Kris,
"I have been given no proof that anything was sent."
We gave you your tracking number countless times: here it is again at LJ664423272US. You've stated on multiple occasions that we provided no tracking information to you, and this is quite simply an outright lie. Every order, even uninsured parcels, carry tracking information which is always entered into our systems and transmitted to each customer instantly as your order is shipped.
"They strung me along for seven months, with half promises of paying out of their own pockets to cover it but never committing to anything."
We were very communicative with you on a non-stop basis, but despite this you proceeded to send me far too many messages which were all responded to graciously, and at horrendous times of day for us(such as 4:30AM Sunday) in the USA, in an effort to provide you the best customer service we could:
[Sunday, October 28, 2012] [04:22:40 AM] anyway, i'm still wrangling with my insurance company, they're giving me a hassle about covering your parcel because the value changed over their arbitrary limit between when it was sent and when it didn't show up
[Sunday, October 28, 2012] [04:23:22 AM] in essence, they're saying that because it changed in value by X% they won't cover it, even for the original value... so i'm harassing them on the phone to see if i can do anything about it
An excerpt from the insurance company in question:
"In looking at my notes, we spoke over the phone about this on 10/25/2012. At that time, I explained that the shipment exceeded your per parcel limit for USPS First Class International packages."
The date correlations between this excerpt and the next should be noted. I was still willing to cover a good portion portion out of pocket at that point, despite nonstop messages on IRC:
[Thursday, November 01, 2012] [10:51:26 PM] hey, any updates?
[Saturday, November 03, 2012] [07:02:50 PM] ping
[Sunday, November 04, 2012] [09:15:15 PM] ping
[Monday, November 05, 2012] [02:49:34 AM] ping
[Monday, November 05, 2012] [05:38:57 PM] ping
Excerpt:
[Monday, November 05, 2012] [05:41:26 PM] but in the mean time I'm still hassling with the insurance company, who's adamant about not covering this parcel
[Monday, November 05, 2012] [05:46:50 PM] are they final on that or is it still ongoing?
[Monday, November 05, 2012] [05:49:35 PM] they seem pretty final, but I'm still hassling them to see what can be done
[Monday, November 05, 2012] [05:55:08 PM] Ok. I'd appreciate if you could let me know how this looks like ending as soon as you know. I'm getting out of mining once block reward halves and was going to go with bullion to cash out as it's less hassle than Mt Gox. Need to decide if it's viable.
[Monday, November 05, 2012] [05:56:27 PM] absolutely, and if I can't get them to properly cover the parcel I'll quite possibly end up covering a portion of the loss out of pocket in replacements
Through all of this, I was happy to communicate with you, but it quickly became obvious you were attempting to bully us into replacing the cost of your items out-of-pocket with the attitude that it was an obligation, as opposed to a kindness.
While I explained to you that I'd likely do so, you send me continual messages on IRC to the point that it appeared scripted. I'd sit down at my computer, move my mouse, and instantly see another message from you. This was generally multiple times per day, for months, in addition to phone calls and emails at a similar frequency.
A small excerpt from my log follows:
[Sunday, December 16, 2012] [12:36:02 AM] ping
[Sunday, December 16, 2012] [02:02:10 PM] ping
[Sunday, December 16, 2012] [10:19:15 PM] ping
[Tuesday, December 18, 2012] [01:35:47 AM] ping
[Tuesday, December 18, 2012] [06:43:16 PM] ping
[Thursday, December 20, 2012] [03:24:48 AM] ping
[Thursday, December 20, 2012] [07:15:32 PM] ping
Eventually, you managed to use up all the patience I had with trying to provide you support, and through continual harassment managed to dissuade me from paying for your order out of my own pocket. When I started this battle with the insurance company in question over covering your parcel, I went into it with the intent of covering AT LEAST half of your order out of sheer kindness, and was considering whether I could afford to cover 100% of the cost when you started to continually harass me. When it didn't stop for weeks, and then months, I became very quickly opposed to covering your shipment from my own pocket.
- The insurance company obviously has something in their T&Cs which states that if the value of an item changes by a certain percent or value, then they won't cover it. Coinabul should reasonably have known about this.
Having insurance coverage on bullion shipments, let alone worldwide coverage, while being able to provide shipping service at a reasonable cost to customers is a nearly impossible challenge. Carrier level insurance doesn't even cover bullion, and if it appears to do so the likelihood of them making good on any submitted claim is slim to none. To this end, successfully structuring international insurance on bullion parcels is a difficult thing to achieve, and we take every possible step to remain in compliance with our insurers' terms such that each parcel is covered to the best of our ability, but ultimately the discretion of whether to pay an insurance claim lies with the underwriter. Considering that almost no insurance companies are willing to cover bullion transit, the very few who do are wary of fraudulent claims. The insurance industry is wrought with fraudulent insurance claims, and many millions if not billions of dollars per year are lost by underwriters to fraudulent claims. While we generally have great success with insuring our parcels(you are our only rejected claim, in fact, throughout the entire history of insuring thousands of individual parcels at Coinabul) the insurance company must make the final determination as to the validity of each customer's claim and appraise the legitimacy.
- Silver is a volatile market. Coinabul should have reasonably expected the price of silver to fluctuate between taking out the insurance and a possible claim.
In terms of actual value, I will give you a real-time example. On a shipment in our disbursement queue, there is an actual $143 silver cost, and we've insured for $228, for a massive 60% buffer zone above silver spot price in order to ensure that spot price fluctuations in transit do not prove to be an issue. This costs us substantially more per month in insurance fees than we would otherwise incurr simply to ensure that spot price volatility proves to be no issue.
- The insurance policy is between Coinabul and the insurer. It has nothing to do with me.
The insurance policy has everything to do with you: you are the one who stands to benefit from a fraudulent claim, nobody else. We did our part and sent your product to you, and insured it under our policy within the limits set forth by the insurance company. If the insurance company refuses to cover the parcel, there's nothing we can do about it except harass them, which we did.
It's quite clear how you yourself contributed to the lack of coverage in this situation. When the insurance company refused to cover your shipment, and I offered to do so, you didn't show so much as a grain of appreciation...instead, you wrote a script to harass me on IRC. After seeing you post about us being non-communicative with you on bitcointalk even after responding to your ostensibly scripted semi-communication, there was no way I was willing to cover your shipment out of my own pocket. We send out millions of dollars worth of products, and expecting us to be responsible for out-of-pocket coverage in the case of an insurance company's refusal to do so is simply unreasonable.
Let's do some math, shall we?
So, assume 17oz of silver costs you $500. You send us Bitcoins, and by the time we're finished processing your shipment we've made $0.50-$0.75/oz. So, sum total $8.50-$12.75 give or take. For us to earn the cost of covering your order out of pocket, we must process the same order 59 times on the high end, 40 times on the low end. You can see very quickly that this makes it impossible to simply absorb the cost of sending a replacement product, especially if you consider that the products we are sending are liquid. We aren't sending a DVD player that depreciates when you sell it to your friend after it's in your hands, we are sending a highly valuable commodity which makes it quite easy for people to defraud our insured shipping process. To call for a scammer tag as we continually deliver Ferrari's worth of bullion to customers each month is simply ludicrous.
Although I've been quite clear with you in the past and I'm not quite sure as to the goal of your continued fabrications excepting a desire to besmirch, hopefully this helps you understand the circumstances a little more clearly.
-Jay
