Attention Stolen Knives

Comprehensivist said:
Sorry to hear about your significant loss Robert. The frustration of trying to unravel the Gordian knot of UPS traceability can be almost as painful as the loss itself.

I had much experience with UPS during my 20 year stint working at a small aerospace manufacturing company making very tight tolerance machined parts. I wore several hats there including managing the shipping & receiving department. UPS was our primary carrier for shipped goods. We shipped 10 to 30 boxes a day with them. When the UPS driver came to pick-up late in the afternoon, we printed an "End of the Day" summary with a bar code on it from our account on the UPS database. The EOTD showed how many boxes were in the shipment that day. The UPS driver would count the boxes to pick up and compared that to the number EOTD. If the numbers matched, he would scan the EOTD barcode as received and initial the form. That is supposed to automatically start the tracking for the individual boxes that are covered by the EOTD. We had maybe a couple boxes a year that got temporarily lost or misdirected following this process. They all eventually made it to their destinations.

I am not sure if you use that process or your driver just scans each individual box. You apparently like your UPS driver enough to think it's not him who stole your knives. I can't judge if that trust is well placed or not. What I would do is try to involve the driver in the investigation (if you have not already) by telling him you have security video showing he picked up "XX" number of boxes yet only "X" number show up on the tracking system and asking his help to understand how this is possible. Most of the long term drivers I dealt with very motivated and resourceful when they realized that their reputation was tied to a lost shipment with suspicious circumstances right from the start. If he couldn't figure what happened on his own investigation, he knew who to put me in touch with who wouldn't blow me off. Some lost shipments took a while to figure out, but things were always resolved in the end.

I wish you the best of luck getting your products back or fair insurance coverage if they were in fact stolen.

Phil

P.S. - I think it is wise to eliminate the custom logo tape or other identifiers on the package that alerts potential thieves to the contents of the box. It's too easy for those scumbags to type your company name in a search on their phone and learn about the nice stuff you ship.
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We do the EOD forms for USPS, but our system doesn't generate them for UPS. Typically, we ship 95% of everything USPS...so it's not too terrible for them to scan the individual boxes. We don't buy our labels directly through UPS, as we get better rates through our shipping software(s). It's dramatically better pricing, so changing that isn't an option. That same software does not allow us to change the return label name either...which makes it just as easy to search as the tape does. But, there could be some advantage to not making the boxes stand out more.

The driver has been helpful throughout the process. He gave me the number to the distribution center, among other things. If I say too much about how I know it wasn't him, it will put too much information out on how a few of the thefts happened. I don't want to put anything here that could give potential bad actors in the future any ideas as to how they could make it appear as though this happened to them in order to defraud us. Or to give anyone the idea on how to actually replicate it.

Since we shipped our first knife, I've always felt like they deserved as much of an experience opening them as they do using them. I felt like the unboxing needed to make them feel special, before you ever laid eyes on the actual blade. Maybe that's the just the  Nerd in me coming out. But the tape was part of that, as well as a subtle reminder to share it with friends on social media. I hate that we need to do away with it. I guess we evolved away from lanyards and burlap bag fillers...we'll just have to do the same here.
 
Can you stick inexpensive GPS trackers in every box, charge a deposit for them and then refund when people mail them back? Seems like you could figure out where the boxes are going that way without having to change anything else.
 
Fiddleback Outpost said:
We do the EOD forms for USPS, but our system doesn't generate them for UPS. Typically, we ship 95% of everything USPS...so it's not too terrible for them to scan the individual boxes. We don't buy our labels directly through UPS, as we get better rates through our shipping software(s). It's dramatically better pricing, so changing that isn't an option. That same software does not allow us to change the return label name either...which makes it just as easy to search as the tape does. But, there could be some advantage to not making the boxes stand out more.

The driver has been helpful throughout the process. He gave me the number to the distribution center, among other things. If I say too much about how I know it wasn't him, it will put too much information out on how a few of the thefts happened. I don't want to put anything here that could give potential bad actors in the future any ideas as to how they could make it appear as though this happened to them in order to defraud us. Or to give anyone the idea on how to actually replicate it.

Since we shipped our first knife, I've always felt like they deserved as much of an experience opening them as they do using them. I felt like the unboxing needed to make them feel special, before you ever laid eyes on the actual blade. Maybe that's the just the  Nerd in me coming out. But the tape was part of that, as well as a subtle reminder to share it with friends on social media. I hate that we need to do away with it. I guess we evolved away from lanyards and burlap bag fillers...we'll just have to do the same here.
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I enjoy every part of the unpacking. I like untying the knot, unrolling, finding the knife ID card, and then revealing the knife! I wait for my wife everytime I open one. We both enjoy the process.

I use to live in the city and the mail would leave my knife on the front porch. I was always worried the tape would cause someone to steal it. Never did happen.. but it was always a worry. I will miss the tape but I do think it is worth a try. You could put a piece on the inside of the lid to hit people with it when they open the box maybe? Put it across and then put the receipt sticker over one side. Just a thought.

Again, thanks for all the work and effort you all have put in to try and figure this problem out.
 
Fiddleback Outpost said:
Only 2 packages were fully insured. Those 2 were never scanned after pickup. So we can't prove UPS ever had them. Since we insure through a 3rd party (when we do it), I have to prove they had possession. Those 2 packages alone were $1600 total...hence why they were insured in the first place.
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Wow really sorry to hear that. I always insure every package I ship and hand deliver them myself to the FedEx location I use, to avoid just this circumstance. I'm sure my volume is miniscule compared to yours of course.
 
A brief letter or call to your congress critter's office asking for some assistance in dealing with the federal system often yields some added pressure on people to do some digging. I know the word "Congressional" gets us stirred up at work, and the staffers and reps actually like the part of their jobs where they get to help the people they represent.
 
swonut said:
A brief letter or call to your congress critter's office asking for some assistance in dealing with the federal system often yields some added pressure on people to do some digging. I know the word "Congressional" gets us stirred up at work, and the staffers and reps actually like the part of their jobs where they get to help the people they represent.
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Yea whatever
 
I sell several hundred items each year and have used UPS and Priority Mail Flat Rate.
My UPS items also go through the Gainesville, GA UPS terminal.
So far, I've yet to loose anything with Priority Mail and it has tracking with similar detail to UPS. I have lost items to UPS. The most expensive item came back to me as just a razor'ed off label that they claimed must have been damaged by the processing equipment. I've had a few USPS Priority that took a roundabout trip but they always made it to the buyer or back to me. The also have a large variety of free boxes and packaging.
Dealing with UPS feels like a large government bureaucracy with all the standard denials you mention.
 
So the latest word is that a few people at the local UPS hub were fired for theft. One female, one military veteran, and one "country boy" from what we've heard through the grapevine...with more to follow. That's not the official word, as they'll likely never admit responsibility in order to avoid liability. This is just what we've heard from folks in the know.

It appears that the thieves were also stealing Apple products. With the amount of leverage that Apple has with carriers, it's likely they were the ones that made enough noise to get action in the matter...not us little guys.

In either case, I don't know if this fixes the issue so we're still holding to USPS Priority only for now. We ship 50x as many packages with USPS anyways, and other than terrible tracking this time of year, they are fairly reliable.

Prior to this, we had very few issues with UPS. Especially on the receiving end...we GET our packages most reliably with UPS. But this loss still represents the most money we've lost like this...more than the last 5 years combined! So we'll wait and see how things go from here and adjust accordingly.
 
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