By admin 
FLORENCE, AZ (AZFamily) — A Florence man’s prized fly rod vanished during a UPS shipment, and it took seven months and help from On Your Side to get his money back.
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John Bustraan has been fly fishing since he was 14 years old.
“My uncle was a fly fisherman. And he introduced me to it, and I got hooked,” Bustraan said.
Bustraan had a Sage fly rod, which he said is one of the top two or three manufacturers in the world.
“Super quality. I mean, when you fish with them, when you fish with the fly rod, you want that smooth cast,” he said.
The tip of the fly rod broke, but Sage has a lifetime warranty. Bustraan had to ship the fly rod to Washington for repairs.
“I went to the UPS store and I didn’t have the right packaging. So I had them package it, and then I insured it and they sent it off,” he said.
The UPS Store packed the rod and shipped it to Bainbridge Island, Washington. But by the time it got to Bremerton, the rod had disappeared. The shipping package was empty.
Bustraan had paid for $1,000 of insurance. He contacted UPS to get reimbursed.
“They said, well, we need to have a picture of it and a receipt, a sales receipt that you bought it. Well, you know who keeps sales receipts? And I couldn’t take a picture of it because it was gone,” Bustraan said.
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That was in October. Bustraan said for five months he reached out to UPS repeatedly, asking for his money, but he heard nothing back.
“There are times that I was kind of, just let it go. But my wife said, no, that’s not the right thing to do,” he said.
Bustraan contacted On Your Side. On Your Side reached out to UPS, and they vowed to get to the bottom of it.
It took months and repeated emails and phone calls from On Your Side and from Bustraan. But seven months after they lost his fly rod, UPS sent Bustraan his money and refunded the cost of his insurance.
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