Best observed posting of / attempt to post an inappropriately packaged item

I_wanna_live_for_free

Debenhams also like to send fragile items in a polybag.
M&S in my experience, use oodles of bubble wrap and sturdy boxes which I then reuse

luxor4t

The postman rang the doorbell, grinned and handed me a crumpled lump of wallpaper, slightly damp and with a corner of a garment hanging out of it...
The thick seller had used ordinary wallpaper, not the washable stuff that can withstand a bit of rain & some manhandling!

I have also had an item arrive in a birthday 'gift bag', the string handles were tied at the top & a postal label was stuck on the side. unfortunately, it had 'burst' and had been mended with RM tape.

Why can't we give stars for packaging?

Strapped

luxor4t wrote: »

The postman rang the doorbell, grinned and handed me a crumpled lump of wallpaper, slightly damp and with a corner of a garment hanging out of it...
The thick seller had used ordinary wallpaper, not the washable stuff that can withstand a bit of rain & some manhandling!

I have also had an item arrive in a birthday 'gift bag', the string handles were tied at the top & a postal label was stuck on the side. unfortunately, it had 'burst' and had been mended with RM tape.

Why can't we give stars for packaging?

You can - P&P.

Crowqueen

Amazon were on Watchdog a number of weeks ago for sending everything in outsize boxes.

My mother bought a watch which she received yesterday. It was tiny little thing in a box that could easily have held Encyclopaedia Britannica - and I don't mean the DVD version!

soolin

Re the writing the envelope at the PO counter- I saw that a few years back- it was one of the things I added to the original thread.


In the instance I saw the PO was in a shop, so envelopes were sold by shop and not by PO counters. The lady took appropriately sized jiffy bags from display, wrote on them badly with biro and queued up at PO counters. They told her she needed to go and pay at the shop counter first for the envelopes but it transpired that she had thought they were free and started ranting and raving about it being a poor sort of post office if you even had to pay for the envelopes as well as the postage. That one got nasty, woman tore open the envelopes and threw them at staff saying she wouldn't pay for them and she was going to complain about being made to pay, police were threatened and as I left claims of racism was being made by customer- which was odd as the PO counter staff were in an ethnic minority themselves.

I did see several people though in that shop situation picking up envelopes while they queued thinking they were free- if it was really crowded some even got away with it!

soolin

Another one that used to get me in the post office were the people on seeing a large queue (usually 20-30 minutes worth) would rush to the front apologising for pushing in and saying that they really only had one thing to send, or a tax disc to buy and they were sure people wouldn't mind letting them push in. Oddly enough where I live people did mind- and that often ended with a very heated exchange.

Avoriaz

I read about this one recently.

SIR – A friend of mine, a policeman in the north of Scotland, used to receive letters from his mother addressed to “Pc !!!!!!, The Nick, Wick”. It never failed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/9347719/Baffling-addresses-that-get-delivered-correctly.html

Avoriaz

Gleeful wrote: »

A guitar pedal worth £100 shoved in a Jiffy bag and sent recorded delivery. It arrived intact though....

I've sold loads of guitar pedals, although usually in the £20 to £40 price range.

I usually packed them in bubble wrap inside a jiffy bag and posted them second class with proof of postage

I calculated that the saving on trackable delivery, or claiming with my proof of postage, would offset any fraudulent or genuine non receipt.

I never had a claim and got positive feedback for every one.