Postal horror DOA

[Mrs Linda Street]

In all the years of keeping Tarantulas, and buying postal, I have never had such an horrendus experience.

The pics show a L. Parahybana, a nice sized one I purchased, which arrived this morning. I was assured properly packed, double insulated with tissue roll, from a regular forum poster (not BTS). It arrived in a large cardboard vented pet box 9.5"H x 4.5" square and 3 bits of folded blue tissue paper (the sort that's on garage forecourts), it was then put in a bit of outer cardboard for the address label. I'd guess the T would be either dead or stunned 10 minutes after arriving at the post office counter. Imagine that T being thrown backwards and forwards in a 9.5" box!!! The T hasn't even gone into a death curl, it must have been knocked out almost straight away, if not the cold would have killed it within a few hours.

This guy had full i-trader rating!!! If anyone wants to know who it is please PM me.

The pics were taken as it was taken out of the box.

[James Box]

that's awful!! how could someone get something so basic wrong?!?!
poor spider, hopefully it was quick!

[Mrs Linda Street]

Thanks James, it's so distressing. There's plenty of help across the forums regarding packing, or I could have done a pic guide, this guy runs a pet shop as well!!!

[Emily Nicholls]

That's really terrible! I don't understand how they could think it would be ok posted like that, especially from a regular poster with good feedback... not sure how he managed that! What a horrible thing to wake up to.

[Richard Gallon]

Very poor packing indeed. I don't think people realise that boxes are treated like footballs going through the mail. That packing would have worked fine as a spider taken back from a petshop on the front seat of a car, but not for transporting a heavy-bodied spider through the post.

I've seen worse; somebody once sent me a male in a plastic lemonade bottle wrapped in brown-paper. Unfortunately the tissue they used was too wet and turned into a canon ball on route!!

Bottom line: if you don't know how to safely send spiders by mail or courier, don't do it.
Richard

[Richard Gallon]

Put it somewhere warm. If it's been chilled there's a good chance it's still alive, but just too cold to move. There doesn't seem to be any other damage on it. Some chilled spiders can 'come back to life' if you are lucky Worth a shot.
Richard

[Peter Lacey]

Its rather a shame, all that seems to have been required is a bit more towel/padding. My first objective when packing Ts is to make sure there's little room for them to manouvre which merely entails plenty of padding. Recently I've been sending Ts out in toilet/kitchen roll tubes with towel each end to reduce movement.

Have you had a response from the sender?

[Mark Pennell]

yes terrible packing but ti the spiders does not look dead - yet!

I suspect its cold, as RG says try and ward the fella up a bit you might be lucky.

Cheers
Mark

P.S We have a good packing guide here on the BTS forum on the downloads section... based on a method use by Ian Wallace from ELS over 25 years ago.

[Mrs Linda Street]

Thanks Emily, Peter, Richard & Mark. It's such a shame that careless or ill-informed action causes this suffering to a T. I think it's weight was against it in an empty box. We instantly applied heat, there was some leakage in the box from the T, but it remains lifeless at this point.

With so much help and advice on hand regarding packing it just makes me mad.

[Mrs Linda Street]

The seller has offered an apology (& excuse), and a refund, which I was not aware of after speaking to them this morning. But it's still un-neccesary suffering for the T which could have easily been avoided by a little research or asking IMO

[gary dye]

that's awful!! hope it works out ok poor t gary

[lynn mawdesley]

Bottom line: if you don't know how to safely send spiders by mail or courier, don't do it.
Richard

Exactley what i said on arachnophiles Richard.

Linda you already know my opinion hun, let us know of any change.

Lynn

[Andy Wood]

Sorry to hear about that unpleasant experience Linda, not nice...
Wouldn't have taken much to look into transporting tarantulas safely.

The seller has offered an apology (& excuse), and a refund, which I was not aware of after speaking to them this morning. But it's still un-neccesary suffering for the T which could have easily been avoided by a little research or asking IMO

An apology and excuse isn't really good enough, surely someone trading live creatures should know better.
I'd like to know who it was just so I can avoid using them in the future..
I have a large female L parahybana and would be very upset to think of her being treated in that fashion.

AndyZoo

[Matthew Baines]

We had a similar experience with some slings last year. But unlike you we haven't been refunded yet !!!!!! And it has been a few months now . I haven't said anything on here yet because i don't want to give there business reputation a knock , especially with it being such a tough time due to the recession . It was october last year and they were informed of the DOA's immediately.

[Mrs Linda Street]

Sorry to hear that Matthew, it's always a stressful experience when T's turn up like that, but after a long chat with the seller, they've seen their mistake and we've sorted out to a satisfactory conclusion. Hope you get the same, don't think I need too many guesses as to who you're speaking of.