Last year, at the US Amateur Nationals in Atlanta, I decided to ship my Szamboti to the tournament via Fed Ex. I sent it standard overnight on Wed night, with the idea that I would fly in Thurs night, pick up my cue and play Friday with it. I get off the plane, get the rental car and drive to the Fed Ex location, which was an all night Kinkos/Fed ex store. I get there and my cue is not there. They do not know where it is. Come back in the morning they tell me.
So morning comes and I go there and the cue is not there. Come back at 1 they tell me. I go to the tournament and borrow a cue to play with from a friend (thank you Bobby Hicks!). I win my first match double hill and jump in the car and haul ass to Fed ex. I get there and they tell me they don't have my cue and dont know where it is. The attitude they have is that they could care less where my cue is and really if its not there, then I need to call the National Fedex number and figure it out. Go stand over there mister and get out of the main line, we got customers here..cant you see? The national line tells me they are investigating and will call me. I lose my next match and Fed ex call me to tell me that they found my cue and that its in another town hundreds of miles away. I can go get it there now or I can wait and they will bring it to me here in Atlanta tommorrow.
Saturday rolls around and I am at Fed ex again at 10am. No cue. We dont know why its not here, sorry but come back at 11. No cue at 11. They eventually call me in the afternoon and tell me they have it. I get there and the box I shipped it in looks like it went 15 rounds with the Samsonite commercial gorillas. I packed the cue for WWIII so thankfully nothing happened to it.
The thing that gets me is that the cue had 7.5 or 10k insurance , I cant remember now the exact amt, but that nobody..not the local fedex, not the drivers, not the national office really gave two shits if the cue was lost or not. For all of them, this was just no big deal and if there was going to be any kind of payout for insurance, well no big deal that crap happens all the time.
I will never ship my Szamboti again like that. Not that I think it will get lost, I just don't want to ever have to go through that experience again, especially when I had taken two days off of work and was spending 4 days away from my family to commit to a pool tournament. I got drilled at the tournament too, so overall the experience sucked.
I've often been asked..."what are cue parts?" I believe it helps greatly to delete the word "pool" from the custom form.
May also help to cut down on anyone's thoughts of possible theft. Many who would possibly steal a "pool cue"....may not even read "repaired cue parts" and have it register as pool cue.
I have shipped to all of Jay's above listed countries and a few more with no problems. Declaring it low also helps with any funds the customer may have to pay in their country as well.
