you ever need to file a claim, you can do so here.
Thanks to UPS for taking care of this customer.
