Yuki wrote:No local option for that machine. And I'm not sure you can guarantee "you'd get a machine that wasn't damaged."

This wasn't mere "air turbulence".

All dealers would mostly use sea freight which is much more gentler on the machines, I've had zero damage over the years using sea. A freight forwarder using air freight is the next best and you rarely get any damage either. Fed Ex, DHL etc..are in a class of their own.

The best advice was given before, buy within Japan. You might not get a Rocket R60 or a GS3 but at least you will have a warranty and support. Once you import yourself you are really out on your own.

I wonder if anybody has ever moved to the Seattle area just to be close to the source for great machines and beans.

Rocky

With regard to Japanese Customs being liable for damage: not likely.

As Lily Tomlin once said (speaking as Ernestine, the phone operator): "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."

I had a machine delivered once that was right from the factory in Italy, a pseudo prototype. It was double boxed, packed with foam to keep it from moving in the inner and double box. UPS managed to bang it so hard, the frame was actually bent. Big machines are best shipped double boxed and strapped to a pallet.

For anyone who is curious ... this was resolved completely to our financial satisfaction.

We rather quickly opened a PayPal dispute over the damage, and PayPal (rather quickly) decided that if we returned the machine they would charge back the seller and we would get a full refund. Return shipping would not be the responsibility of the seller.

After some negotiation, Fedex agreed to return the machine at no charge.

So ... no machine right now. But no financial damage.

Fedex hired an independent "surveyor" (like a claims adjuster I guess) to come to our home and assess any responsibility. That person decided that it was shared liability between the seller and Fedex, but with most of the liability belonging to Fedex. We were not privy to the exact percentages, because the written report that the surveyor wrote was only for Fedex, and we did not receive a copy. We were given copies of all the photographs taken at that time, however, with annotations by the surveyor.

The surveyor's stated opinion to me (and later clarified in emails) was that, yes, clearly the box had been mishandled. (Obviously so.) But his opinion was that either La Marzocco or the seller had not completely protected the machine from "vertical" (front to back re the machine) movement. Horizontal movement was prevented by the large wooden blocks attached to the sides of the pallet, but there were no such blocks preventing the vertical shift when the package was (probably) dropped. So he felt the seller or LM had some responsibility for the shift, which caused the rupture and damaged the paddle and control lever.

We were happy the machine had shifted and ruptured the box, actually.

The ruptured box and banged up paddle and lever were obvious. Had the machine not shifted, however, there still would have been internal damage, we believe, from the impact. In addition to the easy to see damage, closer inspection showed that the chrome bolts that attach the wooden sides (ours was customized) to the GS3 were slightly off center, likely the result of a violence of the impact. They were not wildly off center, so not something one might have noticed immediately, particularly if there was no reason to take the sides off right away. But they were no doubt off center.

Had the box not ruptured, the slightly "accordioned" corner where it impacted might have given a clue to problems. But it was a rather subtle sign of impact that was only clearly obvious because one would look for it immediately after seeing the box rupture. We could have accepted that machine, not realizing that it had been badly damaged (we have to assume) internally. So rather perversely, we're happy the machine shifted and the box ruptured and the damage was glaringly obvious from the beginning.

Some pics. One shows the degree of movement forward and left, and the other shows the side panels shifted. Last is the paddle with lever bending,
and you can also see the wooden blocks that prevented side to side movement,
that the surveyor thought should have been forward and aft as well.

Yuki wrote:Fortunately, maybe, I signed "unable to inspect at delivery" (recommended by La Marzocco in fact on their site) because the delivery people were in a hurry. Within seconds of sliding it on a throw rug into the kitchen, I saw the damage.

I feel really bad for you, Yuki! I've had a few such problems over the years, but we never had anything this bad. Being without the machine you wanted so much because of the carelessness of others must cause you some serious unhappiness. I hope you get your new machine soon and enjoy it so much that you barely remember this episode!

I do have a question that may help the rest of us if we ever run into a similar situation: why did you accept it from Fedex without at least looking over the entire box first? If a delivery person told me he or she was in such a hurry that I couldn't inspect even the outside of what was delivered before the package was left with me, I'd have refused delivery. If that person gave me any problem at all, I'd have refused to sign anything, gotten his or her name and ID number, and called Fedex immediately to report the event to a supervisor. I'd also have tried to get cellphone pics of as much of the box as I could - that package is too heavy & bulky to quickly pick it up and carry it back to the truck.

This machine appeared to be poorly packaged for overseas travel. It appears that it was not even double boxed let alone foam lined.
As stated earlier the machine was at the least sent on a wooden pallette.

A fine line between excess improperly handling or poor packaging. In this case protrusion of the machine handles and other parts from the box indicates poor packaging on the sender's end.

I recall your previous escapade with the R60. Some sort of omen pointing to local buying when it comes to fragile heavy hardware going forward.

Got your money back but I'm sure you would have preferred a new working machine instead.

Saga continues. Best of luck.

bluesman wrote:I feel really bad for you, Yuki! I've had a few such problems over the years, but we never had anything this bad.

I do have a question that may help the rest of us if we ever run into a similar situation: why did you accept it from Fedex without at least looking over the entire box first?

Thanks for your kind words.

I kind of looked over the box, but I could have been a bit more insistent/thorough in hindsight for sure. Japanese houses are small, and our foyer is narrow, with a bit of a "choke point" between the foyer and the main hallway. When they brought the box inside, they placed it between them and me, with (surprise, surprise) the rupture on their side, box right smack in the middle of that "choke point". It's a BIG box, and difficult to squeeze around it in that location. What I could see without climbing over the long side of the box or trying to squeeze around it looked okay. You know ... who'd think they wouldn't even *mention* that there was an obvious hole in the package with part of the cargo sticking out? Pretty rude, IMHO. So I saw what I could clearly see, and I asked if they would wait for me to open and inspect. They pleaded "in a hurry", so I signed, but thankfully with the "unable to inspect" caveat.

My lesson for sure: "Don't be quite so eager to rip open your new toy." I just never imagined this kind of thing. I expected it to be okay. Of course, I very much *wanted* it to be okay, too. From what I could quickly and conveniently see, it looked okay. But it wasn't. I should have climbed over the box or squeezed around it. Moreover, I should have simply said, "Sorry about your time, but you are NOT getting ANY signature until I'm completely convinced, via an opening and inspection, that this expensive and potentially delicate piece of machinery is in good shape, and if you leave without the signature that is in fact required, that's simply going to be on you; so make yourselves comfortable for a few minutes or longer while I decide if this is completely okay, and would you like a cup of instant coffee while you wait?"

I'll never make that mistake again. But in the end of course, despite my "mistakes", I had zero liability in this matter, and I was able to convince everyone involved that such was the reality. Fortunately, we don't live in a world where, "You signed, sucker; too bad!" is the final determinant of things. At least in Japan, life is not yet that nasty.

A bit strange, really, to my way of thinking. Fedex had to know. But they handed it off to a subcontractor for final delivery anyway. Subcontractor had to know, too. What were all these people thinking? That this was just going to be okay? Even if they didn't know an espresso paddle from a canoe paddle (likely), something was sticking out of a hole in the box, and that something was clearly marred/damaged. There were only 2 possible outcomes. Either 1) I'm going to flat out refuse the delivery, which I clearly would have done if I'd seen it, or 2) I'm going to raise quite a fuss if at first I don't notice, which was what ultimately happened. The second case, however, in which they manage to drop off the package, get a "provisional" signature, and "run away", requires them to make yet *another* trip to my home to pick up the cargo, and to repackage/reseal the cargo to the pallet, because it was unsealed/detached by the insurance guy.

It was never going to "just be okay".

Fedex ultimately did right by me (returning it at their cost), so I don't want to ding them too badly. However, I did have to mumble 小権利裁判所 (kokenrisaibansho), which is Japanese for "small claims court", after which things seemed to have gotten settled as quickly as I thought should have happened before I indicated my resolve if it came to that. But in the end, I realize much more now than before that these shipping companies simply want to move as much as they can as quickly as they can, which is fine, it's a business of course, but that -- up to some manageable average amount -- they expect damage, they know about damage, and it's all actually que sera sera for them. I will never view them quite the same way again.

Cheers

redbone wrote:This machine appeared to be poorly packaged for overseas travel. It appears that it was not even double boxed let alone foam lined.
As stated earlier the machine was at the least sent on a wooden pallette.

A fine line between excess improperly handling or poor packaging. In this case protrusion of the machine handles and other parts from the box indicates poor packaging on the sender's end.

I recall your previous escapade with the R60. Some sort of omen pointing to local buying when it comes to fragile heavy hardware going forward.

Got your money back but I'm sure you would have preferred a new working machine instead.

Saga continues. Best of luck.

Thanks. Yes, we thought the interior packaging was insufficient, actually. It seems the only thing wrapped around the group, which with that periscope manometer and paddle is an obvious potential problem spot, was a very thin foam wrap, only about 1/2 cm thick. It was perforated in several places from the impact(s). It was totally insufficient to provide protection from anything beyond a pretty gentle bump. This was much more than that, and it failed.

I wonder who makes these packing decisions. Clearly, the machines are sent from Firenze to the dealer, and they (mostly, I guess) survive. I assumed, and may have been way too sanguine in my assumption, that the dealer would use the same pallet, the same everything, that LM uses. It was an LM marked box, to be sure.

Yes, I much prefer this would have gone off without trouble.

Cheers

I find it very difficult to believe that LM doesn't pack the machines to prevent the kind of movement your machine experienced. With tens of thousands of machines shipped all over the world, surely they've optimized the packaging by now.

The box is under a bunch of stuff in my basement, but my recollection is that there was very thick foam padding around the group of my GS/3 AV, and it doesn't even have an exposed lever.

It seems much more likely that the machine was incorrectly repacked by the entity that customized it.

I think even stock machines are vulnerable to that mistake. I wouldn't be surprised if part of LM's relationship with the dealer and/or distributor is that each machine is to be unpacked, tested and adjusted (bypass, expansion valve, etc.) before sale. That way, they'll know if there was any damage in shipment from Italy and which entity is liable.

It's certainly easy to make a mistake in repackaging if one person unpacks and another person repacks days or weeks later.