Couriers for bass guitars - recommendations?

[la bam]

UPS always been great for me.

[Woodinblack]

You can have trouble with anyone, its more regional than company wide. I have never had trouble with DHL or parcelforce, i have with hermes and yodel. I can't use UPS because my wife does all our deliveries and won't deal with their racist driver, so I normally end up using DHL or Parcelforce through one of the brokers

[bubinga5]

Does anyone know which companies cover guitars with their insurance.? No point in paying insurance if it doesn't cover it.

[Woodinblack]

The eurosender terms explicitly cover musical instruments. There was also another one someone mentioned - overland or something, they had a specific musical instrument clause.

[coasterbass]

I am in the midst of a claim against Parcelforce, who I engaged through Interparcel.  They collected my Jazz bass that I had sold via this forum, took it to the depot, and lost it.  I have had to fight tooth and nail for them to recognise that it is lost - nigh on 4 weeks from posting.  I have had to provide photos of the packaging, the case, the guitar - i even sent them the cctv of the guy collecting it, and this is before the claim process starts.

I chose Parcelforce because I trusted them more than some of the others, but I wouldn't touch them ever again.   Interparcel, by contrast, have been engaged and helpful so a thumbs up to them (so far)

[lownote]

On 02/09/2020 at 15:29, roger said:

Do not under any circumstances use Hermes, biggest bunch of monkey’s out there........by miles! Otherwise DHL, UPS, interparcel. 

I used to think that but I used Hermes for a big flurry of low value eBay activity recently and they lost just one (very) small package and were pretty professional about the follow-up.  TBH I've had issues with Herpes, ParcelFarce, DHL, UPS.  I usually go through Interparcel. And never had a total major failure with any of them.  In fact the worse offender statistically for me for slowness and loss is Thomann. They've lost a couple of packages and an amp arrived with the box so stove in I can only assume their carriers were having a caber tossing contest with it. But they're all a ton better than they were a few years ago. 

Edited September 17, 2020 by lownote12

[funkydoug]

I've had mixed experiences such that I firmly believe it to be something that is inherently risky. The difference between courier firms in general is much smaller than the difference between individual drivers. As in, it'd fail an ANOVA test (a jest for the statisticians). Unfortunately, there is no way to know which driver you'll get, or what mood they'll be in.

Honestly the only way to reduce the risk of it ending badly is not insurance but very and I mean extremely careful and robust packaging. For an instrument a hard case is essential I reckon. 

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by funkydoug