The Horrors of Shipping

Exams over and a assignment completed ahead of schedule, I'm finally able to get back to blogging and tell you of a little horror story which occurred to me the middle of last month (May). As the title pretty much says it all, I had a nightmare of a situation with my latest shipment coming from Mandarake's Fukuoka branch.

As the damage to the box above shows, my heart sank when I first saw the condition it was in. I could only hope for the best but, deep in side, I knew things weren't going to have such a positive outlook.

Carefully opening the box making sure I did not further damage the contents, it didn't take long to see that some pretty serious damage had occurred even through the bubble wrap.

What was in the shipment you ask? The Yukata version of both Sonico and Fuuri. That's right, 18,000 Yen worth of figures. I knew I wasn't in for a good time.

 

On initial inspection, Sonico's box had some moderate damage with the front side of the box taking the brunt of the damage. Fortunately, the contents were unharmed.

 

Fuuri's box on the other hand was a different story. The box had suffered from some pretty serious denting to the sides.

 

The extent of damage was even more apparent when seen from the back. Fortunately, like Sonico, the contents was still very much intact and undamaged. 

Final assessment complete and pictures taken, I rushed down to the local post office before it closed for the day. Shipping it via EMS meant I had the luxury of insuring it without any extra cost. Regardless, I still had to go through a whole 4 hour process of making my compensation claims from being redirected to another post office, filling claims and completing paperwork. After all that, I was notified that I'd have to wait a minimum of a month for the claims to be processed and decided whether I'm eligible for compensation.

The worse bit of damage to Sonico's box

A few dents here and there

And a big tear right there

The box is clearly bent out of shape here

Damage to Fuuri's box was particularly focused to one side

Here's how it looks after I straightened out the initial dent

Still, the damage to the box is pretty apparent

So, who do I blame for this ordeal?

Mandarake? No way. Without a doubt they put in extra care with their packaging. Bubble wrap and paper inside a tough cardboard box, that's as good as you can come to expect.

Good Smile Company for fragile packaging? No to that too. The fact that the figures aren't damaged is testament to the quality of their packaging. I always wondered why there was so much plastic buffer in between the figure and box, now I know.

Post Services? Definitely! With this degree of damage to the box, I am quite frankly surprised and appalled at the degree of irresponsibility the postal services had. The fact that they would deliver the box in such a condition and accept it as a valid shipment is a joke in itself.

Alright, that's all for today's rant. Thanks for reading. Until then, have a great week everybody and I hope you do not face the same fate as I did.