Photographer Accuses UPS Store of Throwing His Leica in the Trash
In July, PetaPixel spoke with photographer Dave Herring, whose $10,500 Leica went missing at a UPS Store. Now, he has given his opinion on what he believes happened to the precious camera.
Herring had gone to his local UPS Store in the Bay Area and dropped the M11-P Safari off with them so it could be repaired by Leica. He didn’t think anything of it until about a week later when he checked the tracking number which said the “label had been created but UPS never received the box.”
UPS Stores are not the same as UPS. Instead, the stores are owned by individuals who carry licenses to handle UPS packages.
Herring kicked up a fuss about the incident, calling the police and making a popular video about it on his YouTube channel. In an update video, Herring expressed his frustration at UPS as he tries to turn the page on the sorry saga.
“They conference-called me to tell me that their investigation was ‘inconclusive.’ Like, they could not conclude what actually happened with my Leica,” Herring says.
“Their official position was, ‘packages go missing every day, and if you want UPS Store to be held responsible for those packages that go missing, you need to buy our insurance’.”
Herring says by the end of the phone call, he was angry at UPS, which effectively washed its hands of the case while telling Herring that he should have bought the insurance. According to Herring, UPS offered to cover an “insurance premium increase” should he incur one next year. “Honestly, that just felt like a slap in the face,” he adds.
The photographer says he has no intention to use a UPS Store ever again, despite hearing from other UPS Store owners around the country who sympathize with him and are shocked at how the situation has been handled. Nevertheless, Herring has important advice for photographers.
“If you’re watching this and you’re shipping cameras or shipping high-end gear, I would seriously evaluate who you are shipping through,” he says. “I think it’s critical to know who owns the UPS Store you are intending to use. I would go in and have a face-to-face with them, get to know them, until there is a level of trust.”
It is a conundrum for photographers who often have to mail high-value equipment. And as Herring points out, there are horror stories attached to all couriers, not just UPS.
“Short of you getting on a plane with your item and taking it where it needs to go, nothing is safe,” he adds.
While Herring is monitoring eBay, Craigslist, and other marketplaces, he doesn’t expect to ever see his Leica M11-P Safari ever again — because he believes it was thrown in the trash.
“I believe it was stolen at the UPS Store because it never made it on the truck,” Herring says. “It seems like it never left the store. The way the owners treated me and responded to me leads me to believe that there is a conspiracy to cover up what they saw on camera or what they have internal knowledge of.”
Herring thinks that whoever the thief was, they never expected it to get so hot; the police got involved, Herring drew a lot of attention to it, and it was even investigated by a local TV station.
Image credits: Header image via Leica
