Recently, I had my first order stolen during transit with UPS, on the way to the Vestiaire Collective hub. Basically, it stopped tracking at Brooklyn's UPS office.

I never expected this to happen especially when I shipped with UPS, but it happened. And VC did not immediately refund me- they had to open an investigation, let me wait for 7 days (at that point, it was more than a month since I shipped the item out). I was eventually refunded, but the process was not the smoothest. But it was eventually successful, because, luckily, I kept the receipt of my dropping off the item at our local UPS store (despite the UPS online record, which was not enough for VC to verify that I had dropped off the item), and I also had camera footage from my packing station at home. What an adventure.

And in the past, I had two packages lost with USPS. Thankfully, they were small orders, one $90, two years ago, and another $200, about a year ago. And one large order lost during international transportation - we went to court and won the case.

From online forums, lately, I have seen a few cases, where people had package thefts or theft of luxury items from their homes. Not to mention theft from traveling. You think that these things rarely happen, and that you live in a safe neighborhood and it will be alright - but sometimes, although rare, it does happen. As a regular seller and buyer myself, I surf on these online forums a lot, and I've seen so many cases like such. And I've learned the lesson from reading these stories again and again...

Long story short

• I highly recommend you to install cameras (not just one, but multiple) at your home, especially around your luxury items. Having camera footage can serve as strong evidence, if anything unexpected happens. And they are not expensive nor a hassle to install - these days, they are affordable, and easy to work with.

  
  

• Always require full insurance with your luxury item orders, and, always record down your unboxing when you receive your item. The latter was originally an advice from a senior staff at a shipping company. It has been a great advice, and I always record unboxing for all my online purchases (luckily, nothing bad has ever happened, but I still do it!). When we ship your order from bunbunbags, we also always purchase a full insurance for you. And to comply with the insurance policy, video evidence can be crucial if there is a claim. Please take a good video too!

  
  

• If your luxury items got lost, either during transit, at home, or from traveling, here is what you can do. File a police report, and include the serial numbers in the police report. With that report, you can then contact the brand to let them record the serial number as a stolen item (that way, it loses its resale value completely, it cannot be sold on the market). I was told that Rolex or similar watch brands can definitely record the lost serial numbers. With bags, I've heard that the police report is crucial. You can also get in touch with large reale platforms and authentication services platforms to record the lost serial numbers - again, usually you go to them with a police report.

I hope that this blog helps (in terms of preventive measures!)!