VOGONS


First post, by DankEngihn

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I recently received an AT case from British Columbia, and the seller used absolutely NO packaging. Fortunately the only damage was a few small chips in the top corners of the case, and a crack in the plastic above the 5.25" bays.

What are your shipping horror stories?

Reply 2 of 68, by BinaryDemon

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Recently, I had a similar experience with a beige atx case, cracked at top and also cracked the top dvd drive.
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Cracked in mail: (I did remove the DVD drive faceplate, but it was cracked. I wanted to see if there might at least be a surprise CD/DVD inside. And salvaged the CD/RW for another build.)

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Shame it would have made a nice home for a retro build.

A long time ago a seller shipped a cpu with pins in a bubble wrap mailer with no additional protection. The pins were hopeless mashed when it arrived. 😠

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a lightweight Linux distro (tinycore) which boots off a usb flash drive and goes straight to DOSBox.

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Reply 3 of 68, by JidaiGeki

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Nothing too bad lately, except for a software package that was sent in a thin plastic shipping satchel i.e. no protection at all - lucky it wasn't harmed - and an AT case from overseas that was well packed, but the seller didn't screw the cover on. During transit it was slammed forward and chipped the top of the bezel, fixable but the damage was preventable 🙁

Reply 4 of 68, by Deksor

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Not on eBay, but in total I've had three AT cases shipped that arrived with cracks. Nothing too bad though on 2 of them, just a crack in the top left corner which after glueing is allright. However the third one as more cracks and they're more visible (plus the case have been bent as well even though it was easy to fix). Since that one is quite yellowed I'm thinking of painting it.

Another thing I've received in a poor packaging : my Amstrad cpc 6128. The seller had put it in a box much bigger than the computer (at least twice as big in volume) with no packing material and barely anything to hold it in place (what was put by the seller didn't hold the computer in the package). Miraculously the computer hasn't been damaged during transportation. Maybe the keyboard was because some keys didn't work when I received it (while it was reported as in working order by the seller), but after a full cleaning everything was back to normal 😁

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Reply 6 of 68, by Vynix

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A Sony PVM-1442QM CRT... The tube was intact but the connectors were smashed inwards and as soon I turned it on, my house's breaker popped as something inside the monitor broke off and was shorting against the 240V input.

I didn't bother and sent it back, asking for a refund in the way (paying 450 euros for a monitor and for it to arrive damaged'.. No thanks!) thankfully the seller was understanding and was sympathic enough to ship me another one, free of charge 😀 since this PVM has been sitting at a friend's place, hooked to an Apple IIGS

Then came a Mac IIfx, it arrived in pieces, metal chassis was bent by the hard drive banging everywhere... 😵 this time the seller (a young guy who clearly knew a lot about 68k macs) didn't make a fuss too (he told me that "shit happens" sometimes) and refunded me without further ado.

An XT/286 I got years ago, seller only sent the motherboard naked (no case nothing), I guess you can see where this is going: motherboard arrived cracked in half 😵 and to rub salt into the wound, seller blamed me and told that I broke it on purpose... Needless to say that police quickly got involved (seller started harassing me and sending death threats) for this one.

Edit: to clarify the last one, the guy who sold me the broken XT/286 mobo was already known for blaming the buyer should something go wrong with a transaction, it wasn't the first time he done that. He had a report or so on some website (that today no longer exists, as this ordeal happened roughly 7 years ago).

Last edited by Vynix on 2019-05-29, 15:47. Edited 2 times in total.

Proud owner of a Shuttle HOT-555A 430VX motherboard and two wonderful retro laptops, namely a Compaq Armada 1700 [nonfunctional] and a HP Omnibook XE3-GC [fully working :p]

Reply 8 of 68, by cyclone3d

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A micron laptop that was sold as-is was shipped to me with very obviously not enough packaging and the casing was severely damaged in shipping.

When I opened up a return, the seller became very angry and kept telling me that it wasn't their problem because it had already left their possession.

They refused to open up a damaged in shipping case with USPS and said that I had to do it despite what the USPS website specifically says and what I was told at the post office.

To top it off, they started trying to claim that I just wanted to use parts off of it and then get my money back.

They just kept getting more and more rude.

eBay ended up refunding me my money after they forced a return.

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Reply 9 of 68, by WildW

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I recently had some packaging that was "too good" to the point that it was just annoying. A PC case wrapped in close to a dozen alternating layers of bubble-wrap, plastic bags, newspaper, and parcel tape. It took forever to get into and made so much mess. . . but it was perfectly protected so I guess I can't complain.

Reply 10 of 68, by PTherapist

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I ordered a Macintosh Performa 5200CD. The seller was an absolute pain in the backside to communicate with and the item took over a month to arrive. It arrived in a badly packed box, with nowhere near enough padding and the inevitable - the casing was cracked and broken all over.

I decided to keep it and just patched up the plastics. Seriously, it looked like a bad frankenstein's monster and lived just like one! 🤣

It wasn't until years later that the damage took it's full toll. After being in storage for a while and succumbing also to the brittle plastics that effect a lot of old Apple hardware, I went to lift it to move it and the whole thing literally crumbled and fell to pieces in my hands. You absolutely could not get a grip of anything, down to the bare metal. 😠

Also not retro hardware related, but I've had some bad luck recently with 5.1 A/V receivers, receiving 2 broken ones within the space of 3 months and 1 of those was from a reputable company. Though I'd probably blame more the postal/delivery service than bad packaging in those cases.

Reply 11 of 68, by jamesp15

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Worst was a motherboard that was placed between 2 sheets of styrofoam (not the antistatic kind either, the kind that generates static just by looking at it). Even worse was it looks like they then pressed the 2 sheets onto the board and then put it into a bubble mailer that it all barely fit inside. Spent 2 days digging those little styrofoam bits and pieces out of every little crevice, slot, between chip legs, inside the cpu socket, pin connectors, etc. Board didnt work unsurprisingly. I have pics somewhere, looking for them to post if I ever find them.

Reply 12 of 68, by SirNickity

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More of the same. My first two childhood computers, re-purchased from Ebay, both arrived with cracks in the case. The second one was packed pretty well, in several layers of bubble wrap -- but, they didn't think about the weight of the case sitting on an unsupported length of plastic if it were to be placed face-down during shipping, and it cracked in half right beside the drive bays. 🙁

I can't even count how many hard drives and cards and motherboards I've bought wrapped directly in bubble wrap with no anti-static bag. Ugh. ><

Speaking of 5.1 receivers, after a recent earthquake, mine got delivered from its shelf to the concrete floor below. It did not fare well.

Reply 13 of 68, by bestemor

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Been a while, but.... I got this ASUS P4C800-dlx mobo from Italy in just a friggin padded envelope ! One corner was bent totally into a 90 degree angle !
About 1.5 cm from the tip, looking like this: _| ...

Still very much attached though, which speaks for the production value of ASUS.

Luckily it was a non-essential corner (upper right), so the mobo actually worked !!! 😁
I still left a negative feedback though.

And locally, someone shipped a full IBM XT, monitor and all, but had not retracted the plastic keyboard feet, inside a completely non-padded cardboard box... guess what broke off.... :\
Everything else worked fine though ! 😁

Reply 14 of 68, by retropol

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i received a miditower retro comp, packed in stretch and bouble-plastic only... TOTALLY no signs of damage on such package (its elastic so how to see any damages). Inside - catastrophy.
Fedex said it is not their fault if the ext pack does not have signs of damages but it was obvious the computer was broken by fall. I am not recommending fedex - two times I have delivery by fedex and in both cases they delivered damaged product. It can not be coincidence.

Reply 15 of 68, by Intel486dx33

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I always send a kind message and thank you to all my ebay purchases.
And it works, they usually will package better if you just ask kindly.

Hi, Thank you for this sale. Just to inform you, Shippers in my area are very rough with packages. May you please package well. […]
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Hi, Thank you for this sale.
Just to inform you, Shippers in my area are very rough with packages.
May you please package well.
Please double line the shipping box with card board.
Shipping Boxes are FREE from U.S. post office.
Flat rate shipping box is the best option.
Please wrap the items in bubble wrap and fill the voids in the box with packing peanuts.
For heavy items. Please place 3-inches of Styrofoam on all sides of the inside of the box.
Items need to be able to withstand a 3ft. drop.

Thanks again.

Reply 16 of 68, by Unknown_K

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I had some very badly packed computers arrive with no real damage.

Somebody (pawn shop) shipped me a 20" LCD G4 iMac with pretty much nothing in the box but a few crumpled newspapers and styrofoam on the bottom. if the box was flipped over or sideways it would have been trashed (luckily it wasn't). Had a Quadra 950 shipped with no packing , just chucked into a box it barely fit into and it was OK.

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software

Reply 17 of 68, by Byrd

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A different take on "terrible packaging", more "horrible manky disgusting packaging"

Bought an early iPod from the US and was shipped to me in Australia. Seller "wrapped" the iPod in clam bake take away wrapping, think sauces, old food remnants ...

Take a few weeks shipped over ... I opened the packaging and it stunk out the room, the iPod was covered in a green ooze which required a complete disassembly and deep clean, with me in a hazmat suit.

Surprisingly the iPod worked fine, and was filled with 00's American rap which I never removed

Reply 18 of 68, by Gered

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Four years ago, I bought a Sony PVM 20M2MDU via eBay and the seller apparently had Fedex package it up for him. They did a terrible job (yes, those pictures were taken as I was unboxing it. Yes, that is all of the inside packing material they used.) I remember as the delivery guy wheeled it up to my front door and plopped the box down as he got up to my door there was the unmistakeable noise from inside the box of things rattling around, with the guy putting on his best "I didn't hear anything"-act. No, it did not power on. The back casing was split in the middle almost the entire way down and swung like a door with even the slightest tap of your finger. Boards inside were cracked and and some parts of things broken off and flying about freely inside. Got most of my money back after the seller (who was very helpful) filed a complaint with Fedex.

For reference, this is an example of packaging a CRT, done right. And, here is another example, though a bit more of a "ghetto" packaging job, heh. Even still, it's always a risk to ship a CRT and I do NOT recommend it.

EDIT: Non-CRT related, several months back I received a CT2230 which was shipped in a paper envelope with just a thin piece of cardboard and the paper invoice for "padding." Luckily there were no problems with it, but ... just, wow.

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Reply 19 of 68, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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I always think the problem is looking well packaged as opposed to being well packaged. Luckily I've never had anything trashed, but it sometimes amazes me how - I've had numerous video cards with prominent large passive coolers sent in nothing but a flimsy padded envelope, arrive without a scratch whilst I've had full systems sent in multiple layers of heavy duty bubble wrap and outer cardboard packing case arrive with case dents and damaged front panels (the screw / spacing pillars on these seem particularly vulnerable). Generally its about material choice and separation of the layers, but many sellers seem to go out of their way to cheap out when packaging.