Delta Dash Known Shipper process

I was wondering if anyone has been thru this process before?

I need some advice on how to proceed, as I am a home based business, and they want to come to the business location before anything else can be done.

Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Heather

I recently went through the process. My facility is at my home as well. The inspection is cursory. They simply want to make sure that you have the items you have told them you will be dhipping. Go to the Delta Website. There is a link on the main page that walks you through the online registration process.

I had my inspection 3 years ago or so and cursory is an understatement lol.
They basically just looked in the herp room, I think one of them actually went in, turned a 360 and walked back out. Then it's just filling out the paperwork.

However, someone on here recently mentioned Delta telling them there was now a fee for the inspection. There wasn't one when I had it, and I would be curious to know if that is indeed the case now since you are about to have one yourself.

As for being verified by Delta, I found it to have been a waste of time. I'm sure my known shipper status has been dropped by now since I never actually shipped anything through them. It wasn't my lack of willingness, it's just that NONE of my customers were interested in using the service. I suppose the extra cost, which isn't much extra these days, coupled with the required trip to the airport makes them want to use a door to door shipper instead.

I have had to pay $50 to even be accepted into the process.

$50 was the cost mentioned in the other post on the subject, although I tihnk they were only informed of a charge and hadn't actually paid it.
I wouldn't have been surprised by a fee when I was inspected. I live 1.5 hours from the airport, so the two they sent out had a 3 hour round trip and were in my home no more than 20 minutes.
Looks like they would just get rid of the whole inspection process garbage in the first place. It would be much easier to have a policy that you must bring your package to the terminal unsealed, or else open it and reseal it before shipping.
I mean really, the fact I actually do keep snakes does not preclude me from also being a terrorist planning on shipping a bomb or something, so the whole inspection process is essentially pointless anyway. It does nothing to increase airline safety.

Also, don't be surprised if in a couple of months you receive a call from someone at Delta requesting you to fax a copy of your electric bill. This happened to me, they wanted a copy of a utility bill with the registered address on it on file as proof that the building was actually occupied. This is despite the fact that two of their employees were in my home and saw we were indeed living there. If we weren't, it would sure have been an elaborate ruse.

I'm about to lose my known shipper status. I didn't have to pay the $50 but I did have to promice to ship at least 3 items in 6 months~ I only convinced one person to ship Delta so they are going to pull my cert when I hit that 6 months in a couple weeks.

As far as the inspection~ only one man came out~ he would not even look at the snakes or the rats~ he just glanced at the big melamine racks I tolk him had snakes in them (they DID too) and then made a run for it back to my kitchen to finish the paperwork.

Maybe he wanted to be sure he didn't have to come back~ he took a copy of my electric bill while he was here!

I think they gave me a year to ship 6 packages. I believe this was because I got the status in the early spring before I even had eggs laid, so there was no way I'd have anything ready to ship for over three months at that time.
Regardless, I almost had one package to ship but the deal fell through. I even went so far as to offer free snakes if the buyer would just pay Delta shipping, trying to make my minimum that first season. Pairs of hatchling colubrids that were worth a little more than shipping would cost. Still no takers.
I haven't even called to check on my status, but I've taken them at their word and assumed that my status has been pulled.

Hmmmm...

Sounds like a waste of time then.

If one were to ship with Delta without being a shipper, say from Daytona back to California, does anyone know the procedure?

I was the one that asked a few months ago about the fee. I never did bother with it simply because I didn't have any animals worth enough to bother. No one wants to pay more for shipping than they do for the snake.

I concentrated on getting Fedex Certified instead.

I am breeding some higher end animals this year so I might go back and look into getting verified through delta but for right now it seems like it would be a waste of time. I still don't think I could meet their minimum shipping requirement to keep my status, too many people find the convenience of having it delivered to your door outweighs the risk associated with the carriers. I would offer live arrival no matter which method they choose so for most they really don't feel there is enough of a risk to worry about.

So I had to go thru the process, since they didn't get my message that I no longer wanted to do it.

I had a guy come over to the house, check over everything, take my business card (which he later used to call me up and ask me out on a date... Meh), and I had to sign a bunch of forms, and give them a copy of my electric bill.

I haven't heard anything else since.

I will keep you all posted...