Damaged goods claimer
A small system for the unglamorous business of claiming for goods that arrive broken. The packaging is the evidence and it gets thrown away within the hour; the deadline runs from delivery rather than from discovery; and a good proportion of claims cost more to file than they recover, which is a finding rather than a failure. Seven posts on the same system, one diagram at a time, with a cost breakdown and an engineering reference at the end.
- 01
A damaged goods claimer on AWS for a few dollars a month
The whole system on one page — capture, deadline, decide — and the two minutes that determine whether a claim can be made at all.
- 02
How the evidence gets captured
The five-photograph sequence and why the order matters, the physical hold on the packaging, the delivery note annotation, and what to do when the driver will not wait.
- 03
How the deadline is worked out
Why the window runs from delivery, how concealed damage is handled, how carrier terms are configured, and the reminder schedule that actually gets claims filed.
- 04
Which claims are worth filing
What a claim actually costs in time, how liability caps change the arithmetic, why some small claims are still worth filing, and how the recommendation is made.
- 05
What the claims add up to
How damage records aggregate by carrier, route and packaging, why the packaging finding is usually the largest, and what to report.
- 06
What the damaged goods claimer costs
About $1 a month. One Bedrock read per damage record is the only line that grows; the queue, the table, the mail and the storage are rounding errors. Plus the three ways the bill could surprise you.
- 07
Engineering reference: the damaged goods claimer architecture
Same system, drawn purely for engineers. Service names, region, Lambda inventory, IAM scopes, the schemas and the exact model id.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a damaged goods claimer?
- A small serverless system that captures photographic evidence at delivery, tracks the applicable claim deadline, assembles the claim pack, and reports which claims are worth filing.
- Why does the packaging matter so much?
- Because it is the only evidence of how the damage happened. A carrier’s first question is whether the outer packaging was damaged, and by the time anybody asks, it is usually in a skip.
- What is concealed damage?
- Damage found after delivery, once the packaging is opened. It has a much shorter deadline and a much weaker position, and the post on it explains what actually helps.
- Does it file claims automatically?
- No. A claim is a formal assertion about facts and it is signed by a person. The system assembles it and tracks the deadline.
- What does it cost to run?
- A couple of dollars a month. See part six.