I just saw this on News Ltd's website - footage of parcel handlers throwing items into a lorry at Adelaide Airport.

http://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/...1227120819253.

I wonder how many vintage radios were amongst that lot.

I've often witnessed similar behaviour by Australia Post couriers behind a post office.

This is the standard message I send to overseas eBay sellers before they ship:

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"Please package the item well for its long journey and the inevitable rough treatment from cargo handlers who toss packages around like footballs.

They don't care about contents. 'Fragile' stickers mean nothing to them.

Please "go overboard" with internal packing, and tape the outer carton well as it will *definitely* be subjected to rough treatment along the way."

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To date, I'm happy to say that all sellers have taken heed of my request. One asked if I would mind paying a bit extra for extra padding and I agreed immediately.

Fragile stickers mean nothing to them.

In my experience they see a Fragile sticker as a challenge.

Something I saw on Ebay last night amazed me - a seller claiming that double-boxing does nothing for the protection of an item. A lot of the radios I've received over the years have arrived safely in one box but any that I have sent out have always been double boxed just to be on the safe side. Each parcel I've sent out has allowed for idiots like the three in the linked video and I usually do it in this order: item - bubblewrap (four or five layers) - shredded newspaper - inner box - shredded newspaper - outer box. The added buffer zone created by the outer box allows for some movement away from the inner box's crumble zone so shocks from the item being kicked around is absorbed before it reaches the inner box.

If a radio cannot fit into this system and inside Post's maximum measurements and weight then I ask the winner to pick up the item or alternatively pay me for the fuel and I deliver it to an agreed location.

Being sacked is a harsh cop but in cases like this I think it is deserved. And supposedly being a large reputable carrier, DHL should have a system for loading parcels safely. Most carriers have depots where items are placed in skips and these are then placed on the lorries with forklifts.

a seller claiming that double-boxing does nothing for the protection of an item.

Well, that seller knows absolutely nothing about packing fragile goods for overseas shipment. In 90% of my shipments, the outside carton shows signs of being tossed or dropped, or stabbed.

Being sacked is a harsh cop

It's exactly what they deserve; in fact I wish there was a way prosecuting them, too. No company/industry needs bogans like those.

It wasn't these guys was it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift_and_Shift_Couriers

On this occasion, DHL.

There's horror stories going back years though. I still remember footage from the US about three years ago when a FedEx driver couldn't get into a property to deliver a flatscreen television so he just tossed it over the front fence and drove off.

On an unrelated note I had a bad experience with Startrack Express about a month ago. I ordered a battery from Adelaide which will now power my fridge when I go camping. It was carried to Sydney without delay but that is where the good times ended. After a week of ringing up and finally giving in and asking them to ring me when they find the parcel and I would pick it up from their Minchinbury depot I then waited at the depot in a fairly precarious spot, right next to dozens of passing 70 tonne B-double trucks, for almost 90 minutes whilst some crusty old bandy legged bloke with a pencil tucked above his ear had to re-find the parcel and bring it out, dodging all the trucks in the process.

To Startrack's credit, their receptionist did a lot to help me despite probably having the busiest job in the place. She was on the phone giving everyone stick and that is what I like to see. The best (worst?) part of this story is that another bloke was waiting beside me to pick up a parcel at the same time. He was told his parcel had arrived and to come and get it. As I was placing my parcel in the boot and walking back to the driver's door of the car I heard the old bloke from the depot tell him his parcel was still in Melbourne.

Startrack is now owned by Australia Post.

Yes I noticed that when they started changing the logo on their trucks a few months ago. I recall it was once called Discount Freight with the slogan "Saving Australia". The newest trucks are still fitted with the small Australian flags over the cabins.

Going by the vibes I got from some of the staff out at the depot I don't think the takeover by the post office was well received.

Ahhh, and the Ebay seller I mentioned is selling an Astor Mickey breadloaf at the moment - a radio with a cabinet that is well known for cracks on top. It'd be one of the last radios one would post with a second class level of packaging and padding.

the Ebay seller I mentioned is selling an Astor Mickey breadloaf at the moment

Is that the one with the suicide plug on it and "I plugged in the radio and the valves and also the light at front lit up" ?

This one.

The ultimate test for any packaging, if you wanted to see how good it was used to be mark it "Fragile" & send it British rail............. If it survived that it could just about survive a nuclear holocaust.

On a related matter: back in the 1970s I recall a story in the media about a businessman who set out to prove that his interstate shipments were not going via express air courier (which he was paying extra for) but were going overnight by road which was a slower and cheaper rate.

Being a glider pilot he owned a 'brag box' which is an altimeter that records the highest altitude reached during a flight. He packaged that and sent it from Sydney to Melbourne and the device showed that the maximum altitude was only as high as the peak point of the GDR via the Hume Highway.

The seller of this radio

had only packed it in one box and some bubble wrap. It arrived with the cabinet in a few large pieces, and a missing small piece (the box had a hole in one of the corners). It would have been too much trouble to return it. I was able to reassemble it, and a casual look doesn't see the damage. I since got another, undamaged.

IT is a heart wrenching moment when you open a box to find a broken radio.
I'm probably too cautious when packing, and go overboard on the size of the box, but never had a breakage of stuff sent from here.
I would be extra scared of something heading out of the country


Ben