Update: guitar safely delivered by the US post office




I built this gem for a friend, who paid quite a lot of money for it. I mailed it off to her in Montana using the post office EMS (a mistake in hindsight) because she didn’t want to use Fedex. So the guitar goes through the system, and sails through customs, and gets stuck in some distribution center in Montana for half a month, then says it’s in the “mail recovery center”. Seems the address label somehow fell out (I don’t know how can this happen) and so now they have no idea who it’s supposed to go to. So she files a claim with the USPS, and they just now closed the claim, with no explanation as to why it was closed or what happened to the item.

She’s very upset, and thinks it may have been stolen. Only people who can possibly do this is either a baggage handler (mail are sent through passenger aircraft it seems) or postal workers.

I need those of you in the US to be on the lookout for this guitar. If it shows up on craigslist, or whatever contact the US Postal Inspectors. There’s NO WAY anyone can make this thing disappear, it’s one of a kind, a custom build. I seriously doubt any pawn shops would touch it. It would stick out like a sore thumb.

The guitar has an ebony fretboard, with abalone dot inlays. There is an inlay of the new owner of the guitar on the headstock (shown in the photo) that is impossible to remove without seriously defacing the instrument. Under the soundboard there is my name and the date the top was voiced.

US Postal service is completely useless when it comes to anything customer service, everything’s automated. I’m going to go to the post office near me and find out if they are able to see more, and see if it’s possible to ask for refunds.

Taiwan post is above board and very professional, but the USPS dropped the ball on this one. Should have used Fedex.

did you insure the package?

I didn’t, she didn’t pay for it, and plus insurance is like extremely hard to get from the post office… I mean we were mostly worried about damage, not theft.

Damn, that sucks.

image

Lost in the mail, heh?

(Sorry, jokes on the USPS, not on you… cannot help to reference Newman from Seinfeld.)

1 Like

I saw a thread once where a lost instrument showed up damaged on ebay. I think the post office eventually sells off its lost/damaged instruments to resellers. I hope they/someone eventually find the instrument.

Well, the silver lining is, this instrument will stick out like a sore thumb. It won’t be able to blend into the sea of Martins and Gibsons.

1 Like

Interestingly, googling the inlay (name of the owner) shows up this thread here.

That could mean that Google is automatically interpreting text it finds in newly indexed photos. You could set up a Google alert (if that still exists) and hopefully get alerted once anyone anywhere posts photos of this guitar.

4 Likes

It will be sent back to Taiwan at no cost. One time I sent glasses to Thailand using EMS and they never got delivered (don’t know why), a few months later they returned the glasses to sender (me) and they are still here.

The guitar just showed up at the customer’s door. USPS sucks…

15 Likes

I’ve had similar problems with the USPS. I thought I was being smart by shipping my souvenirs to NY from Japan a few years ago, and I almost never got the package.

My wife went through the support options, and got nowhere. Their final word that it was in a major sorting facility about 10 miles away. We went to our local post office a week later, and when we got to the desk, we saw our package sitting on top of the shelf behind the clerk.

It was pure dumb luck, and it probably would still be there if we didn’t notice. It was from a fancy hotel, and I do wonder if they were hoping to let a claim clock run out so they could keep it for themselves.

lesson learned is never ship anything important by post office… but fedex is like 3 times the price.

2 Likes

insurance the thing next time; just write down 2x what you think it’s worth.

Getting insurance payout for postal articles is actually much harder compared to say UPS or Fedex…

Also the danger in writing a really high worth is that the customer will get taxed for it too.

Mod, if it’s ok can you edit the topic to “guitar safely delivered”?

1 Like

Is it damaged?

No, but it took a very long time, and USPS couldn’t seem to keep track of their package.

Your story reminded me of this guy whose guitar United broke, and then they gave him the run-around.

After his story & song went viral and irreparable damage was done to United’s reputation, and Dave got repaid many times over in other ways, United offered to compensate him for the guitar. I believe he said no :slight_smile:

1 Like

What was the total time? Door to door?

It’s there, undamaged. Hope you get paid.

1 Like

Took more than a month door to door. I used express that is supposed to take a week tops.

Yeah, I wouldn’t think that something so big would get there that fast.

1 Like