I know you pack your items well. I should've completed my thought since I have recently received plain envelopes where sellers didn't even try to include cardboard,etc and actually did think that magically if they wrote "DO NOT BEND" then the postal workers will take that much more delicate care with it..

About a month ago I finally bought one of the Colossal Red Dragon miniatures, new in box.  From the pictures it appeared in great shape.

When it arrived through the good ol' US post office, one whole side was crushed in beyond the midway point.  I didn't know what was in it when the brought it out to me but I made of point of opening it right there at the counter.  Fortunately for me, the guy who sent it packaged it better than normal and in a box too big for it.  For all the damage to the shipping box, the miniature's box only ended up with a crease on the front top of the box.  It certainly hurt its collect ability but at least it wasn't a total loss.

The post master was there the whole time and started watching me when I made a big deal about it.  When I asked about filing an insurance claim, he finally walks over and tells me he can't control what they do at other handling centers and if I want to file a claim I have to go online and do it.  

My local postal carrier has personally crammed so many DO NOT BEND items into my mailbox that I finally got them to quit delivering them to my mailbox so I can pick them up at the post office.  I cringe just thinking about some of the items that have been mangled.

And for those lucky enough to not found this out the hard way yet, FedEx now delivers through the post office!  I had one order that was right at $1000.  I paid extra for FedEx because I don't trust the post office.  It never showed up.  I finally had FedEx try to find it and they said they delivered it to the US post office to deliver to me.  The post office showed that I received it at my mailbox, and of course I didn't.  And since it had tracking and showed it had been delivered to my mailbox, WITHOUT a signature, I couldn't collect insurance on it.  I kept making a big deal about it and postal carrier said that she distinctly remembered putting it in my mailbox.  RIGHT.  It was a small box.  Right along with all those thousand other items you mindlessly handle every day and this the same postal carrier that drops off the wrong mail at my mailbox a few times a month.    

In summary, I hate the post office and now FedEx since they are linked at the hip.

My wife collects vintage vinyl and it's a surprise how many times the DO NOT BEND record boxes were bent to fit in our mailbox ... by the USPS carrier.  We got a bigger mailbox to solve the problem but c'mon now.

Part of the problem is that some ebay sellers don't care about selling more than 1 record to a customer... I guess this because they pack it like crap, simple and flimsy cardboard so the record bends like a noodle.

The problem often is the carrier... but sellers are also stupid when it comes to shipping.

~throwi

I get crappy content sent in perfect wrapping, and good content sent in tissue paper. It blows my mind sometimes.

Chalk another one up today. It is mostly the shipper's fault this time. I had a miniature reproduction boxed set come in and of course the box has been beat up pretty bad. But the shipper just stuffed it into a padded envelope and wrote do not bend or crush on it. Grrr....

This doesn't look promising...

it must've been in the bin underneath 110 lbs of my boxes...
seriously though, I'm angry just looking at that.

webrik33 wrote in So tired of your crappy shipping:For what it's worth you can call the postmaster of the branch your packages are being routed to and ask them to tell the carrier 'not' to cram packages in the box. That may or may not work.

I did contact the postmaster at the facility several times, and I didn't play it angry/irate/etc, I was very professional about it. But nothing every changed. As soon as another carrier got switched over into our area (completely unrelated to my calls), things did improve with the envelope cramming etc (it completely stopped). But I swear there are so many postal carriers that I've come across that don't care and vastly outnumber the guys/gals that do take care. The ones who seemed to care were the older ones in my experience.

That picture really is amazing.  It looks like it took extra effort to fold the package up like that.

I guess I've been pretty lucky.  Our carrier brings anything oversized to the door.  Though there was the time I got a padded envelope, and it actually had tire tracks on it.