Thanks Dave. Good advice. Current update on the saga: the St. Louis claims office demanded to have the local PO see the sword in person.
Ross had to spend over $60 on top of what he has coming, in order to express it to me within the 30 days they gave us to submit the last part of the claim. The local PO told me that he would be able to be reimbursed for this. There was no choice, as regular air mail takes 3 weeks, and that was cutting it too close.
Under the original July 5 claim, they stated they only needed to see the insurance info and the valuation of the item, along with a sales receipt, appraisal, etc., etc. Ross would have had almost 2 full months to leisurely get me the sword had they asked for it then, and it would have cost him about $10 using par avion air mail from Canada.
So I took it in, and the PO said that I had to submit the entire claim all over again, and didn't understand the process. I told them the woman in St. Louis had all the paperwork already, but I needed an additional claim form from them. I needed to send that to the Int'l claims office, along with a payment waiver from Ross, the original letter from them, and a cover letter from me, as well as a scanned copy of Ross' $60 mailing expenditure.
Then the PO told me they never _heard_ of a return item mailing being reimbursed, even though it was at their demand to prove damages. This directly contradicted what they had told me 3 weeks ago.
So a guy who pays for an item and has it destroyed, now has to pay a pile of more $ to return it to the orig. sender, and that isn't subject to reimbursement? I got them to finally include that with the claim.
I was at the PO 90 minutes, and they finally got tired of my making a scene and escorted me to a waiting area where a supervisor took copies of all my documents. She said she would mail it all to St. Louis for final disposition.
I have never seen an organization make a complicated reimbursement policy so convoluted, so difficult, and contradict their own policies as it suits them. Since they set an arbitrary deadline of 30 days from their last correspondence, or they would rule against the claim, I had them overnight and register all the documents to the specific claims supervisor, and I bit my tongue and wrote a nice ingratiating letter to this PO cog.
One final note: The scabbard on the sword is ruined; I don't see how it could be salvaged. But the sword itself was only bent once in the middle. I am sure that I could straighten it out nicely, at least enough to make the damage invisible, and I planned to do this and send it back to Ross. Perhaps a leather or kydex sheath could be made for it.
BUT, the PO's policy is that you forfeit all items. So even though an item may be worth $1000, and has say $500 worth of damage, if you only insure it for $100, in order to get your $100 you have to hand over the item which would be currently worth $500. If you get all that...
So they took the sword and scabbard. Fine with me, but I expect the $ to be paid.
What a bunch. Despite what Dave says, I almost think the insurance is a scam. It's like buying insurance while playing Blackjack, which is a scam for the house. I'll bet the PO only pays 5-10% of all their insurance claims, because of all the hoops they make you jump through.
It's been 5 and 1/2 months since the sword was originally mailed to Canada. Hopefully this journey through bureaucratic incompetence will end soon...!
Norm
...but that may change soon. Sounds like you have a decent collection, do you have any pictures to share?
