I'm about to mark a book as recieved with a problem and the next step is to choose 'Damaged by Sender' or 'Damaged by USPS'? How do I know when it was damaged? There's a 2in rip near the spine that goes into several pages, another 3/4in rip, and the back is incredibly warped, but not from water damage. It looks like someone tried to bend the book in half.

Could this have been done by USPS? The wrapper isn't damaged, but its a recycled fedex wrapper and its hard to rip, so I'm not sure any damage would show up.

I'm leaning towards damaged by sender because I'm not sure bending the book would have cut into 50+ pages, but I'm not sure. Any advice? All I know for sure is that its unpostable now :(

It sounds to me like it is damaged by sender.

I'd think it would be hard for a person to accomplish a 2" rip near the spine...that's a tough area. Although it's tough to tear tyvek, you should be able to either see/feel if it was gouged by machinery.

I once received a hardcover book that was bent into a distinct "C" shape.

Picture the book standing on a bookcase normally, you are looking at the spine, and then someone steping on top of it until it bends into a "C".

It wasn't broken or anything, in fact, I am not sure that it's even unpostable.

I marked it damaged by USPS ... .because I really don't think the sender did it ... not that I can imagine exactly how the USPS did it either.

But the packaging was pristine.

You will probably just have to make your best guess .... but, I am a firm believer that the package can be damaged without the packaging necessarily showing signs of damage, so I don't know that a "clean" package is signs that the USPS did not do it.

I am not much help, I know.

But packages are thrown, tossed, and dumped around at the USPS, and if a very heavy package fell on top of it and twisted it somehow, could that have caused the damage you are seeeing?

I have just received one that I am wondering the same thing. The cover has a 1.5 inch tear and the cover is ripping off of the spine, and one corner is completely bent over the entire length of the book. I figure the damage had to have been STARTING before the book was sent, but I'm wondering if maybe the book didn't actually become unpostable until the post office got their hands on it.

Personally, I would mark it damaged by sender, because that's what it sounds like to me based on your description of your observations.  I don't believe that being warped (or bent, in theroselady's case)  makes it unpostable but those rips definitely do.  When I had a similar issue and wasn't 100% sure who'd done the damage but believed it was done prior to shipping due to the pristine wrapping, that's what I did.  When the sender claimed there was no damage when they sent it, I told them it was possible that it was damaged in transit and that they could choose not to refund if they felt that their wrapping did not contribute to the damage.  They threw a hissy fit, refunded my credit, and told me they were leaving the site (although they haven't).

edited for spelling errors

Since I didn't know for sure I selected the usps option. The wrapping was crinkled right where the tear was so I'm going to assume something weird just happened during transit. Thanks for the responses!