Opened for inspection?

I have been buying a lot of cigars lately from Cbid. I received my latest order today and my box of Tatuaje Series P was unsealed and opened. They put a little sticker on it that said 'opened for inspection'. This is the second time this has happened. The same happened with a Padron Sampler.

Both the Padron Sampler and Tat Series P had damaged cigars. First why would they open them and second if they did inspect it why were there damaged cigars?

4 of the 5 Padron had rips in the wrapper with big stems protruding from them. The Tats had 5 cigars with big cracks in the wrapper.

Has anyone else experienced this from Cbid?

In their defense they did let me exchange the Padrons free of charge but now that it happened again I am getting annoyed....

I never seems to happen with the sealed boxes.

[AD720]

In all my cbid history (and it is long) I've never gotten an opened box from them.

[Bax]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were refilling the box with singles from other damaged boxes.

[DPD6030]

Originally Posted by Bax

I wouldn't be surprised if they were refilling the box with singles from other damaged boxes.

Shame on them if this is the case

[Bax]

Originally Posted by DPD6030

Shame on them if this is the case

I had the JR rep come in and swap out cigars in a pallet dried up Hoyo Excalliburs we recieved at work for our Fathers Day display. She went thru every box and tried to pick out the ones that didn't have obvious damage.

She took back about 40 boxes and we sold the rest. Right about then was the last time I ordered from them.

I imagine these kind of things happen more than we realize.

Originally Posted by Bax

I wouldn't be surprised if they were refilling the box with singles from other damaged boxes.

That is what is seems like. When I opened the box there were 5 cigars face down and they were all damaged. They are a slightly different color than all of the other cigars.

I do not want to accuse them of this but I cannot think of a valid reason for them to open the boxes.

I did ask them and they could not give me an answer. If they are going to sell an open box they should at least put it in the description.

[AD720]

Originally Posted by Trouble

That is what is seems like. When I opened the box there were 5 cigars face down and they were all damaged. They are a slightly different color than all of the other cigars.

I do not want to accuse them of this but I cannot think of a valid reason for them to open the boxes.

I did ask them and they could not give me an answer. If they are going to sell an open box they should at least put it in the description.

Tell them it's unacceptable. Refund or you will dispute the charge with your CC.

They seem to be really good about refunds, etc.

They were good about exchanging the Padrons.

I can understand if they were damaged in a sealed box but the fact that they open the boxes is shady.

[captain53]

Sounds like the Postal Inspectors to me.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Bax

I wouldn't be surprised if they were refilling the box with singles from other damaged boxes.

I thought this was only an Habanos issue, but apparently NC vendors are doing the same thing.

Again a mistake is one thing. Opening a box to switch good cigars with bad is another...

[T.G]

Originally Posted by Trouble

Again a mistake is one thing. Opening a box to switch good cigars with bad is another...

I think I figured out why Carlos isn't getting plugged CCs anymore though, the guy who was pulling and shipping them now works for CI and it appears that he has a crush on you.



*shrug* We don't know if that's what happened or not. You're making an assumption.

*shrug* We don't know if that's what happened or not. You're making an assumption.[/quote]

You are right but my assumption is based on my experiences with them. The first time there were 4 very damaged padrons out of a fiver sample. Stevie Wonder could have picked them out if he opened the box for inspection. I thought it was wierd but chalked it up to a mistake.

Now I get a second box that was 'opened for inspection' and again it is a collection of damaged cigars. Something is wrong here....

[nayslayer]

that is odd, you want to think its for quality control, but if you have some bum sticks in there, i wonder if they were up to shenanigans

[neoflex]

Originally Posted by nayslayer

that is odd, you want to think its for quality control, but if you have some bum sticks in there, i wonder if they were up to shenanigans

I wonder about this too as the it seems rather unlikely that both boxes had been inspected prior to leaving their facility and both had a bunch of bum sticks in them. Unless of course they have a blind guy doing their inspections. I have never had any of my packages opened so it is weird nonetheless. I'm wondering if they swapped sticks out figuring who ever won them would be fine with it since they got it for a deal, well I guess you can't always think that with C-Bid as the sticks you mentioned often times go above retail. Either way I would be calling and getting an exchange and definitely letting them know my concern about the frequency in which it has happened.

I wrote an e-mail to them last night and again they agreed to exchange them but could not offer a reason they would open the box no less why only one of two boxes.

It is an inconvienence and make me feel like they are trying to put one over on me. They place some damaged sticks in a box and hope you will not go throught the trouble of exchanging them. I work a lot of hours and do not appreciate having to repackage the box and take the time to ship the box back to them and wait a week just to get what I originally paid for.

I understand that things happen and cigars get damaged. I am more than willing to work with a company if something like this happens. My problem here is that it seems the cigars were damaged and then sold to me not after they were sold to me.

I had good luck with Egars.com and they are generally cheaper than most auctions anyway. They sell a fiver of Padron 1964 Corona's for $39 which generally go for well over $50 on Cbid. They will be getting my business going forward.

[neoflex]

After thinking about this and I know they have done it in the past with humidors so I am thinking maybe it's the same deal but I wonder if they shipped them to someone, and there were damaged sticks in the box so they exchanged them and than they sent the same box out again but just marked it as opened for inspection hoping the person who got them a second time would not complain. Sounds shady but I know for a fact that they have done it with humidors in the past because a buddy of mine won a humidor from them and it came damaged so he returned it and he wrote on the box "Damaged." They sent him another which was also damaged, so again he called and they agreed to exchange it for another and low and behold the third one that came was the same one he got the first time because it had damaged in Sharpie matching what he put on the first one. With that he said F-it and returned it for a refund, and this to was through C-Bid.

[T.G]

To me it sounds like either a cut-and-paste answer or they didn't fully understand your original communication.

I would just call them on Monday. They tend to be very good about making things right.

They are willing to exchange the box but it is not fair that I need to keep repackaging boxes and resending them and waiting for a new box because they are trying to sell damaged cigars.

There are a lot of cigar retailers out there that will shipped undamaged cigars as a consumer would expect.

[T.G]

I've been buying cigars for a long time and I've found that eventually all vendors make mistakes and problems can arise at times. **** always happens, it's how a company chooses to react that distinguishes them. In this case, what separates the good from the bad is their willingness to replace/refund and provide and ARS label without argument.

I really don't think that the problem is CI/Cbid as a whole either, just a few individuals that might not grasp the bigger picture.