What's your worst shipping horror story?

[darkhorse9]

We've all had horrible shippers who don't seem to know what they're doing. What are your worst examples?

I had ordered a 1948 Bowman card from a guy and paid over $6 for shipping. He took a piece of tacky substance and stuck the card to an index card, threw it in a #10 envelope and then made the thing "signature required". So I had to head down to the post office to get this disaster.

Others?

[Zach Wheat]

Not really a shipping mistake, but I accidentally discarded with the packaging a T206 of Cy Young. Brings feeling foolish to another level. I never bought another to replace the "hole" in my set.

[scooter729]

A unique 1910 Red Sox panoramic, which I won in a major auction many moons ago, was poorly shipped and the glass shattered in transit, resulting in a giant tear.

I got my money back, but it's a shame that had to happen to such an awesome item....

[parkplace33]

Not blaming the seller, but I once got a card one year after they mailed it. It was in a non machineable envelope, my guess it got stored somewhere for a longgggg time.

[Seven]

Purchased a 1953 Bowman Mickey Mantle graded a 2.5 by PSA (still have the old cert somewhere) It was misdelivered, stolen, and put up on ebay again about a state over from me. I was eventually refunded my money, but I still wish I had the card!

[samosa4u]

Like fifteen years ago I had this high-grade 52T Campy sent to me by FedEx from the US. The guy forget to get signature and the idiot driver left it at the wrong house! If that wasn't bad enough, when I phoned FedEx, and they reached out to the driver, he told them that he had the right house! This went on for a few days and then one day the idiot showed up at my house with the package and apologized. Put me through hell!

[skelly423]

Any time you package makes a tinkling sound, it's never good

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

Not really a shipping mistake, but I accidentally discarded with the packaging a T206 of Cy Young. Bring feeling foolish to another level. I never bought another to replace the "hole" in my set.

You are not alone.

[Lucas00]

I have had several original photos come bent in half. And one shredded pwe.

[Kevin]

Won quite a few of his auctions here on net54. Dave Bergen has the BEST shipping/packaging and cool surprise inserts. Love his shipping…

[vthobby]

Originally Posted by skelly423

Any time you package makes a tinkling sound, it's never good

Sorry about this card. That is hard to look at! ugh

Made me think about Mize a bit and I don't think alot of folks know that he only struck out 524 times in his entire career!

In 2009 Mark Reynolds struck out 223 times!!!!!

Not shipping related but the Mize photo made me think of it! The mind works in mysterious ways!

[Chris-Counts]

It wasn't a baseball item, but a piece of video equipment. I packed it great, but UPS somehow destroyed it. When I filed an insurance claim, they rejected it due to "my poor packaging," but they lost that case in small claims court when I produced receipts and photos showing that I had packaged it at a UPS store, with the help of the store's manager.

[drmiraculous]

You had me at "Fed Ex".

I had a driver drop my item off at the wrong place, insisted it was the right place as addressed, then told me said item was irretrievable. Two weeks later it was dropped on my front porch with no warning or explanation while I was working my way thru the case claim with their own "investigation team". Now I often ask senders to use ANYTHING but Fed Ex and both I and my local Fed Ex driver are happier.

[bmattioli]

I have been receiving items through the mail since 1981 even for years while stationed Overseas and not one bad experience.. Must be over thousands of transactions. NO JINX!!

[Eric72]

This is not related to sports cards; however, it is the experience that stands out most in my mind.

My employer sent a batch of event invites out one day. We got one back, marked "Return to Sender" a few years later.

[ClementeFanOh]

drmiraculous- Spot on regarding Fedex. I have had more bad experiences
with that company than all others combined. I vowed to bang on them
whenever possible after another horrible experience several years ago, so
I'm keeping that promise. Fedex are:

1) tone deaf to the needs of the customer
2) utterly worthless over the phone
3) the only delivery company I know, that is disinterested in the actual
delivery of packages.

Fedex are so bad that, if a person insists on using them, I turn down the
transaction. Utter garbage.

Trent King

[Musashi]

Not cards but:

Large order of office and shipping supplies that was in multiple boxes got delivered to three different addresses. One of them was ours, the other two were fortunately honest neighbors

[Zach Wheat]

Originally Posted by skelly423

Any time you package makes a tinkling sound, it's never good

How did this get so badly damaged? There must be a story to this....

[jchcollins]

Probably close to 20 years ago at this point, an eBay seller sent me a '55 Bowman Ernie Banks - raw in a PWE, with a yellow sticky note affixed to the card itself. Incredibly - for the condition it was described in - the sticky came right off and it was no worse for the wear.

UPS one time sent me a 1973 Angels Media Guide with Nolan Ryan on it - left on the front porch in heavy rain. Luckily I rescued the package within about 10 minutes of it being delivered - the item inside the packaging had not yet gotten soaked through, but it was well on it's way.

[philliesfan]

I live next to my in-laws and one day I noticed a large box of text books in the street and books all over the street.
I went out and collected the books and box that had fallen off the back of the truck.
I called FedEx and told them of the box and they were going to send a truck out to pick up the box and books.
The driver said that I need to package the box and address it and seal it. And then proceeded to tell me that I need to call the office back for someone else to pick up because he could not accept it as he was FedEx Global and this was a local shipment.
I proceeded to pack up the box and took it to a local Goodwill.
Bob

[ZachS]

All the FedEx stuff is wild. I once shipped a pallet box with 1000 lbs of special valves for chlorine railcars. FedEx lost the entire pallet somewhere in Texas.

[Bill77]

Some fun shipping issues I've had:

I bought a graded Jason Giambi rookie the seller cut a priority envelope into two equal sized pieces and taped the card to one side of his homemade priority envelope. I am still amazed it showed up intact.

I bought 2 T79 Military series cards with Lenox backs from an idiot seller that I had purchased from before. I should have known better as the 1st envelope I got from him did not have enough postage and was delayed. The 2nd envelope wasn't sealed and had the flap torn off by one of the sorting machines at some point. To my eternal amazement both cards were still in the envelope.

I bought a pair of cards of Chyna that I am pretty sure the seller must have put in his back pocket before getting in the car to go to the post office.

More recently I bought an Autographed 1960 Topps Roy Face, which disappeared somewhere around St Louis. After waiting 2 weeks I found another one which of course had to go through St Louis as well, this one made it through. About a month after the 1st card disappeared it was finally delivered so now; I have 2 autographed 1960 Topps Roy Face cards.

So many other cards have taken extended vacations thanks to the USPS, some never to return. So many shippers must have stock in 3m with all the tape they use to both seal the packages and tape cards to the inside of envelopes just to drive me crazy.

[skelly423]

Originally Posted by Zach Wheat

How did this get so badly damaged? There must be a story to this....

I genuinely don't know. It was intact when it was mailed, and looked like that when it arrived at my door. I can only assume it ran into a chainsaw somewhere in between.

[perezfan]

My most disappointing experience was something that was shipped to me by Heritage. It was the actual Topps Rookie "Top Hat" Trophy you see depicted on the 1960s cards (Seaver, Rose, Perez, Carew, etc.)

Joe Garagiola perennially hosted the Topps Rookie Banquet, and was presented a giant version of the famous Top Hat Trophy for being the Master of Ceremonies. As soon as I saw the flattened Box, I knew it was trouble. The box was crumpled almost as badly as a "baggie" within a PSA slab. It looked just like the roof above the Dodger Stadium Bleachers.

When I picked it up, I heard the rattle of death. Sure enough, it was completely destroyed by UPS, and subsequently I have never used them since then.

Looks like Heritage has removed the piece from their completed items search function, but here is the similar Trophy given to McCovey, for perspective...

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...ription-071515