{"id":24135,"date":"2020-09-22T13:44:56","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T17:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=24135"},"modified":"2020-09-22T13:44:56","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T17:44:56","slug":"students-still-missing-items","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2020\/09\/22\/students-still-missing-items\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Still Missing Items from Pack, Store, Ship Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/897739012&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\" title=\"wtbu\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wtbu<\/a> \u00b7 <a href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/wtbu\/students-still-missing-items-from-pack-store-ship-program\" title=\"Students Still Missing Items from Pack, Store, Ship Program\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Students Still Missing Items from Pack, Store, Ship Program<\/a><\/div>\n<p>By Grace Ferguson<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has been over a month since fall move-in started, but some students are still missing items that BU stored on their behalf with UPS over the summer. Even those who could reclaim their belongings have faced delays, or opened their boxes to find things broken.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Students reported that the third-party movers didn\u2019t use any packing materials to box everything up. One student said her TV was wrapped in her own comforter rather than bubble wrap.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To get reimbursed for lost or damaged items, students can file a claim with National Student Services Inc., the insurance company that BU contracted with. But the company asks students to provide receipts for every lost item, and a police report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sarah, a student who asked that WTBU not use her real name, lived in an on-campus apartment last semester. She said she got most of her personal items back, but all of her common area items have disappeared.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After repeatedly reaching out to BU and UPS, Sarah found out that there was no common area storage contract for her apartment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt just makes me wonder where all the stuff went,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sarah is missing all of her kitchen items, including all of her plates, cups, and knives. She also lost everything she had in the front closet, like her winter coat and boots.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In all, she says her losses add up to about $1,100 to $1,200.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019m actually not as upset as I thought I would be,\u201d Sarah said. \u201cI\u2019m more upset that it seems like it\u2019s gonna be difficult to replace things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After digging around for all of her receipts, Sarah said she could only account for about $400 worth of items, or less than half the value of what she\u2019s lost. Right now, she\u2019s trying to see if the insurance company will reimburse her without proof of ownership.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think the process of getting the insurance money is gonna be very challenging too,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sarah isn\u2019t the only one without this kind of documentation. All of the students interviewed for this story were missing receipts for at least some items.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFor a lot of items, it\u2019s just impossible to maintain physical receipts when you buy things physically,\u201d said Stefan L\u00fctschg, another student who lived on campus last semester. \u201cFor items that were purchased online and were sent over to me, that\u2019s a little bit easier, but that doesn\u2019t account for a lot of the items that were missing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">L\u00fctschg waited for a month to reclaim two boxes of clothing after he picked up the rest of his items.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He had nine boxes listed on his storage contract, but when he moved in, UPS only gave him seven. L\u00fctschg was mostly missing clothing, but they were his most expensive pieces\u2014he estimated they were worth about $1,300.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When L\u00fctschg first spoke to WTBU, he was still waiting for UPS to locate those two boxes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI have no idea what to expect anymore,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">L\u00fctschg wrote in an email that, after speaking to WTBU, UPS was able to find the rest of his things. He had been waiting since August 19.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neil Singh Bedi is another student who faced delays. UPS had been delivering items throughout the summer. But Bedi only got his belongings delivered to his home in California this month.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One factor in the delay might have been that Bedi\u2019s items were accidentally marked for storage, even though he specified he wanted them shipped.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt was a very big task to pack up an entire school\u2019s worth of belongings,\u201d Bedi said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think\u2014and I can\u2019t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself on this\u2014I was never in a place where I was like, \u2018I need my stuff and I need it now.\u2019 It was more of, \u2018Can you just please be responsible and get my stuff back to me in the best way, shape, or form given the situation we\u2019re in?\u2019 And that wasn\u2019t the case either.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of Bedi\u2019s items were damaged because of the way they were packed. A ceramic bowl was wrapped in his down coat, and not only did the bowl crack, but the shards ripped the coat open. Some of his plates and cups also broke, tearing some other clothing he had.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cEven, like, all of my clothing was just kind of thrown [in]\u2014you can very clearly tell [the packers] just picked things up and threw them in the boxes,\u201d Bedi said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among the things Bedi is missing are a TI-84 calculator and one winter boot\u2014not a pair, just one boot. He said the lost and damaged items are worth at least $1,000.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was also a shoebox of family photos, old letters, and other mementos that didn\u2019t arrive. In August, Bedi\u2019s Residence Life office called him to tell him that the movers had left it behind. The office staff wanted to check with him before they threw it away.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bedi told them he wanted it mailed to him. But when he called the office later to follow up, no one could tell him what happened to the shoebox.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cMy great grandmother passed away a couple years ago, and it has photos of me with her, and those are the original photos\u2014they can\u2019t be replaced, you know?\u201d Bedi said. \u201cAnd those are some of the only living memories I have of her, and they matter to me a lot, and now they\u2019re God-knows-where.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bedi did receive some items that belonged to his roommate. He\u2019s still talking to UPS about how to send them back.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe packing, shipping and storing of students\u2019 belongings was a first for the University,\u201d BU Spokesman Colin Riley wrote in an email. \u201cMissing items may have been misplaced or mispacked, a common experience for anyone who has packed up a room or moved a household.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>wtbu \u00b7 Students Still Missing Items from Pack, Store, Ship Program By Grace Ferguson &nbsp; It has been over a month since fall move-in started, but some students are still missing items that BU stored on their behalf with UPS over the summer. Even those who could reclaim their belongings have faced delays, or opened [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18157,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1597,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24136,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24135\/revisions\/24136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}