Correct on all counts. I totally misspoke myself. I meant "insurance" on CD orders, which pale in comparison to major equipment (guitars, equipment, etc.) purchased via mail. I don't refer to the kind of insurance one can purchase from a shipper (USPS, UPS, FedEx, etc.). I refer to charges tacked on to an order by a seller of merchandise -- in this case CDs. As I wrote earlier, I've ordered countless hundreds of CDs in the past eight years. Only twice was my order lost. The shipper immediately replaced it. Only 4-5 times was a CD's jewel case damaged.
The laws to which I referred protect the buyer
during the buying process. It's the Federal Trade Commission's "
30-Day Rule." It's very specific regarding when a product must be shipped, and what must be told to the customer when it isn't. Consumers aren't generally aware of the protections they have when ordering by phone or mail. But the Federal government takes a dim view of bait-and-switch, prolonged delays, or sloppy service. Basically, a seller has to ship within 30 days. If that doesn't happen, the seller has to provide the buyer with a very good reason why that didn't happen, and allow for the order to be canceled.
The "laws" protecting a consumer
after a product is shipped vary by state and nearly always come back to filing a complaint with the BBB.
Regardless if laws exist or not, I have yet to run into a seller that didn't honor the "do unto others" code of ethics and make good on an order if it got lost. The reason why is they're afraid of just this type of thing: Posts (and, sometimes, entire sites) on the Internet alerting other buyers to the problems. Any seller who wishes to continue doing business abides by the "law" of common courtesy. After that, one must turn to the FTC or to one's state attorney general's consumer protection office for action beyond that.
I would -- always -- buy insurance if I purchased an expensive, easily broken piece of equipment. That makes perfect sense to me.
