Hi everyone,
A few weeks ago the post office rang to deliver a packet on a saturday morning. I wasn’t quite awake and was not expecting anything in particular, so was a bit puzzled and signed without much thought for what was a white padded envelope. The provenance of the packet did not seem familiar, but something struck me as odd: that white envelope seemed empty.

I looked again: the envelope was sealed, with a thin piece of scotch tape, but almost see through, and quite obviously flat and empty.
I took pictures, opened it cursing myself for not doing it in front of the post-lady, and sure enough there was nothing inside.

I scratched my head and thought very hard: was this the prelude to some elaborate scam and how could anyone try to scam me when I had not purchased anything?

Then I remembered a nice guy on Instagram had offered to send me a handful of ladies watch strap buckles. That was his first name on the envelope.

That’s when it hit me: someone along the way must have seen the envelope had small metallic objects inside, delicately opened it, and closed it after taking the contents. There were no signs of tearing or tampering, but the sender did confirm he had not made any effort to seal off the envelope with extra tape.

So the lesson is this: even small objects you feel may be worth little are up for grabs. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t buy envelopes which may be a bit see through. Put a lot o
f tape to make it realiy difficult and painful to open.
And if you care, take EVERY single step you can to secure your shipment. Any complacency, misplaced trust or oversight may enable a theft.

I wanted to share this in the event anyone might think thieves don’t care about small things. They care about every opportunity.

Best regards

 

Great advice, Syrte!
I recently received an empty envelope ...but I lost a watch and a couple of straps a friend had sent.

 

Wow, thanks for sharing that story. Can't believe ppl wouldn't actually put the buckles *back in* the envelope, after seeing what they were.

 

Aw @UncleBuck that really hurts to see and is so infuriating. I guess one really needs to use movers’ tape and wrap it all around. I often do that on the ends but what they did to your envelope was really brutal.
Hope the post office provided some sort of a recovery.

Well they were branded and probably gold plated so some idiot must have believed they might be gold. But for sure at the rate 10mm watch straps are going these days, the monetary value of those buckles was probably less than the cost of shipment. It was really a watch enthusiast wanting those buckles to be in a place where they might actualy be put to good use.

 

Nasty. Moral lesson - pack well, and don't cheap out on insurance!

 

By the time they've taken them out of the envelope they probably want to put the buckles away and put the envelope back ASAP before a supervisor or postal inspector happens to walk by.

 

Really sorry for these accidents.

Anyway we can dispel the commonplace that certain things happen only in Italy

 

Thankfully I was not counting on those but felt sad for the gentleman who had been so keen on me getting the buckles, and was disgusted by the dishonesty. Theft no matter how small feels like a violation. That was between Germany and France.

 

I'll offer up a third option, which is that the envelope may have simply come unstuck in transit and deposited its contents throughout some musty distribution center, after which some "helpful" postal worker noticed it and taped it up. My wife hates the taste of envelope glue, so she licks them only lightly, resulting in them often coming unsealed again before they even leave the house, so she always tapes as well. Perhaps your sender has a similar distaste for glue.

 

At least you and @UncleBuck got an envelope .

I had two items to post when I was in France earlier this month. One was posted by me from Paris to Switzerland, arrived OK two days later.

The other was handed to the ship's concierge to post from Avignon to Croatia as I was unable to find an open post office (weekend).

So far it's "All Quiet On The Western Front", and @atc100 and myself are patiently waiting for something to arrive.

If it doesn't get to him by the 26th of July I'll refund his payment and hope that triggers the "well, look what just arrived" phenomenon.

 

Jim, I hope your story comes out better than the movie did!

 

Fingers crossed Jimbo.

 

That was a self stick envelope. No licking or glueing involved.
So it should not have come open on its own and I don't see how it could have.
And the fact that it was essentially see through despite being padded also tells me there was a specific intent.

 

Sorry to hear this. Would better tape have made a difference though? Maybe something more ‘Russian doll’ like i.e. a package within a package within a package...

I know in my country nothing would have made a difference as e v e r y t h i n g is opened and inspected...

 

I just did that yesterday...sent two links for a bracelet to someone and put them into a small plastic bag, then taped that between two small pieces of cardboard, put that into a paper envelope, and then into the final plastic shipping envelope. I always try to layer packaging this way, to both protect the parts and made them as non-descript as possible.

For larger shipments it's always double boxed...at least.

 

I just reached eBay Bronze Powerseller today, so saying that I have been lucky in my feedback with my packing methods after reading this thread is almost an understatement. While for me wrapping stuff in multiple layers of bubble wrap is easy, efficient and safe packing has come my way and I have tried to follow suit as well. I echo @Archer's comment about "sandwiching a sandwich" and I agree it does work and makes your package a lot more professional looking. I have received stuff in all sorts of packaging - probably the most surreal one was finding a reasonably priced watch head wrapped in jeweller's paper inside a cut PVC pipe.

 

Of course I have watches shipped in all the time for servicing, so I see a wide variety of care taken with packing them. Some are near fortress level packing, and others are at the other end of the scale...like this one...



Just a watch head tossed into a very thin plastic padded envelope....amazing.

Cheers, Al

 

There's always some degree of risk when things are sent via post.

 

I also use cardboard or various layers to make the contents impossible to detect.
However that's not what the sender did in this case.
There are no customs control within the EU so there is no reason for anyone to open anything.

 

Functioning self-stick envelopes are practically impossible to unfasten without leaving obvious evidence of tampering. If this one looked like it had simply come undone, then I'll wager that's probably what happened. Those things do have a limited shelf life, after which they tend to become self-nonstick.