Unless the plant is completely dry and I mean really dry then it could have gotten that way pretty quickly in the box. The boxes can get pretty hot during transport if the postal service or airlines leave them in the sun or someplace hot.
It's not uncommon for the lower portion of the fan to be split and have browning (especially if it's getting ready to bust out an increase there). If any of the brown is still damp it can get mushy like that in the box.
Looking at the photo it seems that about 6 layers of foliage would of had to be removed to get rid of the splitting and that may have caused the fan to be really small so it was left alone. The seller may not have intentionally sent it that way, but then again I don't know.
