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Newton man, fiancee say UPS lost their $19,000 engagement ring but refuses to reimburse them
By adamg on Fri, 08/09/2013 - 9:36am
A Newton man and his fiancee, who lives in New York, want UPS to reimburse them for the cost of a ring they used UPS to return to a Florida jeweler because it turned out to have the wrong type of diamond.
In a lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court in Boston, Aanachal Sharma of Newton and Bhuwan Chawla say the diamond was in the box Chawla paid $250.05 to insure at a UPS store in Staten Island, NY on June 23, 2012, but that it was not in the box when the jeweler opened it two days later in Boynton Beach, Fla.
Sharma packaged the ring securely in a cardboard box which was then put in a large envelope which was folded over and securely tapped shut. The package was not labeled or otherwise marked in a way that might suggest the nature of its contents.
Despite written evidence of the value of the ring and "a video recording of the package of the ring before it was delivered to the UPS Store," they say, UPS denied liability and refused to pay up.
The couple say they wanted to return the ring because an appraisal "revealed that the diamond was not a G grade color clarity as Chawla had ordered but an inferior K to L color."
They are seeking the cost of the ring plus damages for emotional pain and suffering.
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Comments
Who knows what really
Who knows what really happened here, but it begs the question: how does one insure a delivery like that? What kind of documentation do you need to collect pre-shipping? USPS makes you declare a value (and then makes you present receipts and/or photographic evidence of what was shipped in order to collect.) What does UPS need?
Or, perhaps there are different shippers for this type of high-value item which are preferable over UPS.
Read their website
The UPS insurance page is here.
UPS is going to say that so long as the package was delivered (which it was) and the box undamaged (presumably it was fine) they are in the clear. Generally shippers make the receiver declare any damage at time of delivery so once the driver gets the signature and leaves it's over as far as UPS is concerned.
This will be an interesting case.
UPS is defining "loss" as "loss" of package. The package was not lost, but one could make the argument that we have evidence that the owner of the ring did indeed mail the ring to Florida, via UPS, and somewhere in its journey, the ring, itself, was "lost", albeit not the package.
I think the owner has nothing to loose by filing this suit but it will be interesting to see which way the Court decides. My guess is that they will give him some sort of compensation, probably not the total replacement cost of the ring.
I am curious to know if the package was tampered in anyway. If the receiver in Florida received a clearly tampered with package, I think that should of been flagged. If it was not tampered with, then we might have a scam.
UPS won't pay
We deal with this all the time at work. If the package looks ok on the outside, then UPS is not liable for damage to the contents. That is the responsibility of the packer to make sure the contents of the package will get to it's destination safely. Extending that logic, if the outside of the box is in good shape, UPS will not pay.
In their defense, it would be super easy to defraud UPS with fake claims if this wasn't the case. I.e. I put my broken iPad in a box, ship it and then claim UPS broke it.
UPS lost a entire motor
I used ups in tupelo ms ...and UPS CORPORATE says after my package ( 100 LBS motor in large crate ) was scanned and left in their Kansas City facility "PACKAGE WAS LOST " ....UPS is getting away with theft and fraud everyday ...I guarantee I did ship a complete motor ...it weighted 114 Lbs
Sucks but...
I'm sure these cases get filed all the time. It would be a good scam - Send an empty box, pay for high value insurance, then claim the box was tempered with in-route. Variation of this is what happens all the time with eBay scams.
The real question is who is lying - The locals, the jeweler, or was it really opened and resealed? How did the Jeweler tell them to send it? How did the Jeweler give it to them in the first place?
If the Jeweler tried to pass off a lower quality stone they might be inclined to blame it on UPS and pocket the difference.
G.I.A. certified
If the stone was G.I.A.
(Gemological lnstitute of America)certified, there would be NO discussion on cut, clarity, color,etc. as the G.I.A. stone has a microscopic number engraved on the stone and documents of cut, clarity, color, etc. is at the GIA institution in CA along with the buyer having a copy as well attached to the number. You get what you pay for.
I think that might call for a personal delivery.
To each his/her own, but if I were shipping a tiny good that was worth $19K to Florida, I'd use Issacg shipping company, and drop the $300 for a JetBlue roundtrip ticket which I would then insist the jeweler reimburse me for.
Just get some tape
Stuff this expensive stuff is shipped all the time. Just get some intrusion detection tape and pay the insurance.
If the receiver sees the tape broken or the box damaged they refuse to sign and call UPS and the sender right away.
Or send it USPS
Stuff sent via FedEx and UPS goes missing all the time. A jeweler I know only sends his work via USPS because it's a federal crime if it gets taken.
They may be suing the wrong company
I work in the industry, so I deal with these types of things daily.
The first misconception is that UPS Stores are UPS. They are not. UPS is the United Parcel Service, a private corporation with unionized employees. UPS Stores are all independent franchises, usually owner operated.
There are a couple of things going on here:
UPS delivered the box from point A to point B, and the box does not appear to be tampered with (supposedly). I don't see how UPS can be liable in this situation. I know from experience that anything insured for $5,000 and up literally gets locked in a gated area between transit points. The normal package handlers (aka overnight underpaid UPS staffers) do not have access to these "High Value" packages. The driver who makes the delivery actually retrieves the High Value box from a locked cage before leaving the hub. That means the only UPS staffers who handled the package were full time authorized employees, who make anywhere from $45-55k a year. They would not sacrifice their careers for a ring that's only worth $19k. It sounds to me like UPS is in the clear on this one.
The UPS Store could very well be the culprit. How do we know the staff member at the unaffiliated, independent franchise did not open the box and take the ring? They probably figured UPS would get sued instead of the store, so there ya go...
Why in the world would a UPS Store insure a customer-packed box for $19,000? Typically the procedure would be to have the store pack the item ("Pack and Ship Promise"), and I would assume the store would take photographs of the item before, during, and after packaging, to protect themselves from a possible lawsuit. For instance, the store agreed to put $19,000 of insurance on what could have been an empty box to begin with! How would they know what is really inside? This further exonerates UPS from the lawsuit, since there is no proof that a ring was in that box.
Finally, how can we believe the recipient? He signed for a package that he knew was High Value, opened it, claims it's empty, and then files a police report. Did he videotape himself opening the box? Is there any way to prove it was actually empty? Maybe he was trying to cover his bases by filing the police report.
From what I'm reading, UPS is not responsible for this incident whatsoever.
Either:
1.) It's a scam and the customer never placed the ring in the box to begin with.
2.) The clerk at the UPS Store stole the ring, hoping the customer would blame UPS corporate.
3.) The recipient stole the ring and filed a police report to divert attention away from himself.
You make a lot of good
You make a lot of good points. Especially the one about high value packages requiring special handling. However, my question is do we know if the clerk at the UPS store when he or she handed the package over to the UPS driver inform him or her the the package was high value and provide a high value report?
"a video recording of the package of the ring
before it was delivered to the UPS Store,"
I'm not sure what this means. Should it read "packaging" that is the recording shows the ring actually being placed in the box, sealed, etc?
The customer claimed the ring was sealed in a box and put in an envelope. If the clerk did tamper with the package I'm sure there would be evidence of it.
Being a jewelry store obviously there are cameras everywhere.
Fish story
Wouldn't the jeweler who we must assume may ship expensive things all the time have it's own process for shipping? Any place that I know who ships packages all the time has a very particular process that they follow and they always use the same company.
Sounds like capital B.S.
Guy probably got his girl a cheap ring (ie glass) pretended it was different from the one he "ordered" so that she wouldn't have it appraised (cause she'd find out how little it is worth), and then created this whole scam so he could actually buy her a nice ring with the proceeds.
The guy is poor, fiance should dump him. Mystery solved!
Plausible but...
the ring was valued in NY for $19,000 so it is not a fake (it is written in the complaint). The reason why the owner was returning it to Florida is because the color grade of the diamond was of a lesser quality than he though he had purchased.
Scam
The real scam here is the whole diamond engagement ring three month salary tradition and the expectation to get at least a $20K ring with a giant rock. Wouldn't it make more sense for someone who's not drowning in money to use that $20K for a down payment on a house and buy a more modest ring, or are people really that shallow and materialistic?
Shallow and materialistic?
Your logic:
Obviously all of those assertions are completely invalid and clearly are a reflection on your own life, priorities, apathy and -- of course -- stupidity.
Learn to read
Looks like reading comprehension isn't one of your strengths, mr internet smart guy.
Stupidity?
Are you arguing it stupid for the other anon to state that spending $19k on a ring is a dumb idea, really?
I understand many people apparently base the value of their self worth on how expensive their wedding ring is, but it's not a universal conceit. A $19k ring is the very definition of a superfluous expense.