Concealed Damage: What Is Inside a Carton That Looks Fine

A carton can leave the container looking perfect, with straight edges, clean tape and an undamaged label, and still hold broken goods. Nothing on the outside tells you. The first person to find out is often a customer, weeks later, when the delivery note is signed, the packaging is in the bin and nobody can say where the damage happened. This is concealed damage, and the only way to catch it at receiving is to open some cartons on purpose.

Why a sound carton can hold broken goods

A carton protects its contents only if the contents cannot move inside it. Concealed damage usually comes from one of these causes:

• Too much empty space, so that items slide, knock against each other and break on the walls while the outer carton survives.
• Weak inner packing, such as thin foam, a single sheet of paper or dividers that have collapsed.
• A drop or a knock on a corner that the outer carton absorbed and the contents did not.
• A leak from a liquid item, or condensation that wets the contents without staining the outside.

Some leave a trace. Lift and tilt a few cartons gently, and listen and feel for:

• a rattle, a clink or a sliding sound that should not be there;
• a weight that differs from the neighbouring cartons of the same item;
• tape that was cut and stuck down again, or a different tape on a single carton;
• faint stains, a smell of damp or an oily mark near the bottom edge.

None of these proves anything. They only show which cartons to open first.

Choosing which cartons to open

Do not open only the cartons that look bad, or only the easy ones at the front. A sample that mixes both is fairer.

1. Open the cartons that showed a clue, in every area where you saw outer damage.
2. Add cartons from the bottom layer of several pallets, where the weight is greatest, and from the pallet corners.
3. Add some from the middle and the top, chosen by a rule such as every fifth carton and not by hand.
4. Make sure every item line and every pallet is represented at least once.

Open them where the site manager or the driver can see, and write down the position of each carton you open: pallet number, layer and place.

Opening a carton, step by step

Work in the same order every time.

1. Photograph the closed carton with its label.
2. Cut the tape carefully and photograph the contents before taking anything out.
3. Count the pieces and sort them into sound and damaged.
4. Photograph the damaged pieces with the inner packing beside them, and then the whole carton.
5. Write down the carton number, the pallet, the item, the pieces in the carton, the pieces damaged and the kind of damage.
6. Keep the carton, the inner packing and the damaged pieces together, labelled, and throw nothing away.

If the contents are sound, record that too. A clean carton is a result, not wasted effort.

A conditional example

A delivery has 240 cartons with 12 lamps each, 2,880 lamps in all. You agree to open 16 cartons: 6 that showed a clue and 10 chosen by rule from different pallets. In 3 of them you find broken lamps: 2 in one carton and 1 in each of the other two, 4 lamps in all. The 16 cartons held 192 lamps, so 4 of 192 are broken, about 2%. The record says exactly that: "16 of 240 cartons opened; 3 contained damage; 4 of 192 pieces broken; all three cartons from the bottom layer; photographs 52 to 71." It does not claim that 2% of the whole delivery is broken, because only the opened cartons were checked. It does give you a reason to open more cartons on the affected pallets.

After a discovery

If you find damage in sealed cartons after the delivery note has been signed, tell the supplier and the carrier at once, in writing and with the photographs. Time limits for notice come from your contract, the carrier's conditions and any insurance policy, so ask your lawyer, your forwarder or your insurer what applies to you.

In short

Concealed damage can only be found by opening cartons, and what you record about it is worth as much as the sample behind it. CargoChek opens a sample that you agree in advance, photographs every step and records the damage found in sealed packages in the same report as the count and the document check.