Dumb eBay shippers

[dalangdon]

I know this is an old story, but this one really takes the cake.

Last year, my partner gave me a set of Franciscan "Silver Pine" dishes for Christmas. It's a very cool, relatively unknown and uncollected set. Since then, I have picked up pieces now and then, and was thrilled to find two serving bowls for $35 on a "buy it now" sale.

Today, I got the box. Outwards, it was fine. But both the dishes were split down the center.

The same thing happened with a set of Silver Pine salad plates I purchased a few weeks ago.

I'm sure the seller will refund me the money, but why can't folks figure out how to pack stuff? Granted, this is fairly fine china, but companies ship that stuff every day.

 

[polkanut]

I know what you mean Dan. I won a 1964 Presto perc. awhile ago, and the glass in the cover was smashed to bits, thankfully I had a spare. I looked up your pattern on replacements.com, and I must say it is quite attractive. We have a service for 12 of Cunningham & Pickett's Norway Rose pattern. We inherited it from my wife's bachelor uncle, it had sat in the attic for 40yrs. and was covered with only God knows what kind of schmutz.

 

[~sudsshane]

Bubble wrap

I would suggest you ask the seller to use bubble wrap. Thankfully I haven't had any bad experiences yet on eBay.

 

[maytagbear]

I'm sorry, Dan--

about the breakage.

However, this is the main reason why I don't buy from eBay any more.

Replacements.com costs a lot more, but I've always recieved the items ordered quickly and in excellent condition. Plus, there is the fact that Replacements is a gay owned and staffed business......

I am sorry about the breakage, though.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[58limited]

Bubble wrap in the wrong hands may not protect.

I bought a piece of Hofbauer Red Bird crystal that broke in shipping. The seller wrapped it in bubble wrap, but pulled it too tight when taping. It was in a well padded box with plenty of packing. The tension of the wrapping, and probably jarring during shipping, caused it to break. I mean this stuff was pulled tight!

 

[dalangdon]

Lawrence, I agree with you about replacements.com . They really are the place to go for stuff, but they are SO expensive that I can't afford them very often.

I always have to giggle when replacements has a "sale". It's always at least 3% or 4% off the regular price! ;-)

 

[mixedup]

I once got a beautiful turquoise Sunbeam Mixmaster with glass bowls on Ebay. The seller's idea of good packing was a couple of plastic grocery bags wadded up & a handful of foam peanuts. Lots of room for the heavy mixer to move around in the box. I don't have to tell you what happened to the glass bowls, not to mention the new gouges in what had been nearly pristine paint & the broken speed selector dial. When I complained to the seller about her lousy packing job her excuse what that she had cancer. ?? Sorry you're sick lady, but what does that have to do with properly packing a heavy & breakable item? I feel your pain
Virginia

 

[maytagbear]

Many people

are just too lazy or cheap to do a proper packing job, or to let the people at the UPS Store do the packing. However, I do have a wonderful relationship with the married couple who run the UPS Store I go to....I was one of their first customers, and they pack things so well for me, that it is worth paying them.

However, many people just can't be bothered to do a good job, or are too cheap to pay to have it done for them.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[compactc9]

As part of being allowed to sell on ebay

All sellers should be required to read, and then pass a test on proper packaging. I have heard too many stories of people just throwing things in boxes with little or no material and just sending it off. It is a very irritating problem.

 

[selectomatic]

To be fair, people are really, really stupid.

OK, that's about as fair as I get.

I repair cameras for a living. You'd be surprised at the ridiculous way people pack up their own equipment when they ship it to us. Sometimes they'll shove it into the smallest Priority Mail package that it'll fit into (apparently assuming that 1/4" of corrugated paper will protect it), and other times they'll put it into a much larger box with no packing material at all, allowing it to bounce around inside the box while the box bounces around the US postal system.

Sometimes we get cameras that have been stuffed into padded envelopes.

Common sense is increasingly uncommon, it would seem.

-kevin

 

[whirlcool]

In 2005 I won a SAE A302 Power Amp on Ebay. The seller just dropped it in to an old MacIntosh computer box (that was beat to hell to begin with) with no packing or wrapping whatsoever and shipped it via USPS. Believe it or not it arrived here without any damage at all. The box had USPS marked tape all over it, so I assume that THEY had to retape the box during shipment.

Tons of sellers are in it just for the money and don't care about what happens to their auction items once they leave their home.

dalangdon:
I wouldn't count on the seller refunding your money. After all the product did leave their premises undamaged. They'll probably refer you to the shipping company, who will deny the claim due to improper packing. It will end up being one big circle jerk. Been there, done that.....

 

[frontaloadotmy]

Well Dan

At least if they don't give you a refund you can leave them negative feedback. A small consolation to the fact that their
ineptitude ruined something that was in perfect , or near perfect condition. I recently had a similar experience with a
two piece phonograph I bought from Ebay. I made specific requests about packaging, and felt that by mentioning that I hate for something that has survived 45 or more years to get ruined just because I bought it, might have clued them. They used peanuts for packaging and overcharged me more than $10 according to their "add on" formula. I feel like flying to their home and hatcheting all of their personal collectibles to Smithereens! It has become apparent to me that Ebay the Corporation is a collection of mindless crooks and dung eaters!!!

 

[appnut]

I'm sorry Dan too. :-(

 

[whirlcool]

Turntables and phonographs are amongst the hardest items to pack properly for shipment. I had a friend who had a turntable repair business, my Dual turntable website has a link to his page where it tells you how to properly pack a turntable for shipment. I have used this method numerous times, and the turntables always come thru unscathed.

And frontaloadotmy, I think you are being too hard on yourself about the damaged phonograph. The seller was just plain stupid!

http://www.theturntablefactory.com/packing.html

 

[58limited]

~Tons of sellers are in it just for the money and don't care about what happens to their auction items once they leave their home.

You are so right. Many seller's pad the shipping bill to increase profits. In fact I have seen seminars on how to sell on ebay that specifically say to do this. I just bought some trim for my Lincoln. I was charged $30.00 for shipping but when the box arrived the postage on it was $11.99. The trim was packaged in two priority boxes that were spliced together - the post office gives out priority boxes for free.

 

[sikiguya]

Shipping breakables like dishes

I owned a UPS store (used to be Mail Boxes Etc back in the 90's). What would have helped the shipper in this instance is to fill in the bowls with peanuts or styrofoam and shrink wrap them, to help the bowls keep the peanuts in place and keep the bowl "full". Then, you use the large bubble wrap, not the small, and wrap it twice. Also, you never want to ship 2 big bowls (or more than 4 dishes) in one box. You must ship two. But, buyers are cheap and don't want to pay for the cost of proper packing and shipping. I am a Power Seller on eBay and have had my share of nut jobs.

 

[whirlcool]

RE: My turntable packing instructions...

I often get asked by people purchasing turntables on Ebay how they should pack them. I refer them to my packing instructions AND I suggest that they offer an additional $25.00 or so to the seller to pay for the additional materials. You'd be amazed at how that improves the sellers attitude!
Once I bought a turntable off of Ebay and the seller took the time to take a block of styrofoam and with an x-acto knife custom cut the styrofoam so the turntable would fit perfectly inside with no chance of movement. It was an amazing job. He got the extra bucks to do this from me.

When I bid on items on Ebay I double check the shipping before I bid. If it's too high, I move on. I also leave neutral feedback if the shipping is too high. One woman who charged me $15.00 over the shipping, and used a freebee Priority Mail box. She told me that the extra cost covers her gas to the Post Office, the cost of her standing in line waiting for service. I told her that is just the cost of doing business and that those costs should be covered by the profit she made on her item. Needless to say she wasn't very happy with me.
But on the other hand, I have had a few sellers who have been very freindly and have been just great about packing!

 

[selectomatic]

I just saw another sleazy trick on eBay

I was looking at an item which was neither very large, very heavy, nor particularly expensive. In addition to $14.95 flat rate shipping, the seller mentioned in the description text that the winning bidder was required to pay $6 for shipping insurance.

UPS includes $100 of insurance with shipping, and USPS charges a dollar or two. To demand an additional $6 for insurance is nothing but gouging.

-kevin

 

[bewitched]

my poor B&O tv just arrived from Germany (front side)

Here is an example of very poor packaging. The set was wrapped in a plastic bag and then fastened to a wood pallet... here is how it arrived...