United Parcel Service UPS OPL Overseas Partners LTD. Letter To Shareowners

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United Parcel Service UPS OPL Overseas Partners LTD. Letter To Shareownerst. OPL was a subsidiary of UPS United Parcel Service. OPL was a reinsurance company.
Overseas Partners Ltd. provides casualty and property reinsurance. It also provides reinsurance in the real estate and leasing business. Overseas Partners Ltd was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. As of January, 2006, Overseas Partners Ltd is in liquidation.
Essentially they money that UPS customers paid for insurance on their packages would all go to OPL. If a claim was paid on the customers package then it was paid out by OPL. The more claims UPS denied to pay for damaged, lost or stolen packages the more profitable OPL was. This was an extremely lucrative part of UPS as you can read in the annual report. OPL Overseas Partners LTD. operated in Bermuda to avoid paying taxes as numerous companies did back then. OPL was growing at a very fast pace. UPS management were given stock ownership of OPL at the same time they were given stock of UPS. OPL was paying very good dividends and was a money maker for UPS and the management. That all came to an end when OPL (UPS) was fined some 205 million dollars by the United Sates Government for a "sham" intended to divert taxable UPS income from the excess-value program. AND YOU THOUGHT UPS WAS SUCH A GOOD HONEST COMPANY. UPS was dirty as the day was long and got caught scamming customers and evading taxes. No big deal to UPS they paid the fines and then dissolved OPL and got rid of it. Sold off the reinsurance to another company and as of today claims are paid by a company not associated or owned by UPS. Take a look at who was in the middle of the whole thing and was serving as CEO of OPL at the time: none other than Scott Davis who later became the CEO of UPS. This letter is a copy.
NEW YORK--United Parcel Service Inc. has agreed to provide vouchers to its customers to settle a consolidated class action lawsuit that alleged UPS overcharged shippers for excess-value package insurance written by a Bermuda-based company owned by UPS employee-shareholders.
Atlanta-based UPS was hit with 27 such lawsuits across the country after a U.S. Tax Court judge ruled in 1999 that Bermuda-based Overseas Partners Ltd. was a "sham" intended to divert taxable UPS income from the excess-value program. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later overturned the ruling, finding that OPL served a legitimate business purpose.
The class actions continued, though, after being consolidated before U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in New York. Judge Berman on Friday approved the terms of a settlement, under which UPS would pay no cash but would grant customers covered by the deal vouchers good for future UPS shipments.
While plaintiffs lawyers valued the vouchers at 5 million, a UPS spokesman insisted that "it's going to be notably less
This letter is a copy.
To the buyer (My Customer). I usually ship the day you pay or the very next day unless I am on vacation or leave town for an unexpected reason. In the past I have always sent a message to the buyer as soon as possible the day the item ended and explained to the customer that I am on vacation, the date I will return and the date the package would be shipped. I have never had an upset customer doing business this way. Now Ebay has implemented more stupid policies in regards to handling time. If I go on vacation or leave town suddenly and cannot ship your package in the 2 or 3 day handling time then Ebay holds this against me even though I have communicated with you the customer and explained exactly what is going on and when your package will be shipped. Ebay is taking away my Seller status for this reason and now as a result has forced me to put a much higher handling time in each of my listings. Even though I have to list a much higher handling time (10 days )
I will still ship your package the day you pay or the very next day just as I have in the past. The only exception is if I am on vacation or get called and have to leave town for a few days. This is yet another Stupid decision that some knucklehead at Ebay has decided to implement without much thought at all. Ebay continues to implement policies to make it difficult for sellers to do business. Perhaps when a quality competitor comes along and vast number of people leave Ebay and do business with the competitors Ebay will get their head out of their _ _ _ and build relationships and user friendly policies. As of now Ebay could care less about you or me and any other buyers or sellers.