Backstory:
Is this something any of you experienced? I will get my money back but I am more pissed it has happened twice with Fedex and same facility makes it very suspicious and if any thievery involved?
I’ve seen it 1 or 2 times, which is a tiny percentage of the wine shipments I’ve received. Shipping wine for a retailer, 1 box came back looking like someone smashed it with a forklift. Again, tiny percentage. Of course I don’t know, but I would be surprised if it was theft. Typically severe damages are sent back to the shipper. Do you know if that happened? With 3 years in between, I think you just had some bad luck. Hopefully you got refunded easily.
I agree with Doug S, this is an uncommon occurrence. For me it’s happened about once every 4-8 years. I realize that’s a long window, but that’s how random accidents happen. The more you buy, the more risk of it happening you have. Sorry to hear of your loss…it’s never easy to miss out on something you were looking forward to.
Could be worse…could have been a jet engine. Just saying.
As a one time truck loader of these boxes, I can attest that no one is stealing your wine. Are they tossing your boxes, quite possibly. Do boxes get smashed and even pop open for multiple reasons…yes. But you can’t get in or out of these places without going through what amounts to almost airport level security, so no one is walking out with bottles in hand or pants 
I’ve only had two issues with fedex and consider myself lucky. 1) a 20k earnest money check for a home sale delivered to wrong address. 2) a shipment of astrea caviar arriving quite late and warm- charlie took quick care of that one.
Fedex handles about 10 million packages per day. Shit does in fact happen.
Is that a Schlegelflasche in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
I just had this happen over the holidays. 2 cases of Rhys, one made it and the other did not. Damaged at the facility. I understand they made good with Rhys and I had a new shipment within a week. It’s just an annoyance unless you are getting something aged/scarce/library. But there’s not much to be done as there are only two games in town really and both have the same batting averages IMO.
For me, it’s more likely with UPS. One of the reasons we stopped using UPS.
I had the weirdest one yet this week.
A case of champagne shipped via FedEx from CA to IL. We’ve had some extremely low temps, and the package was delayed due to “unreadable label.” Next thing I know the package is delivered, but in an unmarked box. I open the box and there are 9 bottles, not 12. The bottles are just thrown in the box with some sort of soft felt-like material to try and cushion them. I called up Vinsrare and spoke with the owner Bryan, who was an absolutely fantastic, and made everything whole. Our best guess is that three of the bottles froze and burst in transit, and FedEx decided to repack the remaining bottles and send them on their way. I’m a little irked that FedEx wouldnt notify either the myself or the sender of the situation, and instead used “unreadable label” to hide the situation. Thankfully I was working with a great retailer.
I doubt the FedEx system has a “hey your Champagne froze” option, and it’s actually likely that the box and label were damaged.
For sure. They do have a contents and packaging damaged reason code though — unfortunately I’ve seen that one too! When the contents break and soil the shipping label… that’s sort of like claiming the radio doesn’t work after totaling a car 
well, yeah…
Contents and packaging damage are for when they do it.
(I have spent way too much time working with FedEx…)
