In a message dated 12/27/2006 9:35:05 A.M. Mountain Standard Time, rich-mail at octoxol.com writes: Well, your post office experiences mirror mine. I have had a claim rejected even when the packaging was more than adequate. I will add this little hint though, if it is something you really want to arrive in one piece then send it through REGISTERED mail. You will not be disappointed. The best approach is to pay for any eBay auction through PayPal with a credit card. This way you do have a big hammer over the seller. I tend to not do business with sellers who will not accept PayPal. I suspect their refusal is more the "buyer protection" than the additional charges. Rich Although I will agree that in most cases the USPS will be hard to deal with, I have had a surprisingly good experience with the USPS. I received a Triumph though the USPS and the seller left the motor on the case and SURPRISE!!! the case came broken into more than a few pieces! Obviously, this was most distressing but I did not want to leave the Triumph with the USPS. So I took the case to an antique furniture repair place and received a written estimate for the repair. The shipping box was shown to the local post office and was deemed to be adequate. Of course, we all know that shipping an intact Triumph is stupid, to say the least. Nevertheless, I was reimbursed for the entire repair and my Triumph case is just fine now! So the USPS is not totally bad, is it? ---Art Heller