Wow. Give the guy a break. Or, we should all accept the 'now normal' Kool-Aid inspired lowest quality of delivery because of warehouse issues, crappy care-less shippers/trucking companies. When one pays for something new, it ought to arrive in NEW condition, with all it's paint or powder coat intact. I get things delivered to me all the time by various trucking companies, LTL carriers, and others. Inevitably something is scratched, dented or damaged in some way. If you accept it by signing for it on delivery without any noted damage, it's on YOU. Otherwise it's on the shipper and trucking Co's.
I have a LOT of implements, most have arrived in various states of chipped paint, dented or bent edges, etc.
Most all shippers blame, or try to blame it on the delivery Co. I get it that many times the damage is outside the realm of the shipper's responsibility, BUT lots of times it's crappy packing of the item or some other fault.
Powder coat comes in various levels of 'bulletproofness'. My new aluminum decking boards are one level below space shuttle quality. It's almost impossible to scratch the coating, and man do you pay for it- but it will last near indefinitely.
So, to the OP, don't feel bad for asking, but realize you won't get much empathy from those who are more than willing to accept whatever comes their way- which in the end just keeps lowering the quality of what anyone receives if it becomes standard practice to accept less than the best quality from day one. The more acceptance breeds more complacency, and so on, to no one's benefit.:confused3:
And if everything is going to rust anyway, as some of you guys state, why bother painting it to begin with? Just buy it pre-rusted from the factory and hang it in the yard with the new rope from a tree under which you sit on a regular basis. I mean what could go wrong? Could the rope break? Don't think on it too much- wouldn't want to strain something....