The mysterious empty box

So if you saw my previous post of Twitter parties, you may have been skeptical about whether or not I am actually getting the prizes. I can tell you that in the last two months since I started going to Twitter parties, I have recieved exercise pants, several toys, coupons for food and diapers (a whole box of diapers for free, woo!) , and gift cards. The largest value thing I won was a $100 gift card!

I do have to mention, though, that I had my first bummer experience. I won a toy. It looked cool, and I was curious about how it worked. They sent me a message saying I'd get my prize in mid-December (I think I won it at the end of November). I went to work on Christmas Eve, and when I returned home, my husband told me that FedEx had dropped off a package for me. From his description of the box size, I figured it was the toy I had won. But when I got home, all I found was an empty box!

To call it a box was being nice. It was actually a giant piece of cardboard, folded in half, and the three open sides were taped shut with packing tape. I'm assuming it's difficult to find a box in the size they needed, but I figured it was possible. Maybe not! Anyhow, I looked at the return address and decided that the toy had indeed been in the "box" at one point. I was a little bummed out, but mostly amused at how both the delivery guy and my husband could have the box without realizing that it was just cardboard and nothing else.

My husband called FedEx and they were really nice, said they'd get a claim started and that someone would call early the next week. They called the following Monday morning (impressive!) but we were sleeping so they left a message saying they just needed to know a little more information about the problem. So my husband called them back, told them that no one had noticed that it was just a tapey slab of cardboard until I got home and looked at it. At that point, they basically said that due to the way it was packaged, they were denying the claim and to talk to the people who sent the package.

I got on Twitter, contacted the people, and they got back to me fairly quickly (nice!) and they asked me to send them a message about what the problem was. I told them we had called FedEx first and what they said, and that all I got was an empty box. They basically told me that they sent the prize, that it wasn't their fault that it wasn't in the box, and that they had no replacement for it because they already gave out too many prizes already.

Basically, I am now the proud owner of a big piece of cardboard. I just hope that whoever got the toy is happy! I'm not mad, not even disappointed really, just boggled about why it's no one's fault. One of my friends did point out, however, that it's my fault for accepting an empty box. So there you have it. It's my husband's fault. :) But like I said, I'm not mad, it was just a prize, not anything I paid for, and nothing I am entitled to.

So there you have it. My sad box story. But I promise, I do get the vast majority of the prizes that I win! Don't let this scare you from attending Twitter parties and entering Twitter contests!
-duckyone.