The good news, for Carmen, was that she received some free stuff in her Target order. Who doesn’t like free stuff? Carmen. At least, she doesn’t like free box cutters that nick her finger and make her worry that she will get some kind of Warehouse Plague.

They sent her back a form letter that was related to the topic of packaging, and…well, not finding a box cutter in your box. Though I suppose if they had a form letter for “box cutter in package” ready to go, that would mean it’s much too frequent an occurrance.

I ordered some plastic bowls from Target, and in the box was an open box cutter, which nicked me. I wanted to know how this happened, and if I had been exposed to any [bloodborne] pathogens.

Upon emailing them I received the statement below:

We know you’ve come to expect great guest service from Target and Target.com and I’m sorry for any disappointment you experienced with how your item was packaged.

We know it’s important to protect our environment, so we understand your concerns. We designed our packaging to keep all types of merchandise safe during shipping.

Your feedback is an important part of helping us improve your shopping experience, so I’m going to share your comments with our shipping team.

Thanks for getting in touch. I hope you’ll visist Target.com again soon.

As I hardly think this email addressed my concerns I then contacted them on Facebook and they told me they would open an incident report. I was then called by their insurance company, who could give me no answers. They told me to call customer service. I called them and then they put me on hold, came back and asked a few questions, and then put me on hold again and hung up.

I then contacted the Executive offices via email, and received a response asking me for the tracking number of the box, which I provided. They then told me that they could not give me any information about the box cutter, other than that they are used at the fulfillment center and that the fulfillment center was provided with feedback. I was told that I would be contacted by the Guest Reporting Center soon. That was 12 days ago.

Although including extra free items in an order is nice, I really wish one of them were not a hazardous sharp object.

Ow. One thing to remember is that if what you want is time-sensitive, it’s usually better to call rather than to e-mail or Facebook. The call center representatives won’t have any more useful answers than the e-mail answerers, most likely, but at least you won’t wait for hours or days for a form response.

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