When Linda Takvorian visited her family in Massachusetts last year, she found two large flowerpots that were perfect for her home back in California. Since the oversized ceramic planters didn’t fit in the overhead bin on her flight, she did what any sensible person would do: She headed to the local UPS Store to ship them back to L.A.
Takvorian paid $377 to have the pots professionally packed, insured, and shipped out to Playa Del Rey. But when the box arrived, the fragile contents looked more like a jigsaw puzzle for masochists. One pot was shattered.
“I tried to file a claim online,” she says. “But UPS told me I had to file a claim directly with the UPS Store.”
And that’s where her claim itself shattered into a million little pieces.
Her case raises several important questions:
- Does a corporate office have a responsibility to step in when a franchise fails to honor a promise?
- What happens to a consumer’s claim when the employee who promised a refund is fired?
- How can you prove you filed a claim within the window of liability when all your conversations were over the phone?
Can the A-Team—our legendary advocacy team—repair this mess? Let’s find out.
“The person who gave you that information has been fired”
Takvorian’s husband, Tabby Stone, took over the heavy lifting of the dispute. Stone is a long-time reader and supporter of this site.
He contacted that UPS store in Belmont, Mass., and sent six photos of the carnage. An employee assured him they would file the claim and that a full refund for the merchandise and shipping would arrive within six to eight weeks.
Stone waited. And waited. The six-to-eight-week window slammed shut. After four months, his mailbox remained empty.
When Stone started calling the UPS store again, the story changed. A manager told him the employee who had promised the refund was fired for giving bad information. Since that employee apparently didn’t file the paperwork properly, the store owner was now only willing to offer $100 as a “courtesy” because it was too late to file a claim with corporate UPS.
That’s when Stone got stuck in the franchise shuffle. He contacted UPS corporate, which told him to contact UPS Store corporate. UPS Store corporate told him they couldn’t find a record of the claim and, without a paper trail of written correspondence from the store, they were essentially powerless to help.
Stone was caught in a loop of bureaucratic “not my problem” that would make a DMV clerk envious. But he was not out of options.
Does a “fired employee” excuse hold water?
When a company tells you that the person you spoke with no longer works there, it’s often a subtle way of saying, “Your agreement went out the door with their desk plant.” But in the world of consumer advocacy, we call this the legacy liability.
A business is a single legal entity regardless of its internal HR drama. If an agent of the company—even one who later gets the boot—makes a promise while acting in their official capacity, the company is almost always on the hook for it. In Takvorian and Stone’s case, the store admitted the employee gave bad information. But that’s an internal training failure, not a consumer’s problem.
The bigger issue here is the window of liability. Shipping companies have strict timelines for damage claims. By the time the Belmont store finished its internal investigation and fired the employee, those clocks had run out.
This is why the Elliott Method of dispute resolution works: get it in writing—and get it early.
Why the franchise dodge is a consumer nightmare
The UPS Store locations are independently owned and operated franchises. That’s a favorite defense for corporate offices. It allows them to collect brand royalties while washing their hands of actual customer service when the wheels come off the UPS truck.
Stone tried to escalate his case to the chief sales and solutions officer at UPS. Her office’s response was a classic: Because franchises manage their own claims, you’ll have to reach out to the Belmont store directly.
When he reached the Belmont store, it asked for written correspondence proving the store agreed to pay. But because the store manager hadn’t put anything in writing, Stone only had an automated email reply to prove he’d ever reached out.
It seemed the case was destined for the $100 “take it or leave it” pile. Stone had the photos, the receipt, and a valid tracking number (which the corporate office initially claimed was invalid because of a typo in the thread), but he lacked the one thing the company demanded: a written confession.
How the A-Team handled this case
Stone reached out to our team after weeks of back-and-forth between UPS corporate and the UPS store. After reviewing his detailed timeline and the photos of the shattered pottery, I decided to take this straight to the top. I pointed out that Stone had followed the store’s instructions, was promised a refund, and was now being shortchanged because of an internal error.
Within 24 hours of my intervention, the “unsolvable” became very solvable.
A UPS representative called Stone.
“I would like to see if our office can resolve this matter with you,” he said. “I would like to offer you a goodwill payment of $474 to cover the damaged items as well as the shipping charges that you paid.”
That worked for Stone—and for us.
Lessons learned from the shattered pot saga
Stone’s persistence eventually paid off, but he could have saved himself months of headaches by doing a few things differently:
- Demand a claim number immediately. Never hang up the phone or leave a store without a confirmation number or a case ID. If they say it’s being processed, ask for the email confirmation of that process.
- Remember the 3-day rule. If you don’t receive a written confirmation of a verbal promise within 72 hours, send a “summary of our conversation” email to the store. This creates the paper trail the company will later claim doesn’t exist.
- Don’t accept the first “no.” Companies count on you giving up. Stone’s mistake was waiting four months to follow up. Follow up every two weeks.
- Use executive contacts. I list the contact information for UPS on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.
In the end, UPS did the right thing, even if it took a nudge from a consumer advocate to remind it that its brand is only as good as the promises made in its stores—even after the store fires the employee who caused the problem.
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