Just got off the phone with UPS regarding additional shipping charges tacked onto a bike I shipped to a CR member. I had them try to charge me for a box that went from a fee of around $45.00 to over $108.00 total due to it being classified as oversize. I informed them that I had taken pictures of the box as it was packaged with a measuring tape on each dimension, had my customer save the box, and by the way, it was a Cannondale box that states right on it that it meets UPS requirements as being 130 inches or less. Bottom line, I'm getting the charges reversed. Since most of us have digital cameras, my advise is to take these types of pictures on anything you ship displaying the shipping label in the photo, and include a set of the photos in the box to the buyer. I even take pictures of the bike or frame in it's packaged and wrapped condition both before and after it's been put in the box. This does a couple of things: First, you have proof of the condition of the product and the box before it got into the shipper hands. Second, it supplies the receiver with proof of the original condition of the box upon reaching it's destination. Pretty hard to deny a claim when you have this sort of photographic evidence. I have been told that the big two shippers that most of us use, use laser scanners to scan the packages. I am going to assume that these scanners are based on a 90 degree scan angle. Too make a box that is at the upper limit of their standard shipping rates go into an oversize classification only requires some handler to drop or crush the box in such a way that it becomes a trapezoid. Once that happens, you are oversize. This is why pictures with a measuring tape are critical. I have successfully challenged several charges by taking these additional steps. For what it's worth.
Roger MacPhail, Park City, Utah, USA