@anthology-of-treasures wrote:
In the past 19 years:
Only one small 1st class package disappeared after it was scanned at a sorting center and that was last year. It apparently never reached the next sorting center. The buyer waited nearly a month to contact me, which was a bad idea!
One package damaged by UPS. The outer box and inner product box were pierced by a forklift fork, but the buyer kept the item anyway.
Back in the day of payments by mail one buyer sent dollar coins as payment. The envelope had been carefully steamed open, the tape carefully pealed up from each coin and reattached to the enclosed letter. The enveloped resealed. Makes one wonder where in the postal facility someone would have time to do this without any damage to the envelope or letter. The buyer made the mistake on not hiding the coins with an internal cardboard strip. On the other hand a California based studio that bought an item sent a $100 bill in a letter and it arrived safely. European payers used to send U.S. cash inside aluminum foil as banking fees were so high there.
This is why its bad idea for eBay to brand labels and boxes with its name. The vast majority of postal employees are honest, but for those that are not such labels act as a magnet for theft. Even after buyers obtain their items from the post office such eBay branded packaging acts as a magnet for thieves who may see such a package inside someone's car. And of course there are porch pirates. But once again eBay is more concerned about promotion and not the safety of buyers and sellers!
Sorry but I call **bleep** on that last part.
I think that a eBay marked package would be the very last thing I would think had anything of value in it.
I'm sorry but I deliver branded boxes from QVC, HSN, JTV, BarkBox, Stichfix, Saks, Walmart.com, Joanne fabrics, Puritans Pride, and many many others including pharmacy's. I can guarantee that none of them will contain item like a rear light cover for a 2000 Jeep Cherokee (something useful for only a small percentage of people but with hardly any resell value) or even worse something from the "well worn" fetish category (unless of course the boxes were reused).
