It was during a visit to his mother's home in New Mexico last summer that Timothy Reddinger found his grandmother's set of fine china.
His mother was downsizing and offered to give him the extravagant dinnerware.
Reddinger was thrilled. The century-old Thun-brand set, although missing some pieces, was beautifully ornate, with pink rose insets, gold trim and intricate lattice work.
It was nicer than the china he and his wife had gotten for their wedding, and it had historical significance.
"This has the family heritage, so we wanted to make sure it gets used," he said.
There was, however, the seemingly simple matter of getting the china to his home in Elk Grove Village.
"We had traveled there by train. The train (company) said we could take it back, but they wouldn't insure it," Reddinger said. "We figured that, being what it was, we needed some sort of insurance in case something happened."
So Reddinger took the china to a nearby shipping store, the Los Lunas Mail Center.
The man at the store looked at the china and declared it fit to send.
Reddinger paid the store $129.67, to have the dishes packed in five boxes and sent it to Elk Grove Village via UPS on June 21.
When the boxes arrived, Reddinger saw one had been crushed.
"As we started unpacking the other boxes we found damaged pieces," he said.
Reddinger said he called the shipping store in New Mexico and asked how to file a claim. Each of the boxes came with basic $100 damage coverage, and the damaged pieces totaled $444.
"During the conversation they listed reason after reason why they were not responsible and how they could not help us with this problem," Reddinger said. "We asked my mother to go into the store and talk to them in person, figuring that maybe this would get better results. At the end of that meeting they were so upset about her being there, they threatened to call the police and have her arrested."
So Reddinger tried a different approach. He called UPS, which instructed him to call the shipper back, because the shipper had to initiate the claim with UPS.
"We told them of our previous experience with the shipper and asked if there was any other alternative," Reddinger said. "They said no, the claim had to go through the shipping agent."
So he tried. On several occasions he was told the person he needed to speak to was out, so he left messages. No one called back, he said.
Having no luck with the shipper, Reddinger called UPS again. A representative suggested he find a phone number for the shipping store's parent company, Postal Annex.
A representative for Postal Annex tried to intervene on Reddinger's behalf, but the owner of the Los Lunas Mail Center refused to file a claim with UPS, Reddinger said.
In the months that followed, Reddinger called UPS and Postal Annex repeatedly, but neither could resolve the problem, he said.
