Sorry to hear your sad tale Rick. I hope it gets sorted quickly.
I too have had a problem with shipment damage (which isn't bad considering the amount of stuff I order), but thankfully, the sender (JMI Telescopes) sorted it out very quickly indeed.
It isn't whether you have a problem, as these do occur from time to time, as disheartening as this can be. The important thing is how that problem is dealt with. But it sounds like you are getting it sorted quickly.
It was a well-known international carrier but I don't want to name names on the off chance it prejudices any insurance claim by Orion.
Rick, I think you're right not to name the courier.
I have had many parcels (astro equipment and otherwise) from Fed Ex, UPS and others and have had only one damaged item and one lost item out of hundreds. It wouldn't matter what courier you use these things, unfortunately, will happen, as upsetting as that is.
Considering the many millions of parcels handled daily by these companies, it is inevitable some damage will occur, particularly considering they are mostly handled by low paid and often under trained employees. Having said that, that is what insurance is for, after all.
I can see a series of defective columns being tough to get rid of.
My sensor in a 2nd hand body was supposedly hand picked by Fli for the buyer. It had no columns and no clusters of hot pixels. It has very few hot pixels at all.
I have had it for about 4 years now and it now had a weak poor column (I think its not really a defective column its a hot pixel smear that pulls down the sensor during the read out process much like in an KAI11000 chip).
The column often doesn't show or dark subtracts out easily.
So that is the standard.
Lucky about the warranty period, wow. That was a good catch. The chip is probably worth a few thousand dollars.
For those who may not be aware, both UPS and FedEx claim to have very limitied exposure with damaged shipments.
To quote their fine-print...
"UPS does not provide special handling for packages with "Fragile," package orientation (for example, "UP" arrows or "This End Up" markings), or any other similar such markings"
Fedex is little better...and will only pay out of the integrity of the box/container has been broken, and even then does not accept any liability for glass/fragile items.
I've had to endure aviation Danderous Goods annual handling courses for many years...makes you wonder about their duty of care.....and whether the above are even legal.
Perhaps marking the package "1.4S Explosive" or "bio-hazard" might help...the latter meaning "I'll rip 'yer bloody arms off if you drop this"
Not to sound harsh but I would be blaming it more on inadequate packing by OOUK. It sounds like they didn't do a good enough
job of packaging the gear to survive the trip and surviving the possibility of poor handling or being dropped.
I get the idea OOUK is a newish company that is expanding and perhaps not as experienced as some of the others like Tak, Astrophysics etc.
I have never heard of one of their scopes arriving smashed.
Its well known that couriers can sometimes be rough. So why isn't the packaging designed to survive that known environment?
Unless the unit was involved in a car accident or something extreme its just OOUK not packaging up to the correct standard.
Double boxed would not be effective if the boxes are similar in size and close together. The drop shock would simply transfer inside too easily.
Bubble wrap offers no gap to absorb impact. A simple 1.5 metre fall could have done that.
It needs a much larger outer box with a much smaller inner box, heavy duty cardboard and foam peanuts or similar in between. The inner box needs a styro foam support for the unit not just wrapped in bubble wrap which has limited shock absorbing ability.
As someone mentioned Tak scopes are often triple boxed. Tak gear I have bought was always super well packaged and you could tell it would survive serious mishandling.
A 12 inch mirror cell is probably very heavy as well. Perhaps it should be packed in a small timber crate with styro foam supports and then double boxed as above. Its also the most expensive component of the scope.
If they ship internationally and do not pack to withstand a 1.5 metre fall then they need to raise the standard of their packaging so it will or this is likely to happen to them a lot.
So going cheap on the packaging ends up costing them a lot and was not an economy after all plus upsets the customer.
Good on them for taking responsibility for the problem though. That is nice of them but really they sound responsible for the problem in the first place.
You wanna see good packaging? Buy anything from Germany! You'll need a large trailer to get rid of all the packaging though!
I would be devastated.
When I shipped my three scopes from Ireland to Melbourne, the first thing I did was open the box for the C11, shake it a bit and hope I didn't hear the sound of clinking glass. All arrived in one piece thankfully. When they load your gear into a 20 foot container you know there is nothing you can do until it arrives and clears customs. No matter how you label it (fragile) they still treat it like any other box.I did have one box ripped open with a box cutter by customs once checking out the 8" Meade
Orion Optics are a very good company to deal with so I am sure you will be sorted out in due time
Not to sound harsh but I would be blaming it more on inadequate packing by OOUK. It sounds like they didn't do a good enough
job of packaging the gear to survive the trip and surviving the possibility of poor handling or being dropped.
I get the idea OOUK is a newish company that is expanding and perhaps not as experienced as some of the others like Tak, Astrophysics etc.
I have never heard of one of their scopes arriving smashed.
Its well known that couriers can sometimes be rough. So why isn't the packaging designed to survive that known environment?
Unless the unit was involved in a car accident or something extreme its just OOUK not packaging up to the correct standard.
Double boxed would not be effective if the boxes are similar in size and close together. The drop shock would simply transfer inside too easily.
Bubble wrap offers no gap to absorb impact. A simple 1.5 metre fall could have done that.
It needs a much larger outer box with a much smaller inner box, heavy duty cardboard and foam peanuts or similar in between. The inner box needs a styro foam support for the unit not just wrapped in bubble wrap which has limited shock absorbing ability.
As someone mentioned Tak scopes are often triple boxed. Tak gear I have bought was always super well packaged and you could tell it would survive serious mishandling.
A 12 inch mirror cell is probably very heavy as well. Perhaps it should be packed in a small timber crate with styro foam supports and then double boxed as above. Its also the most expensive component of the scope.
If they ship internationally and do not pack to withstand a 1.5 metre fall then they need to raise the standard of their packaging so it will or this is likely to happen to them a lot.
So going cheap on the packaging ends up costing them a lot and was not an economy after all plus upsets the customer.
Good on them for taking responsibility for the problem though. That is nice of them but really they sound responsible for the problem in the first place.
You wanna see good packaging? Buy anything from Germany! You'll need a large trailer to get rid of all the packaging though!
Greg.
That's a pretty big call Greg .....like putting security on your home you can put as much in as you want but in the end if someone really wants to get in..they will and you can't really blame the security company.
I work in logistics as a job, I send and receive package's, crates and shipping containers every day and this happens from time to time. I would see strong wooden crates including one I had built and packed myself, damaged on arrival and flimsy grossly inadequate cardboard boxes arrive perfect...it is a lucky dip at times.
Orion Optics are not new on the market at all either and they have successfully shipped thousand of items around the World.
Having said that, incidents like this cause reviews and we changed packing approaches several times when I worked in Newcastle for nearly 3 years sending fibre glass parts around the country and the World.
It is important that Rick is looked after and I am sure he will be
Mike
Last edited by strongmanmike; 04-11-2012 at 03:17 PM.
Thanks for the commiserations, everybody! I'm optimistic that this will be fixed quickly. I've even had email responses from Orion Optics over the weekend working on a resolution.
I don't believe there was any issue with the packaging. I think it was a reasonable compromise between shipping volume/cost and the level of protection.
Hopefully, I will be posting back in this thread in a couple of weeks to say how wonderful my new scope is... and complaining about the frogs falling from the sky
Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike
It is important that Chris is looked after and I am sure he will be
.....like putting security on your home you can put as much in as you want but in the end if someone really wants to get in..they will and you can't really blame the security company.
....
