That sounds awful!!! I can't believe that's how they actually shipped it. Crazy. My youngest works for UPS and it's amazing how shoddily things are packaged for shipping. He's part of their hazmat spill response team. He's seen it all.
Here's my story. My dryer died. My son took it apart and determined that the drum needed to be replaced. I ordered it online. First, FedEx delivered it to the wrong house. They ALWAYS deliver to the wrong house, it drives us nuts. Our neighbor told us it was at his house, and he'd taken pictures of it for us before anyone touched it. That was foreshadowing! We got there and the box had basically disintegrated. The drum inside was broken and unusable. But when my son started taking a closer look at it, he realized that the damage was more than what FedEx had done. Someone had returned a broken drum to the company I'd purchased from, and they'd simply put it back on their shelf. When I ordered it, that's what they sent to me. I was mad. I called them, they told me they'd ship me a new one at no additional cost, and I could just throw the first one out. That was when I got furious. I told them who was going to pay the disposal bill? A dryer drum isn't something I can just put inside my garbage can!! We were going to have to drive to the waste transfer station and pay to dispose of it! It's not MY garbage, why should I have to pay?? Ooooooo I was so mad. They did agree to credit my card $15, which actually ended up being a little over what we paid. But the whole thing was absolutely infuriating and I told them I'd never do business with them again. I wish I could say the same about FedEx, but unfortunately when we order stuff we rarely get to choose the carrier.