PSA: The FedEx drop box ate my wedding invitations

I print invitations for a living out of my home studio in Boise. Last Tuesday I finished a rush order for a bride, 120 envelopes with custom wax seals. I sealed them all, hand addressed them, and drove to the FedEx drop box downtown at 7pm. The slot was jammed. I pushed a stack of 60 in and the door snapped shut mid-stack. Half the invites were stuck inside the metal box, and I had to call FedEx on their 800 number while crying in the parking lot. The guy on the phone said, yeah, happens all the time, they can open it in the morning. I stood there until an employee showed up at 8am. The rescued cards had dents and smeared ink from being crushed. I had to reprint 58 invites and redo the wax seals, which cost me $3.50 a seal and a full day. The bride got them two days late. She was nice about it, but the groom's mom called me "unprofessional." Has anyone else had a delivery box eat their printed work? I need to know if I should just use a print shop's drop slot going forward.

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the_shane1d ago

Ditched the FedEx drop box completely after a similar nightmare with a client's wedding menus last spring. Now I only use the counter inside the print shop or the actual post office lobby, where there's a real person who can see what's happening. I also started taking a photo of every batch right before I drop it off, just so I have time stamps and proof if something goes wrong. It's a pain in the ass but it's saved me twice since then, once when a box was jammed and once when a shipment just vanished. Honestly, the extra ten minutes of walking inside is way cheaper than redoing 60 wax seals.