Well this is not what I had originally intended this post for. Let me quickly detail my original plans and then what actually ended up happening. First off, we were trying to ship a 17″ MacBook Pro to a co-worker in Austin. We thought about having a little fun and sending the SPOT Satellite Messenger I received for Christmas along with it. This would allow us to track the package with roughly a location reading every 10 minutes. We’d be able to watch the package as it moved within the Ublip fleet tracking app, though we were very skeptical of it ever sending a reading since it would be indoors (or inside a truck) most of the time. But hey, it was the beginning of a cool experiment.

So here are where things go a bit awry. Here’s a pic of the UPS store I shipped from:

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Click the image to see the store’s location. Next I snapped a pic of the MacBook along with the SPOT device:

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I originally took this photo with excitement as I’d be able to blog about how we tracked the MacBook all the way to Austin using our location tracking software. Boy was I wrong about that. So I turn on the SPOT and walk into the store. I put the power cable and SPOT in a small box as not to draw attention to the flashing LEDs on the device.

The guy behind the counter (the store manager) asks me where the computer is going and I give him all the details. He weighs it and asks me how much I’d like to insure it for. I’m going to be completely honest here and admit my first mistake. I tell him that I’d like to insure it for $1,000. As you may or may not already know, the 17″ MacBook Pro can easily set you back $3,000. Now let me justify my decision a bit. When asking for insurance I always work under the assumption that I’m having something insured against damage because of mishandling or some sort of accident. I own a PowerBook G4 and the worst damage I ever had with mine was getting the motherboard replaced after I dropped it. This cost a nice $900. Anyway, that was my somewhat weak reasoning.

I’d like to point out the store manager weighs the MacBook before putting it in the box and prints my invoice based on this weight (approx 7 lbs). That doesn’t seem to concern me too much, but when I ask him where’s the box so I can package the MacBook he tells me that they’ll do it behind the counter. Since I’ve insured it they feel more comfortable taking on the responsibility of packaging it themselves, than letting me do it. That seems like a reasonable policy and I’ve done this on several occasions in the past, but never with such an expensive piece of equipment. My second mistake was to trust this in their hands and walk out of the store without ever seeing them package the MacBook. It’s all good, so I drive back to the office to login to our GPS tracking app to see if the SPOT had reported. No report. No big deal as I was very skeptical we’d ever get a report in the first place.

The next day I’m at dinner with a friend and I get a call from Austin. Austin was the recipient of the package and he lives in Austin. Austin says to me, “Hey, did you forget to put the MacBook in the box?” This kind of throws me for a loop and I say to him “What in the word are you talking about?” He then proceeds to tell me that there’s an empty box with the SPOT tracker inside, but nothing else. My first reaction was of complete astonishment. So we talk through the situation some more and I try not to presume the worst, that the MacBook had been stolen. So I ask Austin to snap some pics and send them to me.

This first pic is of the box after Austin opened it. The box looked perfectly sealed and everything, just weighed about 7lbs less!

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This pic is of the bubble wrap the MacBook was apparently in:

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Here’s a pic of the small box I packed the SPOT device and the power cable in. This was inside the big box with the MacBook. As you can see, there’s no power cable:

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And last but not least, a random zip lock bag (that’s right kids, a zip lock bag!) that Austin found inside the box:

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A rather humorous point I’d like to make is that the SPOT tracker was still blinking when it arrived at Austin’s doorstep. I had put it in continuous tracking mode before I shipped it from the UPS store in Dallas. That means some idiot had to open the box, pull out the power supply, while a GPS tracker was sitting right there next to it. If ONLY the friggin’ SPOT would have reported JUST THAT ONE TIME!

Our other theory is that since I was such an idiot and left the store without ever watching the MacBook get boxed up is that it never made it into the box. When I called the store manager the next day he sounded very nonchalant about the whole situation and mentioned that this is somewhat common during the Holiday season. I was baffled to hear this and it blows my mind that our MacBook was stolen by a UPS employee. When I went into the store just to get clarification on the situation the lady was very offended by some of the questions I asked such as:

- Do you have confirmation that the computer actually left the store?

- Is the weight of the package monitored at each check point?

- Will we be reimbursed for the full cost of the computer?

At any rate, I thought I had every right to do my own sort of investigation since a $3,000 piece of hardware just turned up missing. I asked the store manager what comes next and he informed me they would tell UPS of the situation. From my understanding UPS stores are independently owned and operated.

After UPS was notified they would send a fraud investigator to Austin’s house to pick up the package and inspect it. We were informed that if everything goes well we should get our $1,000 claim check. When I heard this I almost flipped my lid (hence my reference to mistake #1 above). They’re going to reimburse us a measly $1,000 because one of UPS’ employees stole our MacBook? When buying insurance never in a million years did I think to insure it against theft from the company I was shipping with.

I really am not interested in pointing the finger because I do realize mistakes happen. But the least UPS could do is refund us the cost of the MacBook. At the time of this post we’re waiting to hear back from UPS regarding our $1,000 insurance check, but I’m kinda hoping this post raises a little more awareness within their organization. I will post an update once I hear from UPS.

Here’s what I did learn in this entire process:

- If you ship high-value goods with UPS I would recommend insuring them for their total value. It sucks that you may need to insure them for their retail value, not what they’re currently worth.

- The SPOT Satellite Messenger is not a reliable device to do package tracking with. That’s not its intended purpose, but I thought it would be a cool experiment.

- Always watch the person at the front package your item or do it yourself before you get into the store.

- UPS really needs to consider a GPS tracking solution for high-value goods. I know a great company that could help them with this (check out www.ublip.com - my shameless plug).

I would like to ask anyone that reads this article to please share their thoughts on the following:

- From the information I’ve shared, where do you think our MacBook is? Do you think it’s with someone at the UPS store or possibly stolen by a UPS driver?

- Have you ever experienced a similar situation?

- Do you think UPS should refund us for the full cost of the MacBook?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and hope you enjoyed the rather eventful post. I can say that it’s been a very eventful last week and everyone that hears this story stares at me in disbelief.