Ebay Sellers Terrible Packing Requires Doctor To Open

Received today item I won on ebay 5 months earlier. This has to have been the worst ever packed ebay item I have ever received. I needed a medic or doctor to open it, the crazy seller used glue which then stuck down the right side of the back of the old cover to his envelope on the inside. I was so annoyed at this when it arrived. I had to be so careful not to tear the cover I had ordered. Thank heavens the glue did not get to the stamps on the cover. Surely experienced stamp shop would put plastic over items before posting them out? Now I get hundreds of items in the post, most do a good job packing items but this guy does obviously have no clue as to how to pack ebay items for customers. Look at the third pic where you can see the cover stuck to the outside envelope. Crazy! Has anyone experienced similar from ebay sellers? What's your worst packed ebay item you've received?

This is one of my pet peeves, but thankfully I've had a run of good luck with not getting over-packing or bad packing like this. Safe and secure packing does not have to be impregnable. I think there's a higher risk of damaging an item extracting it from an over-packed or poorly packed shipment than there is from it getting damaged from normal mail handling.

The worst packet I ever received was when 10 expensive stamps turned up in an envelope. That's all, just an envelope.

Whilst glue can be annoying, at least you did get stiffener. I understand your cover was OK ?

Many of my stamps were ruined.

I couldn't disagree more.
And one of my pet peeves is someone who does not take the time and trouble to send a packet safely.

I have said before a million times but I'll say it again [because it gives me a good feeling],that I send packets all the time that are hard to get into. Stiffener, tape and all the corners and edges sealed to perfection. I have ONLY ever had compliments for my packing and will never settle for anything less.
I do so for good reasons...one of which I described above.

Londonbus1.....ace packer !

Hi Londonbus yes I was lucky that I saved the cover as there were 5 old GB stamps on the other side. But if I had opened it in a rush I could have easily damaged it. My concern is this ebay seller was experienced, apart from the item taking 5 months to get to me you'd think he would be using plastic around it to send it out. Cover went to Bangkok from GB so would have been ashamed if it were damaged when opened, luckily I saved it but I had to be extremely careful.

I go crazy when I receive an envelope that is sealed like it contains a million dollars What a time waster to get it open.

I have now learned to bang one side of the envelope on a table to force the contents to the bottom and then to make a very fine slit (with scissors) to the top of the other side of the envelope (you can feel when it has no contents). I haven't yet sliced through anything I wasn't supposed to

Just last week - I'd bought an old album on ebay - it was empty, so I was buying the album itself to use, not buying a stamp collection. Whoever packed it partially covered it in bubble wrap, with sellotape wrapped around it, and therefore on the cover of the album itself. Sellotape actually stuck on the outside of the album I had purchased! Luckily I was able to get it off using a solvent, and it doesn't appear to have done any permanent damage - but what an idiot to tape up the album like that.

Why can't all sellers pack things simply yet securely. Its not rocket science. Ringo I hope you left that seller a negative? Jenny2u good idea for most but if its glued at the top that's another story. Lately I make a small cut in one of the corners of the envelope just incase the packing is crazy. Some sellers go for the over kill and use half a roll of tape to.

Based on my own ebay experience as a buyer, I think it is possible to pack and ship stamps safely and securely without making it freakishly hard to extract them upon receipt. There is a line that some sellers cross, and I definitely side with duncanvr on this issue.

Seriously???
Seller wraps album with bubble wrap to protect
and you want to leave a negative?

I won an ebay lot that pictured manila stock cards loaded with stamps. When they arrived the exterior packaging was ok but each stock card had Glad press and seal wrap tightly wrapped around each stock card so the stamps would stay in place.
This type of wrap is sticky over it's entire surface to make it cling well. I did my best to unwrap but the face was ruined on a few of the stamps. Alot of nice stamps for a low price so I didn't complain.

Well, he wrapped some of it! The bubble wrap was wrapped long-ways around the album, but the sticky tape was wrapped cross-ways, so it was physically stuck to the spine of the album, and the edges of the opening side of the cover. And I recall some of the outer brown paper was also taped directly to the album! It took quite a while to disassemble it all without damaging it.

I didn't leave him any feedback by the way, but if I did it would have been neg.

My last ebay purchase took almost 15 minutes to very carefully remove layers of packaging, but when I finally got to the items bought, there was just folded paper around the dealer card, no tape near the stamps!
On ebay, any feedback that isn't positive is the same as negitive, according to the sellers requesting 5 star feedback.

I want to be clear that, while over-packaging can be extremely irritating and potentially harmful to the stamps inside, it has never caused me to leave negative or neutral feedback. I would only consider negative feedback for outright dishonesty, and so far I have not personally encountered that in 15 years of buying on ebay.

My only advice here is to complain to the seller when they send the stamps or albums or covers in such away they get damaged in transit. It seems to have happened to many of us. I refuse to buy from those sellers again that pack items in a damaging way. Their loss of business. By the way that item had been postmarked on the envelope 1st Nov 2014 and only got here now, wonder why it was so slow. Thats another put off to buying further from those sellers, mail that takes for ever to arrive.

Precisely. I'm 100% in favor of safe and secure. I'm decidedly not in favor of a difficult extraction process. One doesn't have to make them difficult to extract in order to provide a safe and secure shipment.