Do you open your packages before you sign? Ever received damaged dolls/items?

Let me tell you this, the delivery guy is not gonna hang around for you to open the package. They want you to sign so they can go back to work. It is not the responsibility of the delievery guy to deal with damaged good. You should sign for the package, and let the person go. Open the box and give everything a good look over. EVERYTHING. Most companies will not refund or replace items if you wait too long to contact them. If there is a problem, take photos and email the seller or company.

As for the boxes, I've gotten some severely damaged boxes with the dolls themself perfectly fine. My first AOD body came with a huge hole in the outer box and inner box but the doll was fine. Don't be worried about signing for a banged up box. It's not uncommon for them to look like they took a beating.

 

I will say that I have never opened my dolls' boxes upon delivery until I received my dollzone elephant. I wasn't even the one to insist that I open the package before signing; the USPS man actually asked me to He said that the box was in the worst shape of any box he had ever delivered. My girl's package was so mangle that the dollzone postcards she came with where crushed beyond recognition. Thankfully, she was unharmed.
Moral of the story, it is not always necessary to take such precautions. However, it doesn't hurt to ask the deliverer to wait for a second ^^;

 

woah, that's terrible! you're lucky to have such a nice USPS man. Ours are like the epitome of the grouchy government worker.

 

I'm probably one of the luckier ones in that I happen to know the ParcelForce delivery man that delivers to the area that I live in. He always treats my packages with care and they've never been damaged while in his possession. But I have received two packages in the past that were a bit mangled looking and had obviously been crushed during the time it spent getting from Korea to the UK.

One was from Luts (who I swear never pack stuff properly) and the other from Dream of Doll. Fortuantely neither were dolls, just items of clothing so nothing was damaged and even though it was a different guy that delivered the mangled Luts box to me, he was really nice and patient and asked if I wanted to open it up first to check to see if anything was damaged.

I declined because of the above reason (i.e. it was all clothes and I knew they'd be fine despite how pitiful the box looked).

So my answer is no... I generally do not open boxes delivered to me before signing for them. Hopefully I'll never have to do that either, I don't think I want to have another box delivered to me that's even more mangled than the Luts one was

 

its not really an option for me a lot of the time, the parcel farce guy who delivers to me flat out refuses to let me even take a good look at the box until after I sign

the fed-ex woman who delivers is a lot more accomodating and lets me check first, it's just a shame my local fed-ex depot is useless (they once told me my package didn't exist on the system but the woman who delivers to me got onto them and it showed up in the end)

 

I've received three dolls from DOD. The first two boys (Camines) were delivered to my home (someone was there to accept delivery) and the third (Lucah) I had to go and pick up at the post office. It was a couple of days before Xmas, and believe me, you don't hold up the Xmas queue just so's you can open a box at the counter to check the contents


Each time the dolls were in perfect condition - even the second Camine, which was sent back to DOD since I hadn't actually ordered him.

 

I get about 10 packages a week sometimes because I buy a lot of stuff (not just dolls) mail order. I am not going to be physically able to open and check 10 big packages of stuff while the delivery guy waits or even standing around in the post office. And, as everyone else has said, the delivery person, post office queue etc. would get annoyed if you did that. Plus I work a lot so half the time someone else is picking up the package for me anyway.

If something is damaged, you can take it up with the doll company later - just like you would with any other company. Seriously, there's nothing mysterious or different about getting a boxfull of doll in the mail. It's just like you bought a box of gardening equipment from the department store catalog. You handle breakage and returns and so forth in the same general way.

 

It would be incredibly rude to make the delivery guy wait while you opened and inspected your package. They are on very tight schedules, and any delay you give them is going to mess with their entire schedule, make them work overtime, and make them angry with you! This is especially true of private delivery services (FedEx, UPS, DHL) where the delivery guys are under a lot of pressure to meet their very demanding schedules. (Did you know UPS drivers can earn $20-$30 an hour because the job is so stressful, and they have such high turn-over rates?)

What happens when you have an angry delivery guy? He doesn't take any extra care with your packages. He won't gently tuck them away in his truck, he'll just toss 'em back there carelessly. I know one delivery man had a client he really did not like, so he never delivered her packages -- he would just tape the "Please pick-up your package at the post office" slip to her door. He never checked if she was home, never knocked or rang the doorbell, just snuck up and left the delivery slip, and then left. She always had to go to the post office to get her items, which was really inconvenient give the post office had such limited hours.

Bunnydots is right. Sign for your package and do not annoy the delivery guy. If anything is wrong, take it up with the company. It is the company -- not the delivery service -- that will issue you a refund if one is necessary.

 

How very honest of you!

I haven't ever actually checked; i'm not sure what the legal implications are of that...I think you can still claim even if you have signed to say you received the item...

 

You can still get the claim, but you should keep things just as they are as soon as you notice any problem. If its from a company, then you can take it up with the company of course. But if its a personal transaction with another hobbiest, then you should leave things in tact for the post office to see so that there is no risk of losing the insurance claim.

I've heard of people whose boxes were opened and empty, so...if I saw a package was open, or had a big enough hole for things to fall out, I sure wouldn't sign for it. Let the post man just take it back to the post office and you can go down there later to check it out in front of people. You won't slow the postman down on his route that way.

 

Goodness no, I don't open my packages before I sign for them. Our poor mailman (USPS) is a saint for putting up with our big barking dogs and always rings the bell for packages that need signing (our previous mailman didn't, and just left the missed delivery slip even if we were home ). I think he's busy enough without having to watch me open stuff.

I have dealt with isurance claims twice, and I didn't have problems either time. I just needed to either show the damaged item with the original packaging and/or proof of value. The receipt and insurance slip are also needed, on the senders side.

 

I get a few deliveries a week and have yet to do it. However, if the box was in exceptionally bad condition, I might consider it. Still...as a few people have said, it's good to stay on the delivery person's good side, (since I've made a point of smiling and waving to the mailman, I've found my packages get treated a bit better and he goes out of his way to make certain they're in a safe place if they don't fit in the box) and making them late on their routes probably isn't the way to do it.