Pony Talk > Off Topic

Shipping horror stories

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iam_misshennessy:
Even before the pandemic, I'm sure many people have had terrible experiences when it comes to shipping. Whether you're the seller or you're the buyer eagerly awaiting your newest toy, I want to hear your horror stories. Let it off your chest!

Since I sell hundreds of different brands and toy lines, I ship items 5 to 6 days a week. So to say I have plenty of these experiences is a true understatement. And I've been on both the end of being the person sending as well as the person receiving.

It doesn't matter which end you're on, it sucks!!

A couple of months ago I had an issue with tracking numbers not updating for days. So it would look like my package isn't even dropped off at the post office yet and then when they would update the package would already be halfway to where it needed to be or even already delivered. It stopped doing it for a few weeks and I guess it started up again about a week ago. Since it was happening with five different packages, there was one package that I didn't think anything extra about.

I guess it's a good thing there's a post office just a block from my work. Not just because I usually have to drop off new shipments everyday, but because that means the employees there see me regularly. I have natural red hair and I think that makes me easily recognizable. People remember me after I've only been inside their store once or twice before. And on top of that I always come around the same time, Monday through friday, and I almost always use purple envelopes.

Well I guess some brilliant person decided it would be okay to put something sharp inside of an envelope. Of course it ripped through. And unfortunately there were some other packages that got damaged because I put my packages through a dropbox instead of dropping them off at the counter usually. I pay for my shipping labels on pirateship.com so that I can ship with you USPS but get a retailer discount. And since I've already purchased the shipping label, I don't have to wait in line.

So all of these packages are basically just inside of a box on the other end of the compartment where you drop them into. So here they are bouncing around, with some sharp object flashing into them. The envelope the items were in and the shipping label were completely obliterated. I was devastated when she told me because of course I'm picturing the worst case scenario because that's just what I do *shrugs*

She goes to find my package and she comes back with it and I am so incredibly thankful that I tend to be overly cautious when shipping things. Anytime my mom has seen me wrap something she always laughs at me because I feel any opening with tape because I'm always worried that a liquid were to spill or where to rain that the water could get in and ruin the item. Even though my items are inside of sealed baggies. I'm telling you, I'm overly cautious.

So I really wrap these two dolls in a lot of bubble wrap and I couldn't be happier that I did. Whatever it was slit the bubble wrap only slightly. Meaning the dolls were totally unharmed.

I was still really upset though and I was telling the woman that I felt bad because this should have already been delivered and here it was sitting at the post office the entire time. But thankfully she was incredibly nice and told me that by the time I got off of work she would still be there and since my husband was picking me up that day I had him bring new shipping supplies and reprint the shipping label. She told me to wait in line and make sure that I was helped by her so I had to let a couple of people behind me going in front of me, both who gave me a strange look haha but when I got up to her she was super sweet, remember me immediately, and promise she was immediately walking the item back so that it could get shipped out on the next possible truck.

In the end, definitely not my worst experience by any means. My heart just sunk when I found out something had torn into the envelope. I was just thinking the worst, picturing the dolls completely destroyed.

Again, definitely not my only bad experience, and this one really wasn't all that bad since in the end it worked out fine. I just feel really crappy that I didn't call to verify everything was okay with each package. I used to do that when the tracking numbers weren't updating after 4 days, but because that happened for two months straight, and every single time they told me the item was on its way and just the website wasn't updating the tracking numbers, I just got out of the habit of doing it. I was always getting the same answer and waiting on hold for over an hour almost every single time just to be told the exact same thing: "your packages are here, here, and there and they will update as soon as the site catches up"

But this made me want to ask people what stories they have!

And have any of you experience issues with tracking lagging on updating using usps? How long did it happen for you and is it currently happening to you?

Strawberry Swirl:
I'll have to remember to ask my dad to bring that tin lunch box from Australia that was all squished up...

SunPony:
Luckily I haven't had any problems with pony shipments...but I did have a very unfortunate situation with a pet portrait this past winter.  I bought the shipping label online as I have done many times before, and took the package inside a post office to ship.  There was a line and I didn't want to stay in there that long (pandemic...) so I put it in the package drop box.  Well...the tracking never updated.  I called the post office and they looked around for it in the office and at the regional sorting facility (supposedly).  It was never found  :(  I had to re-do the whole piece!  That specific post office has a bit of a bad reputation so I've stopped using them.  :mad:

Shaz:
Considering how much stuff I buy online, I think I've been quite lucky. It usually arrives....but sometimes it takes a while!

Chief and Wigwam are rather legendary in our pony collection. I ordered them from the US (this was back in 2015), only to have them go missing at the Global Shipping Centre. I eventually just gave up on them. Six months later, a mysterious parcel arrived, puzzling me since I hadn't ordered anything from America recently. I opened it and out tumbled Chief and Wigwam, none the worse for their ordeal! We think they probably lived wild in the depths of the Global Shipping Centre for a few months :lol:. We had a whole story about it, in which Wigwam made a hole in the packaging to look out. He got carried away craning round to see what a shipping centre looked like and fell out :gasp: Chief went to grab him by his tail....but unfortunately Wigwam was a restoration project and had no tail to grab!! Quick-thinking Chief grabbed the invoice with our address on it and leapt after his friend! For months they lived in the depths of the Global Shipping Centre, surviving on crumbs dropped by snacking employees, making friends with other toys passing through, and generally having adventures. Eventually they tired of this life, and wrapped themselves up in the invoice and put themselves in the way of an employee. Soon they were on their way again! They now spend a lot of time telling stories to the other ponies about their adventures :)

More recently, I ordered some Kitty in my Pocket kittens, also from America. After a while I checked the tracking....and noticed they were in Tokyo :blink:. They stayed there for several days....sightseeing, obviously :lol:

Just before the pandemic really kicked off I ordered some doll clothes from Ukraine....a few weeks later Ukraine closed its borders :facepalm:. (Fair enough, stopping a pandemic is more important than doll clothes!) That parcel might well still be out there somewhere, but it never did make it to me :shrug:. Luckily the seller was very understanding, and once the pandemic had abated a bit they sent the order again and it arrived quite quickly.

Back in 2017, I ordered a doll (a singing Pocahontas, if you wondered). Tracking showed that she had reached a sorting depot in a city near us. Then it said she was out for delivery and would arrive that day. Yippee! The day passed....no Pocahontas. Tracking said she had returned to the depot. The next day, 'your parcel is out for delivery and will be with you today!....your parcel has returned to the depot' :facepalm:. On it went for about a week. It seems our address was last on the delivery man's route, and he never quite got there before the end of the working day. Pocahontas could probably have continued her travels along the same stretch of road indefinitely, but we put in some phone calls (I forget all the details, it was a while ago) and went and fetched her from the depot ourselves. She got here in the end :lol:.

One parcel that I never did get was a pony (Sundance). The courier swore he had left her at our address, and even had a signature to show for it (it was our name, but not the signature of anyone in our family; I think sometimes the postpeople sign for stuff themselves to save time). She never did turn up, so who knows where/if she was actually delivered :shrug:. Maybe she's out there living a free and unfettered life as a feral pony :lol:.

Ponyfan:
I've had a few but luckily the damage wasn't too bad.

I never will forget when I ordered an item off of Ebay for a swap and when it arrived I could see the item through the packaging.  The seller had wrapped the shipping envelope directly around the item. It was raining the day it came too.  I was glad the item wasn't damaged but I've always wondered why the seller thought it was a good idea to send something that way. 

I bought a pony from someone on the TP and it took longer to arrive  than it should have.  I sent the seller a message and she assured me that she had mailed the pony.  It arrived a few days later with a postmark dated a couple days before she came.  I've always wondered if the seller realized they forgot to mail the pony or if the pony got lost in the post office somewhere.


I've had a few boxes arrive that looked like the workers either threw them  around or ran over them with the forklift.  I bought a lot of great ponies from a very good friend and sent her a picture of the shipping box after it arrived.  She was shocked that the box was so dented and bent and told me it didn't look like that when she mailed it.  Nothing inside was damaged though.


Ponyfan

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