Buyer beware...

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William

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A funny thing happened when I ordered the four "new" Brasil '66 CD's from Dusty Groove last month. The box arrived about two weeks late, in this condition:

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Pais Tropical and Primal Roots had the worst of it, with the discs themselves being rendered partially unplayable. Stillness and Expo '70 also had a lot of damage to the jewel cases, but I decided not to return them as the discs played through without any problems.

Dusty Groove made the whole process of returning the two damaged CD's very easy, crediting my Dusty account for the price of the CD's plus the $4.95 I paid for return shipping. Major kudos to DGA, as always. But now I will unequivicocally recommend UPS over USPS -- never ever have Dusty Groove ship your order via USPS Media Mail.


- William
 
That's one thing about half.com that bothers me--it's cheaper to ship a single CD via first class mail, but if you buy a larger set and have to use Media Mail, it could arrive......whenever. I had one thing I ordered, and thought the seller never shipped it. It arrived a month, almost to the day, later...postmarked the day after I bought it. I'll go Priority Mail or first class (in this case, you get what you pay for...I guess), but after the Media Mail experience, and other similarly bad experiences with Parcel Post....no thanks.

-= N =-
 
It almost seems like extortion, if that term's not too hyperbolic.

"Pay for First Class/Priority shipping, or we WILL run over your parcel with an 18-wheeler."

Right, Cap'n? :D


- William
 
From the official USPS dictionary:

Fragile--definition: "punt, pass, kick".

I recall pouring the contents of a Carpenters CD out of a CD mailer awhile back. The CD itself was intact, but I asked CDNow to send me another. They did...and never asked for the old one back. Maybe I should put a new jewel case on it and sell it.

-= N =-
...profiteer...
 
I think it's just a matter of luck. I've gotten dozens of CDs (thousands, if you count my day job) in the various shipping systems and have very rarely had a problem. I've NEVER seen damage like that.

I think just about all CD damage could be avoided if the shippers would just leave an inch or so of padding between the cardboard and the jewel boxes, and wrap a strip of tape around the group of jewel boxes...as opposed to constructing a box that exactly fits the jewel boxes without room for padding.

Our CD warehouse ships everything double boxed, via UPS. We haven't had a damaged CD in years, other than the occasional slightly cracked jewel box top. Maybe one in 500 has this problem.
 
One box I've seen that works wraps tightly around the CDs, but the top of the cardboard extends beyond the sides of the box, which cushions the edges somewhat. One of the record clubs shipped this way, and I have yet to get a cracked shipment. Worst packaging is when someone drops a jewel box into a large padded envelope, where it can shake around and bounce. I"ve received more than a few promo CDs where the jewel case has come out of the envelope in pieces. (They ship in 8-1/2x11 envelopes in order to send the press kits.)

The funkiest packing job I ever saw was the cylinder head I bought on eBay for the Accord. It had a wood top and sides, and it was wrapped in brown Kraft paper and....duct tape. Serviceable, to say the least. :-/

I've wanted to buy a bari sax on eBay, but they are easily bent. For the $1500+ I'd have to pay for it, there's no way I'd want to buy one online. Better to find one locally.

-= N =-
 
Rudy said:
From the official USPS dictionary:

Fragile--definition: "punt, pass, kick".

I recall pouring the contents of a Carpenters CD out of a CD mailer awhile back. The CD itself was intact, but I asked CDNow to send me another. They did...and never asked for the old one back. Maybe I should put a new jewel case on it and sell it.

-= N =-
...profiteer...
Yah, on eBAY, someone is sure to bid on it! :D
 
William said:
"Pay for First Class/Priority shipping, or we WILL run over your parcel with an 18-wheeler."

Right, Cap'n? :D

Have we grown tired of living today? :D

Funny, but my CD's from Dusty's came via UPS. I didn't even see the option for USPS. Guess that's what happens when I order things online after a few brews... :oops:


Capt. Bacardi
NW: Angels vs Yankees (GO ANGELS!!!)
 
Captain Bacardi said:
Have we grown tired of living today? :D

Not today, but it's funny you should mention that. The day I received this mangled box from Dusty Groove (9/9/02), I had just come home from being involved in a traffic accident (after having had my license for a grand total of five days) after going on a rather disappointing date, so yes, the USPS picked the wrong &%$#ing time to send me smashed CD's. :confused:

Funny, but my CD's from Dusty's came via UPS. I didn't even see the option for USPS. Guess that's what happens when I order things online after a few brews... :oops:

At least you managed to order the correct CD's through your drunken haze. I can imagine an inebriated buying session followed a few days later by opening a package full of Barry Manilow albums. :wink:


- William
 
William, from the great pix you provided, it's impossible to imagine the journey of a little, tightly sealed, square box being 'accidentally' snagged by a grappling hook and ruthlessly torn open. Could it be that the intervening creep (perhaps a former longshoreman) just wasn't 'down with' the exposed Brasil '66 titles and let it pass on, semi-tortured?
UPS isn't completely innocent in this regard, either. My package from Music Direct (two Mobile Fidelity CDs by The Who in Gain 2) arrived with the side torn open. Mr. Brown-Shirt-and-Shorts STILL handed me the empty box and said,"Sign here." "No way, pal. I ain't signing for a box of air." (Music Direct was swell, and I got sealed replacements, even though 'Who's Next' had already jumped to $90 instead of $60.)
Do avoid USPS 'media rate', unless you've got a a few weeks to spare.
 
I have no idea how the box could've been ripped open like that. It doesn't really look like the result of a random mechanical problem, but I also doubt that some vengeful postal worker decided to take a sledgehammer to the thing. I wish there was some way to find out exactly what caused the damage.

Mike, you're right -- I'm sure this is a very isolated incident, it probably happens to maybe 1 in 10,000 parcels. But it's still going to be really hard for me to trust Media Rate mail again when the damage was this extreme. I'm still picking up fragments of jewel cases off of my floor...


- William
 
My only guess would be some kind of mishap with automatic handling equipment--stuck in a conveyor, perhaps? I've seen a few damaged UPS cartons in my day, and in many cases, damage was caused by improper packaging, or improper reinforcing. (Someone sets a heavy box on top of another box...the one on the bottom splits easily.) In a former life, I worked in a warehouse--have probably shipped close to 30,000 UPS packages. (Figuring over 5,000/year.)

-= N =-
...listening to rain on the windows...
 
William said:
I have no idea how the box could've been ripped open like that. It doesn't really look like the result of a random mechanical problem, but I also doubt that some vengeful postal worker decided to take a sledgehammer to the thing. I wish there was some way to find out exactly what caused the damage.

It's really hard telling. I get stacks of magazines that are strapped out, and sometimes they come to me all ripped up. We always take those to a supervisor, who tells us "If they complain, tell them to call us." Then when the customer calls, the supervisors always say "You need to talk to your carrier about it." Is it any wonder that we love the little buggers? :twisted:

As for parcels, they get tossed and turned every which way you can imagine (yes, even those marked "Fragile - Handle With Care"). I worked for UPS in the early 80's during the Christmas rush, and they're the same way. I remember one time when there was this stereo system coming through the processing area, and this one UPS guy yells to another, "Hey, here's a stereo. Catch!!!" :shock:

Of course, you never know when someone may just not have packed it right to begin with. You oughta see some of the things that people try to mail. It makes you wonder...


Capt. Bacardi
 
I'd been to a UPS customer counter a couple of times, and you'd see people bringing in something like a shoebox shut with scotch tape or string...and they'd be turned away, not understanding the problem. :confused:

For anything fragile or electronic, it should always be double-boxed--product box suspended within a larger box with peanuts. Plain box, please, so nobody knows what's inside. So "punt, pass, kick" opportunities don't seem so obvious. :wink:

-= N =-
 
At my day job, one of our sidelines is, we ship UPS packages for the public. One time, a guy brought in a 17" TV to ship out. He had jammed the set into a box, which was about 6 inches too shallow for the set...so the bulge from the picture tube was causing the side of the box to bulge out. He had wrapped about 4 kinds of tape around the box to keep it together.

I told him we couldn't take it that way...the picture tube would be wrecked before the box got out of town...it needs to be in a bigger box.

So he left, and came back again, this time with a HUGE box that was far too big for the TV set. You guessed it....the box was too big for the size constraints and we still couldn't ship it!

I felt real bad for the guy, but it was kind of funny I have to admit.
 
At least he gets an "A" for effort! Beats a shoebox and a roll of twine. :wink: We used to ship out small, heavy parts. Never failed that a lot of our distributors would return product every now and then with the parts thrown into the bottom of the box, with a sheet or two of newspaper crumpled up on top of it, loose enough that the paper would compact itself (or get pulverized) by the time it left their UPS hub. Common sense apparently was optional. :confused:

Some packages, though, were obvious UPS damage. A couple of times, we'd be up working in the office and UPS would come up to have us sign for packages. "Dump and run", I'd call it. Once got a box in that had burst on the side, and was taped up by UPS, and left for us. Yep, items missing...but because we'd signed for it and accepted it, we didn't have a leg to stand on. And the loss was small enough that we just wrote it off anyway. I would have refused a box that was apparently damaged in transit and hastily repaired by UPS.

That's also one thing about UPS's residential deliveries that bothers me: they do not get a signature upon delivery. You not only lose your right of refusal for the package (I didn't order it, I can refuse it, IOW), you also do not get to inspect it, and you have to worry about not being home in case they have to leave it in a conspicuous place. Always better to get UPS to ship to a place of business if possible, I've found.

-= N =-
 
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