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Hello Fritters,
I was wondering if anyone has had any experience making claims to the USPS?
I recently sold a fairly nice system on eBay and had to ship in from PA to CA. Well, besides the shipping being an arm and a leg and another arm, the USPS must had drop tested it a few times.
I did my usual over pack job where I increase the weight of the package two-fold by adding additional packing material. 
This time it didn't matter.
I packed a IIe system in box 1 - The system had an 80 column card, a serial card, and Z80 card in slot 4. When it arrived and the buyer opened it, the Z80 card had popped out, but that looks like all the damage.
In the other very huge box. I packed two Disk Duo units wrapped in bubble wrap, a kensington system saver in bubble pack, cables and diskettes in a smaller box and a color monitor iie wrapped, wrapped, and re-wrapped in bubble pack.
The buyer emailed me the other day and said the monitor was smashed. I could have dropped that monitor from the top of a building and it would have bounced it had so much bubble wrap on it.
I know the buyer is telling the truth because he didn't know what slot to put the CP/M card back in.
I filed the claim with the USPS and haven't heard anything and it's been two days now. (I know USPS and two days shouldn't be in the same sentence. 
I feel bad for the buyer so I am going to ship him another color monitor from my personal collection. I am just wondering if how effective it was to submit the claim. Is it a lost cause or do they really look at these?
Thanks,
Jay
The secret to packing is to use a material which gives way when it undergoes impact.
Bubblewrap doesn't actually do the job especially if it is wrapped too tight.
This is why Styrofoam is used by factories to shield stuff for shipping.
All you need is Styrofoam, Gorilla Glue and tools to cut and glue Styrofoam and you can make custom shaped blocks of Styrofoam to fit any device for shipping.
You should see the custom Styrofoam blocks I made for an Apple iie.
You could drop it from a plane and it would survive.
Thanks I did cover the screen in Styrofoam which is probably the only reason it didn't break.
Heh.
The monitor would need many layers of Styrofoam in order for it to be protected because of the additional weight.
You didn't mention paying for shipping insurance so I'll assume there was none. In that case, your chances of getting anything back are slim to none.
Same thing happened to me. I had a 12" Macintosh RGB monitor shipped to someone via USPS. Poor devil received it smashed. No insurance, no recourse.
They ought to treat our parcels with greater care, but they generally don't, so there's nothing to be done except pad, pad, pad, and maybe mark it fragile.
I use 2K polyurethane foam (like for window fittings) in a garbage bag to make a perfect fitting 'case' for bigger (heavier) stuff. You can simply use 2 garbage bags and fill them with the foam and stuff that into the box to get a two part 'soft case'. Or you put your device into such a bag and fill a Box directly with the foam. unpacking of the later is a bit tedious.
I have sent Printers and Monitors without a problem. 2K PU foam is very good since it gives in a bit when pressed. You can make some extremely robust boxes if you line a outer box with the foam to make a double layer box.
Here is a company who sells this kind of packaging..
http://www.storopack.de/fileadmin/user_upload/6_Download/Brochures/DE_FOAMplus_web.pdf
-Jonas
Most of us would just look at that pdf and say, "Eh?" and would not know how to ask, "Wo cann Ich das foam kaufen?" or, "Wo cann Ich das foam finden?"
Tips for the future:
When I ship a monitor (rare) I'll use 6 inches of styrofoam all the way around. And it is the only thing in the box. Everything needs to be form-fitting and firm. You want the monitor to decelerate with the package, not bounce around in it.
I also never ever ever ship cards in slots.
Consoles and drives also ship separately.
Combining manuals, disks, cards, controllers, and small items in their own box is ok.
because you should not buy that
its too expensive. Just stick with the garbage bag and 2K PU foam (PU sealing foam)
https://www.amazon.com/FROTH-PAK-12-1-75-PCF-Sealant/dp/B0018AKMBS/ref=sr_1_24?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1487143317&sr=1-24&keywords=Polyurethane+Foam
There are a lot of other brands...
-Jonas
Thanks Ketah. Good advice.
WOW! That was quick. They paid the claim. I am happy and the customer will be happy when I send him another Color Monitor IIe from my personal collection.
Nice! Glad to hear that wasn't a total washout.
cool..