Considering to purchase an HMV 163

[soundgen]

In the mean time I've been getting several quotes from shipley, and the prices are astonishingly (if not: disturbingly) low. I've received quotes as los as 110 euro (thats about GBP 85). That almost seems to good to be true.

That is VERY cheap. It's worth checking the insurance cover provided with that service. You need to be covered for at least the full sale price of the machine. If not, pass and move on to the next courier.

Insurance and shipping is not easy MOST ITEMS are excluded anyway , look at Parcelforce's exclusions http://www.parcelforce.com/help-and-adv ... mpensation , no compensation for damaged musical instruments , furniture and items over 100 years old ! BUT the post office are quite happy to take your money for extra compensation without telling you this ! Most shippers insurance is the same always see their exclusions , if I ship very expensive "antique " items overseas with say UPS I do this through companies such as Robert Boyse shipping they are an expert on shipping these items Worldwide http://www.robertboysshipping.co.uk . They have specialised Antique insurance cover which costs an additional 2% , as do most shippers of this type

[soundgen]

When you look at some delivery companies such as Parcelforce and MyHermes it makes you wonder what you can send that is covered https://www.myhermes.co.uk/RWD/help/carry-guide.html

[bart1927]

When you look at some delivery companies such as Parcelforce and MyHermes it makes you wonder what you can send that is covered https://www.myhermes.co.uk/RWD/help/carry-guide.html

Everything is covered, unless it is valuable or fragile

[alang]

Everything is covered as long as you don't have a claim.

Andreas

[Steve]

It looks to me as though the cardboard box itself and bubble wrap / protective packing is covered, just not the contents!

Thanks, Soundgen, for posting those links. That'll make me think twice about using those companies again. I must admit I only tend to "scan" the exclusion list very quickly and for most things I have sent I've been fairly confident that they will be covered. With that said I know it's a major headache making ANY claim.

Here's an anecdotal story of a situation I encountered a year or so ago with Royal Mail. I sent a record by RM to an address which turned out to be incorrect. Ebay details had not been updated as the recipient had moved home in the past 12 months. The parcel was sent with insurance cover to a value of £50 - the record was "worth" about £60 but nevermind. Anyway without any detailed notification of the address problem RM returned my parcel with a hand-written "note" stating "Could not deliver, recipient away". What would you think that means? My initial thought was that they were on holiday and the postman couldn't get a signature or something. A friend who works for a small satellite post office suggested re-sending the parcel making sure it was "Signed For". Anyway I sent it from a post office at the end of a long Friday afternoon when all I wanted to do was get home. Standing in a queue wasn't my idea of fun. When I got to the till I was asked if I wanted proof of posting. I said yes and thought no more of it. I forgot completely about the signature!

To cut a long story short the parcel never arrived and because I re-labeled the package I'd forgotten in a hurry to add my return address, even though it was still clearly visible through the paper label on top. When I checked with the recipient they informed me that not only had they moved house but the road their house used to be in had been completely demolished along with EVERY house in that road!!!! Now, I'm thinking that the initial "recipient away" note was a little misleading to say the least. YES, the recipient was away, along with all residents who ever lived in that particular area! And the house? Well, that had been demolished too! Come on, RM, you can do better than this.

I immediately submitted a claim which was dismissed because I hadn't provided enough information following their letter to me to request further details. Wait a minute, WHAT LETTER? It turned out that RM somewhat incredulously had sent a letter to me incorrectly addressed requesting information for a claim about a parcel incorrectly addressed. I never even got it. How ironic! I then was advised to submit a "request for search" given that I had all the details of the parcel: recipient name / incorrect (or out of date) address, size, colour, content, label descriptions etc. I duly did this but heard nothing in reply. I telephoned and was told to be patient as RM loses thousands of items every week!

I rang 3 months later and was informed that I would get my parcel back when they had found it.......3 months later I rang again and informed RM that I was going to re-claim for loss up to the value of my receipt ticket. RM informed me that I couldn;t claim because the "parcel is not lost". Apparently it would have been sent to Ireland where a large warehouse stores all undelivered mail where return addresses are not "clearly written on the outside." RM would "open the parcel to find any method of identifying the sender in order to return". I told them they didn't need to do this as it was clear from the outside of the parcel! Anyway you CANNOT ARGUE WITH ROYAL MAIL!

It went on. The upshot of all this is the absurd situation whereby RM won't honour its commitment to compensate for loss of a parcel if it can claim that a parcel isn't lost, it's just undelivered / undeliverable. My counter-claim said more or less "Okay, great, it's not lost so can you please return it?" RM replied "sorry, we have not been able to locate your parcel to date but this situation might change in the future". It's what's known as a merry-go-round; a never ending perpetual spiral of deceit in order to extricate oneself from a contractual obligation. Try squaring that circle. It's impossible!

Anyway, due to the initial problem being due to Ebay I filed a claim and was refunded my money. The record is still MIA. I suspect RM will open the "not lost but we cannot locate it" parcel eventually, remove the contents and flog it on Ebay themselves. I was told they do this. I admit some fault here but the problem that started with Ebay was further compounded by the fact that RM should have been very clear about the fact that the road did not exist anymore. Proper communication all around including a note to say "DO NOT RE-SEND / ADDRESS NOT AVAILABLE" or something like that would have been helpful. I could have waited for the recipient to get in touch (they were away on holiday somewhat ironically at the time!) with me and to confirm the new address. This could have been avoided. My impatience didn't help at all but it was a very valuable lesson learnt.

[bart1927]

Good news. Another dealer has one for sale. And he's located only about 20 miles from my address. And what's even better: He's asking considerably less than that other dealer. He's sent me a couple of photographs, and except for the grille cloth, that's not in pristine shape anymore, it looks good. Of course I'm going to check it out in person first. He's asking EUR 575,- for it, that's about GBP 442,-.

[CarlosV]

Anyway, due to the initial problem being due to Ebay I filed a claim and was refunded my money. The record is still MIA.

Three or four years ago I bought some records from a seller in the UK, they never arrived and I got my refund throught Ebay and forgot about it. About one year later they were delivered with some interesting info on the box: it had been sent to Ecuador, from where the post office returned to RM in the UK because Luxembourg is not in Ecuador, and then eventually it was resent to me. The discs arrived in good shape, so I contacted the seller (who had been already refunded, I guess by ebay) and sent him a photo of the box as it was quite amusing at the end. So don't lose your hope, Steve, your discs may be somewhere in Bessarabia awaiting for a RETURN TO SENDER stamp.

[Steve]

Good news. Another dealer has one for sale. And he's located only about 20 miles from my address. And what's even better: He's asking considerably less than that other dealer. He's sent me a couple of photographs, and except for the grille cloth, that's not in pristine shape anymore, it looks good. Of course I'm going to check it out in person first. He's asking EUR 575,- for it, that's about GBP 442,-.

It looks refinished to me on the outside. Note the colour of the turned feet and the inside compared to the rest of the outside?

[Steve]

Anyway, due to the initial problem being due to Ebay I filed a claim and was refunded my money. The record is still MIA.

Three or four years ago I bought some records from a seller in the UK, they never arrived and I got my refund throught Ebay and forgot about it. About one year later they were delivered with some interesting info on the box: it had been sent to Ecuador, from where the post office returned to RM in the UK because Luxembourg is not in Ecuador, and then eventually it was resent to me. The discs arrived in good shape, so I contacted the seller (who had been already refunded, I guess by ebay) and sent him a photo of the box as it was quite amusing at the end. So don't lose your hope, Steve, your discs may be somewhere in Bessarabia awaiting for a RETURN TO SENDER stamp.

Anything is possible these days I suppose but the Royal Mail coming good on a "promise", now THAT is very very unlikely.

[bart1927]

Good news. Another dealer has one for sale. And he's located only about 20 miles from my address. And what's even better: He's asking considerably less than that other dealer. He's sent me a couple of photographs, and except for the grille cloth, that's not in pristine shape anymore, it looks good. Of course I'm going to check it out in person first. He's asking EUR 575,- for it, that's about GBP 442,-.

It looks refinished to me on the outside. Note the colour of the turned feet and the inside compared to the rest of the outside?

Now that you mention it. I initially thought it was caused by the lighting. The outside looks like oak, and the inside looks more like mahogany. That's a real shame, because I've received several offers in the mean time, but almost all of them are above the price range you mentioned (GBP 500-600), and for the price this one seemed like a really good deal.