I've known people who have tried to use the little plastic cd-shaped inserts as regular, burnable cds before...

Unfortunately, OfficeMax obliterates those people on the stupidity charts. What in the world were they thinking?

We've been getting a lot of these lately. How do we know these are legit?

Fortunately you can get a gross ton of CD-Rs for about a dollar these days. Pretty pathetic shipping job there; I wonder if someone else just got a spindle with no CDs.

Those of us that have the longer spindles can make use of them as bagel holders. Perhaps this is what Office Max packager was thinking of?

Bagel sandwich holder
/Lifehacker

Butt plug
/Fleshbot

I have to Call Bull Shit!!! I think this one is made up.

Bad packing: Yes
Mysteriously missing spindle: No

There's been a bit of evolution lately with CD and DVD packaging. If you go to your local WalMart, you'll see that some of them just come shrunk in a stack, sans spindle. I guess someone finally figured out that some people don't care about the spindle and probably prefer not to pay for it.

So this is almost certainly a shrunk spindle-less stack that didn't get enough padding in shipping and broke open. Happens.

The manufacturer probably stopped including the spindle in the packaging because it costs and extra 5 cents.

My guess is the shrink wrap broke because the box was tossed around in shipping, and because there was no packing material, the CD's just spilled all over the place.

Or, perhaps the spindle was abducted by aliens!

@CuriousO: Actually, I received a half-case (5 reams) of paper from another large office supply store (*cough*OfficeDepot*cough*) where the third ream in the box was not wrapped...the paper was stacked in the case, between two wrapped reams of paper. The half-case was sealed. Go figure. A spindle-less spindle of CD-Rs doesn't surprise me at all.

Like this!

[meritline.com]

If you burn a lot of CDs and DVDs - your gonna have a LOT of empty spindles - or have thrown out a lot of em.

Maybe their selling them like that in a "Reuse your old spindles" bit?

Anyway - assuming no packaging was removed before the picture - no surprise the CDR pack broke open.

Maybe companies should start putting a label in the box, "Your order lovingly packed by John." All it takes is one person who hates the job to get a box full of loose CDs.

@SlyBevel: It had a spindle in the picture. Possible, but I'd expect the product to match the picture.

Hey look! It's a box of coasters!

The description for this product indicates that it is a "Spindle pack."

[www.officemax.com]

Well, at least they sent him the 20% off bag that ended...um.. today...

The only packs that we carry (I think) that have no spindles were 75-count packs.. and if Im not mistaken.. that picture is of a 75-count pack.. which are just shrink/cellophane wrapped...

Good god, now we've gone from blaming the victim to accusing submitters of flat out lying.

What incentive is there to lie about something like this? Occam's Razor, people.

@Buran:

of course we are, were consumerists.

@Buran: No, we're accusing penny-pinching manufactures of omitting the spindle. Of course, I'm sure Office Max scrupulously examines each and every shipping container that comes from China to make sure the bulk packages look *exactly* like the product on their website.

Or, alternatively, maybe that stoned shipping guy in the huge Office Max warehouse (the one making minimum wage) wasn't paying attention to his job.

I think we should turn this over to the FBI and the CIA to investigate what could turn out to be a nation-wide scandal!

For the quality (or lack thereof) of Magnavox blank discs, they probably did this guy a favor destroying them in advance, so he didn't lose any important data when they self-destructed anyway.

@Buran: Besides, a story that was made up would surely be a lot more exciting than this one.

@Grrrrrrrrr: Good point.

I saw spindle free packaging at OD the other day. Didn't think anything of it until I saw this picture.

Now we know it was not intentional.

But I gotta ask, who in hell pays shipping on CD's when you can pick the CD's up at any local store?

@Buran: Seriously. It's not like it's the finger in the Wendy's scam. The most this guy would get is some free cds. That seems awfully elaborate.

As far as the spindle vs. shrinkwrap debate, that doesn't look like shrinkwrap in that package. It looks like a paper insert that would go inside the plastic lid thing that attaches to the spindle base.

@ct03: That's awesome.

Spindles, cucumbers, whatever -- anyone who has looked around the internet much at all knows they both have alternative uses.

@rkmc12: Agreed. There would be no point to a scam like that. For all that trouble the scammer would basically end up with the new package of CDs that he paid for in the first place.

I call fake on this. Something doesn't smell right...

I think my wife is trying to murder me with this KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment! She bought this for me for Christmas along with the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Recipe book knowing full well that I would become obsessed with trying all of the recipes. I'm on the third batch (Cherry Garcia, Coffee Chip, Chocolate Chocolate Chip) and I can already feel my heart slowing down. I can hardly make it to the mailbox without becoming winded. Luckily I realized her dastardly plot before having an ice cream overdose induced myocardial infarction. She almost got away with it as nobody would have suspected her. The paramedics would have just thought I was another fat pig who overdosed on ice cream.

I would believe that office max made a mistake and accidentally sent a shrink wrap instead of a spindle... um... but that first picture does not look like a shrink wrap.

Well, mistakes in shipping happens. I once tried to buy a TV card from Amazon, a Win-TV PVR PCE, and not only did they send it wrong once, but also twice. But the weirdest part of it was, while the box and included hardware was wrong, it did contain the correct CD and manual for the product I was supposed to get and I never could figure out how a factory sealed box could have the included items so wrong. Maybe it's just one of those great mysteries of life. Like the case of the missing spindle.

I am inclined to believe most mistakes result from a typo in some kind of code. I really don't believe any company or person is malicious in cases like these. Just careless.

Still... that just does not look like they sent the wrong one. *scratches head* What could they be thinking? (Or not thinking, as the case appears to be)

[www.geekoftheday.com]
101 uses for a CD spindle. My bet is that they used it as a donut holder.

My guess is that the handler at the shipping facility butter fingered it and dropped this guy's package, smashing the case and spindle to bits.

Rather than facing the wrath the shipping facility supervisor, butter-finger shipper surreptitiously picks up the CD-Rs and places them in the box. No one is the wiser and Mr. Butter Fingers' wife & kids continue to have food on the table...for now.

@homerjay: It's real, I sent in that email as I thought it was pretty funny getting a package like that after reading all of the stories on this site.

My guess is either the package broke, or...

the employee used the spindle/package to steal something else from OfficeMax of high value that might fit inside a cd spindle case (Ipod/Mp3 player or small digicam, ram, flash drives, etc.) and got sent in another "order" or smuggled out with a blsnk cd-r on top.

OfficeMax has a Theft Issue at their packaging facility and a customer service issue because Mr. probable thief is too dumb to put any packaging at all in the box he sent Bill.

I used to sell cctv systems and have seen many companies have all kinds of problems with shrinkage.

The 75-packs are NOT spindled... They are just shrink-wrapped/cellophaned.... We dont even really sell this style in our stores anymore... at least in my district..

I used to order from Officemax for my company - didn't have any glaring problems like this, though. Staples, on the other hand, has routinely scrwed up our shipments. I've had cases cracked, with the resulting package of CD-R's scracthed up as well.

I've had items that would normally be neatly packaged and ready for immediate consumption upon arrival explode out of their packaging during transit due to poor packaging. [Think push pins by the hundreds scattered about in a box tearing away at other items that were still fortunate to be in plastic wrap]

Now I deal with local office supply vendors because they actually take the time to use packaging materials seriously, even if the items are only in transit for a few hours from their warehouse.

Come on, this one sure seems like B.S. to me - My B.S. detector went of immediately. If it is even remotely true, then most likely the spindle broke open and scattered the discs and the consumer (prankster? attention whore?) removed the spindle from the box before taking his 15 nanoseconds of fame photo.

Maybe they outsourced their packaging department to India and the packaging guy earning $0.002 per day needed the spindle to feed to his family

I hope you at least called them and asked for a replacement?

@wildness: That's exactly how it came. There was no spindle in the box. Sheesh, I share a story and people call me a liar! :(

And yes, a new pack is on the way. (hopefully with a spindle this time)

@StevieD: I'm sure he didn't pay for shipping. Most chain office supply stores will give you free shipping when you hit a certain price point mostly just $50. Some of the order comes local delivery but other comes through mail/ups/etc.

Office max, Office Depot & Staples, each ship free if you order $50 or more. I work for myself from home and even my orders are over $50.

@SlyBevel: Maybe they're, like, spindle refil packs. So you don't have to throw out the old spindle and waste it.

@Shadowman615: No, for all that effort, he gets his story told on consumerist and gets to think he's saying "fuck you" to everyone who ignored or disparaged him in the comments.

Not that I'm saying *this* guy is lying, I'm just arguing that people do lie on the internet just for the sake of attention. People on ljsecret.livejournal.com openly admit to making up secrets to see them posted.

Well since they are Magnavox, is possible that the scratching and jostling actually increased the quality!