Will I have to take them to court?

The official report on the damage to my son’s PC inflicted by UPS is now at my local UPS store. I know because they called the house the other day, even though they didn’t leave a message. Game playing! I’m sure they’re hoping I’ll forget and not come in and they can claim they called, even though they never made any real attempt to get in touch with me. I’m going down there today and talk to them. My hope is that we can settle this thing amicably without me having to take them to small claims court, but everything I’ve seen and heard from the company since the inspection makes me think that won’t be the case. If I have to go down the hard road just to get reimbursed for the damage they did, I will never ship anything with them again. If the store just settles up (and I’m being generous since they’re not being charged for labor), then I’ll consider doing business with them again.

I’ll update this section later today with what happened when I went to the UPS Store.
(See the Beware UPS page for updates and more info.)

Update: 12:26 p.m., February 7, 2004

I have been reading the situation correctly. From the beginning, it has been apparent that UPS had no intention of compensating us for the damage they did to the CPU. After first denying that UPS has sent him a report, the store owner admitted that the claim had been denied after I confronted him with the fact that the store had called the house.

I intend to take the store and the company to small claims court and seek damages under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices act. I'm not going to give my case away here; but what I will say is this: I will never ship with UPS again. All their practices, from riding around Houston for a day with my packages when they arrive early to the total absense of customer service I have recived after they damaged the CPU, that the customer, especially the small business or individual customer, is not something they care about. I believe I have a pretty good case in court. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Once everything has made its way through the legal system, I'll post pictures of the damaged box, the damaged case, and the damaged packaging.

For the rest of you doing business with UPS Stores, I would advise against shipping with them at all. If you feel like you must, then be sure you sit down and read all the disclaimers they put on the little yellow receipts they give you. I think it'll make you think twice about shipping with them and well it should.