Empty box claims: what to record before the box leaves your warehouse

"The box was empty." "Only one of the two items was in there." These claims are hard to argue with after the fact, because by the time you hear about them, the box is in the customer's recycling.

The forums that trade refund methods call them EB and PEB, empty box and partially empty box. Plenty of these claims are honest, too: packing mistakes happen, and so does theft in transit. Either way, you can only tell which is which if you recorded what went into the box.

What to capture at packing

The single most useful record is the packed weight. Weigh every order once it's sealed and save the number against the order. It costs a few seconds per box if the scale is at the packing station.

If the customer says the box was empty, the packed weight tells you whether it left empty. A box with a pair of boots in it weighs a lot more than one holding only packing paper.

Photos help when the item is valuable enough to justify the extra step. A photo of the open box with the items inside, taken just before sealing, is hard to dispute. Some stores only do this above a certain order value.

Write down who packed it and when. If a real packing mistake happened, you want to know which shift and which station so you can fix it.

Compare with the carrier's record

The carrier weighs packages too, at least some of the time. Your shipping invoice or label history may show a weight the carrier recorded. If your packed weight and the carrier's weight match, the box left full and arrived at the carrier full. If the weight dropped somewhere along the way, you're looking at a problem in transit and a claim to file with the carrier.

Look at what the customer sends

Ask for photos of the box and the packaging as it arrived. Look for the outer box, the tape, any tamper-evident seals, and the packing material. A box that's been opened and retaped looks different from one that came straight from your warehouse.

Real customers who got an empty box usually send photos quickly, because they're annoyed and they still have the box. A claim that comes days later, with no photos and no box, is weaker.

Partially empty boxes

Missing-item claims on multi-item orders are the hardest to judge. A customer says the jacket came but the belt didn't. Here the packed weight is only useful if the missing item weighs enough to show up. For light items, a photo at packing or a scanned pick list does more.

Look at which item is "missing." If it's always the most expensive or easiest to resell, across several claims, that's worth noting.

Returns that come back empty

The same idea applies in reverse. If a return arrives empty, light, or with a different item inside, you need your own intake record: the weight of the return when it arrived, a photo of it opened, and the serial number if the product has one. Don't refund on a tracking scan alone; FTID return fraud shows what that invites.

Weight checks have limits. People who do this on purpose know stores weigh boxes, and some will add weight to match. A weight that lines up isn't proof of anything. A weight that doesn't is very good evidence.