The Lamp Room

Rant time.

Got a ton of fluorescent tubes listed on eBay atm, all of which are clearly marked 'collection only'. Actually, it's the first thing typed in the description box in bold capitals. You'd think it'd be fairly obvious that an 8' glass tube isn't exactly the easiest thing to post - no-one will insure glass in the post and how would you even begin to pack that, short of in a length of soil pipe? The packaging would end up costing more than the 8' tube! Yet the idiots keep buying them and I keep having to refund them when I see how far away some of them live. All seem surprised when I message them to ask if they're actually going to come collect. Can't people read any more??

I once ordered some 8-footers off eBay...they came packed in a thick cardboard tube.

Yeah i sold some stuff on ebay at the start of this year too and people just cant be arsed to read descriptions. They bought my items then ended up disappointed. I ended up having to put in the title "read description!!!" And same for their feedbacks

Ebay is a nuisance its not worth the hassle IMO

I have exactly the same problem from time to time with the spare tubes I sell on Ebay.
All my listings start with Collection Only in big red capital letters but that doesn't seem to stop some people.

I really do think most people are fucking thick these days.

I've had quite a few entire boxes of 8' tubes posted GB GE 840s are worth the risk and all bar 3 survived!

Tubes (sometimes) survive in their outer cases, the exception being a case of Philips 65-80w/33 I had sent to me, 3 survived, the rest were just powder when it turned up. ParcelFARCE driver knew it was broke, the thing that gave it away was the way he was careful not to tip the bx at all when he passed it over to me so I wouldn't hear the broken glass. Knew something was up, so I inverted the box and listened to a million little bits of glass slide down from one end to the other. My comment: 'Oh, so they're broken then?' His comment, 'Oh, you shouldn't send stuff like this with PareclFARCE, it goes through an automated warehouse full of slides and conveyors, which destroys stuff.

Problem I have is people ordering single lamps and expecting me to post them - like thats going to work!

I bought a Pair of tubes from a Ebay seller
Came from Battle UK. Got shipped to
Texas, USA. It was a GE GB made colour
25. It took a 4 inch big pipe, and strips
Of foam down lenth of 8 foot tubes.

And carfully pack them inside the
Bog pipe. And there only one shipping company
That can send 8 foot items to the states.
That is UPS.

Parcel force sucks either way there just as
Bad as Fed Ex in USA, once Fedex came up running Threw package on my deck heard this very loud Bump with boooof sound as it landed. I go u are Going to pay for this damages here. I went to fed ex in San antonio, that driver got fired

If you pack them in a triangular section box which is mechanically much stronger than rectangular, in my experience individual tubes always survive. I had many semt even from USA this way. Its quite easy to slit a regular square outerbox along one edge, then refold to triamgular shape, and then it takes far more force to bend or crush it.

Transportation of these tubes is possible. It is just a matter of whether the seller is prepared to ship or not. Not had a problem receiving fluorescent lamps by post, and have had them in triangular packets as James describes. Perhaps I've been lucky, as I have only purchased a relatively small number of items this way, thankfully from sellers with a mature attitude to shipping and mainly a 100% positive feedback