[littl3chocobo]

dude, i only just got a letter (A LETTER)today and it had rips on both ends and looked like it had gotten stuck in something hella dirty and i have gotten many a package in the same condition, two different people from different companies sold me diorama kits and both times they came unpadded, in mushed up boxes with the contents broken. it's pretty messed up


also, the beer carton girl is an asshole. first it is super unprofessional to wrap a product in trash, second it's really unhygienic and third if there is any liquid on the carton the package can actually be removed from shipping and either held indefinitely or sent back. alcoholic things technically cannot be sent through the mail(in fact many things cannot be sent through the mail and it does not take much to have a package pulled)and if a worker smells booze it's out


one time though i won an auction on ebay and the creep sent my stuff packed in trash. i was so fucking mad too, one of the packing bags was from a used raw-meat bag!

[Tas]

dude, I think you're overblowing the beer carton thing. It's just reusing cardboard, it's actually a very responsible and green thing to do.

[littl3chocobo]

it's really not, it is both legally unsafe and notably unclean. there are better ways to recycle than to insult your customers and take a dice-roll on them not getting what they paid for

[Konzern]

Sounds like the letter might have gotten stuck in a machine? But I think raw meat packaging takes the win. Or loss.

[littl3chocobo]

maybe but it kind of looks like a crushing XD i get soooo much mail it's started getting kind of easy to see how a thing got damaged XD to be fair i am also mildly obsessed with mail in general and can get up to two dozen parcels/letters in a month, hahahaha


dude, yeah. i have seen a lot of packing of varying levels of disregard but that is the first time since 2008 that i have ever gotten legitimately angry about it(i was shaking i was so mad). i have been grossed out, disgusted, irked, and confused but never angry XD i wrote /such/ a long letter to the person who sent it about safety and hygiene and respect for the customer

[Tas]

Originally Posted by littl3chocobo

it's really not, it is both legally unsafe and notably unclean. there are better ways to recycle than to insult your customers and take a dice-roll on them not getting what they paid for

dude, it's cardboard. Just because it held bottles or cans of alcohol does not mean it's unclean or illegal.

[littl3chocobo]

as with all things that contain or have contained consumables there is a chance that spillage can occur, if anything spills on the carton(either before or after buying) it can soak into the cardboard and will retain an odor and possibly staining. should this material have an odor and someone during the shipping process smell that odor there will be a problem given that sending alcoholic things IS illegal, the person pulling cannot see that the package is just packed with trash that happens to smell alcoholic and so for the sake of safety and legality it has to be taken off and since they will not open the package except in very rare cases they will not know what is in it.

[Coda]

Well yes. IF there was a spill. But under normal circumstances... they don't spill. The whole point of the box is to protect the contents from getting damaged. Most liquor boxes of sufficient strength to use for shipping are discards from liquor stores, who empty the contents out into their refrigerators for sale and then give away the now-empty boxes for people to use. Considering the whole point is to SELL the contents to consumers, the bottles/cans inside should never be getting opened anywhere close to the box in the first place.

I mean, yeah, if the box came from someone who drinks so much as to buy bottles of vodka by the case, then I might be worried about spills. But that's... really pretty rare.

Also, it's not illegal to ship alcoholic things via FedEx or UPS or other shipping companies. It's only illegal to ship them via USPS. And USPS won't let you ship stuff with exposed inaccurate labels ANYWAY and they will (or at least they're supposed to) insist that you wrap it in paper or cover the labels with a marker or with opaque tape. (You don't even have to conceal the fact that it's a liquor box. You just have to cover up the part that says what's inside the box.) And that part of the law has nothing to do with it being alcohol and everything to do with accurate information.

Using a liquor box isn't even a social comment about the sender being an alcoholic. My MOM uses liquor boxes and she's a veritable teetotaler.

So... don't slam on a free source of environmentally-responsible packaging just because it's related to booze. Would you rather that cardboard end up landfilled or inefficiently recycled?

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Upgrading any packing is not cheap. I get annoyed if stuff is under-packed, but so far the only issue I've had was a rack from Staples, which Staples promptly replaced (that was some hard metal to dent so I'm not surprised they didn't put much packing around it).

Bubble wrap means extra volume on the item, which can mean a bigger box, which can mean more postage, which is not really a problem you can expect shipping costs to go up. That's just the way it is. I did supplies for the tiny law firm I worked at for a time and we we sent out so much mail that even the few dollar cost difference between sticky strip envelopes and the envelopes you have to lick was worth paying attention to.

Never had an issue with Amazon, but then I've never ordered anything that wasn't labeled "Prime" for potentially that reason.

[Konzern]

I get that it costs money, trust me I sat and watched this go down to a semi decent price, but I still don't get why you can't spend a bit more to have a perhaps a happy, repeat customer over negative feedback, an angry customer, filed claims, refunds, etc.

[Demonskid]

I ordered one of those air purifiers for mom for her bday, I waited 2 weeks after i ordered it before contacting the store i bought it from. When i never got a response, a week after that (3 weeks after purchasing) I filed a complaint (A-Z thing) with amazon and got a full refund.

Other then that, my only problem is with customs. Ordering stuff not sent from with in the USA.. er the 48 states that are all clustered together.. Customs always opens the package and takes stuff out and messes up the outter box before repackaging things and sending it on its way. I was surprised my box of beanie babies from my friend in canada wasn't opened ._. if it was, they did a good job repackaging it.

[littl3chocobo]

i've been living with my motherinlaw for a year now and have never had usa in-country stuff opened

[Espy]

Originally Posted by Konzern

I kind of understand that, but if you're selling something, especially something expensive, wouldn't you want to pay a little more for padding or bubble wrap instead of having a pissed off customer? Not to mention you package it well and it doesn't arrive damaged, and you have more of what I want (or in some cases willing to make custom items), you can bet I'll come back. If my item winds up damaged, then I'm not coming back. I do appreciate an input from a seller, but I still don't get it.

Originally Posted by Lawtan

The "package pancake" I'd think would come from an object heavier than the package below it can handle being put on top of said package. Or, if you put 10 boxes of clothes on top of one another, the bottom one will collapse.

Hey, at least it wasn't a hungry Fed Ex or Customs employee deciding to eat all the food in a package. A person stole a box of homemade cookies I sent Lauv.

No, no, you guys don't get it. The box wasn't just /flattened/. It was only still vaguely box-shaped by virtue of it having corners to begin with. The texture of the "box" by the time I got it was as if you took a piece of paper and wrinkled it around in your hands for five minutes straight.

[Konzern]

I kind of want to see that. I kind of have an idea in my head, a pretty much crumpled, accordioned box, but how is that even possible?

[Coda]

I get the description. It's more like a overstuffed bag made of paper than a box at that point, because the corrugation got crushed and so the cardboard lost its stiffness.

[Rainbowfox Ari]

Could have something to do with customs, but the last time I got something from Japan [a bunch of mini-figures from animes that I bought to give out at Christmastime a couple years ago] - they arrived ONLY in a bag marked 'fragile', and three were broken. The seller said that she couldn't be responsible for what happened off her property, but yeah. I agree.