Fed Ex has done this essentially everytime we have a package that requires a signature. They come to our house while someone is home and instead of ringing the doorbell, leave us a slip of paper saying they tried to deliver and noone what there. In every instance someone was home, we have a very loud doorbell, and there is no way they rang it and we didn’t hear it. So what is the advantage to the driver? There is no advantage to the company, they have to make the trip twice. Why do they always do this to us? It is very annoying.
Sounds like you a have a lazy delivery guy. Or maybe just an antisocial one.
I just wanted to chime in and say I have had the exact same problem with Fedex in DC. It seems the only way you can get your package is if you happen to be looking out the window and see them pull up.
They have priority packages that have to be places by a garanteed time. I expect the guy was on a tight schedule and five minutes made a difference.
Fed Ex is the same here, too. They require a signature. They come when nobody is home. They don’t deliver during the hours when most people are home, and you can’t pick up your item at their warehouse.
So use UPS.
Thats odd.
Sounds lazy.
I live where I don’t even try to get Fed-x or UPS to come to our house in the summer. The winter is near impossible.
I get things delivered to me at work.
I avoid having anything delivered to my house.
We don’t get mail delivery at our house so that complicates things a bit. Because of the ‘Patriot act BS’ new loans, credit cards can’t go to a PO box.
Anyway that last thing that got delivered to me came to my house via Fed-X(the loan company screwed up). The delivery guy left a note (had to walk up the driveway to do it I’m sure) and then CALLED ME and left a message on the answering machine.
“Hi, this is Joe with Fed-X. I tried to deliver a package to you that needs to be signed for. I’ll be in such and such town for about another hour. Call me back and I can get it too you” I called him on his cell phone and met him at the top of the pass, and bingo bango, I had my stuff.
That’s service.
When I was teaching, I used to have all my UPS and FedEx packages sent to my school. They had to go inside the office and get the secretary to sign for them, and she was terrific about getting me notice when my packages arrived. Work the system, don’t let the system work you.
Call the number on the FED-EX card and complain. I don’t know how things stand with FED-EX exactly, but if you complain to the FEDEX agency the word will get down the rope. Enough complaints and this guy will maybe change his habits.
Some of them do get in the habit of assuming that since it is working hours, nobody will be home and so they don’t bother. They kinda need to be ‘trained’ to think otherwise about your place.
One time I notice the slip of paper on the door withing a few minutes of the time it had been put there. I know because the door is glass and I was only out of the room for about 10 minutes. I immediately called Fed Ex and requested that the driver come back. They couldn’t do that and really tried hard to get me to agree to pick it up at their facility, which happens to be in a mediocre part of town and about a forty minute drive. I spoke to their supervisor, and both emailed and snail mailed Fed Ex itself. The supervisor didn’t care, and I never heard back from corporate Fed Ex.
Its time to vote with your wallet & request anyone that ships you anything to use a different carrier.
Sometimes, that doesn’t work. I’ve had the same problem with not just Fedex, but also even UPS and Purolator. There must be some courier company policy against delivering packages to private homes.
More than once, I was working in my home office. No music on, no television, no noise-generating things of any kind. Perfect silence, so I could hear the doorbell when the package I was expecting showed up. The doorbell never rang, but when I went out to the mailbox at some point (as I would do daily), there would be the “We tried to deliver…” message.
No. They never “tried” to deliver anything. They just filled out the slip and left it. I would have gladly answered the door had they rung the bell.
I finally got around the problem by renting a Mail Boxes Etc. box at a place not far away, and directing all packages to go there. The MBE people would sign for the package, and call to let me know it was there. Then I’d go pick it up. May be a solution here also, if an MBE or similar is close enough.
This sort of behavior, on the part of UPS and the USPS as well as FedEx deliverers, has been the subject of more than one Pit thread, most recently Idiot mailman: How about TRYING to deliver my mail first?
I’ve had the same problem with FedEx.
When I lived in Davis, they would sneak up to my door and place a “we tried” tag on my doorknob. I would be sitting on my living room couch, 4 feet from the door, waiting for the package, because i knew fedex would be coming today.
I would hear the driver walking down the steps outside (they only make noise going down), run to the door, and catch the guy almost sprinting back to his truck, no package to be seen. I’d shout, and then the guy would have some lame excuse like “Oh, didn’t think you were home, ill get the package out of the truck”.
Assholes (different driver each time) didn’t even TRY to deliver because they didnt bring the package to the door with them.
UPS, OTOH, hass never given me any trouble. I get a lot of packages though them. The driver always set the package by the door, knocks to let me know, and leaves. I don’t even have to sign for them anymore.
My roommate was having problems with this same situation. Being students, we don’t don’t ahve certain that we are always home, so she just left a note on the door (after the 5th “we missed you” message) to LEAVE THE PACKAGE THERE. Otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten it.
Only problem with that is now everyone knows you have something on your porch, possibly something they would want.
I had that problem once when I was in college. For a while the only person at the house I was living at was a guy who worked nights, and was a deep sleeper, so knocks during the day generally didn’t get answered. Apparently the various deliver people just stopped knocking.
I discovered this when I ordered an iPod. I heard the guy walk up to the door, then walk away. “Huh,” I thought, “musta forgotten something in the truck.” When he didn’t come back, I went to look.
He had just left my package – which had been shipped from Shanghai, so it had not only Apple as the return address but was clearly labeled as containing an iPod – sitting on my front porch, in the middle of the day, in full view of the sidewalk. No knock, no slip, nothing. I have a feeling I would have been out a few hundred bucks with nothing to show from it if I hadn’t been home and someone had decided they wanted the shiny electronics.
And then you get mail carriers like my friends used to have, who would not only steal packages, but would fake signatures when they were required. I had to use Fed-Ex or UPS if I wanted anything I sent them to show up. Made the mistake of using USPS to mail some happymeal-type toys to my friends’ toddler, and sure enough the box never showed up. Who the hell steals a box of happymeal toys? I mean sure, I addressed it to “Mr. Firstname Q. Lastname, Esq.” but one of the toys had a rattle in it for crying out loud!
Never had that trouble, but I would guess it’s because they don’t feel like waiting on someone to come to the door. As someone said, it’s laziness and impatiance. They are actually supposed to knock and wait a reasonable amount of time before leaving says my uncle who is a bigwig at FedEx.
It may well be one of those impossible things companies like to do: “You must deliver X packages in Y hours and wait Z minutes for each”, and if that’s impossible, well, it’s up to the guy in the truck to make it work.
It may occur to the guy in the truck that if most people aren’t home, then most people won’t complain. Complaints would pretty quickly lead you to learn who typically IS at home so you would know to knock, and if they don’t order from FedEx often enough that you’d learn their house, screw 'em, they aren’t a signifigant customer.
Note, I don’t think any of that is RIGHT, just that I suspect that’s how it is.
It is still very annoying. Our house is sort of out of the way, so I don’t have to worry about someone ripping off a package left there. I just wish they wouldn’t ship with a signature required. UPS just leaves things on the stoop and it works out fine. Actually, once the package was a laptop, and the UPS guy stuck it in the garage so it wouldn’t be in plain sight, a move I thought was smart, but it did take me two days to stumble upon it.
I’m not home during the day so I’ve never noticed the OP’s problem. But to get around the signature requirement, if I’m expecting a package that day (I track them online so I usually know exactly what day it’s being delivered), I leave a note with my signature on it requesting the delivery person to leave it. Works great with UPS (the UPS guy knows me pretty well now and just leaves it without a note), FedEx and DHL but I still have to go to the post office to sign for international registered mail (although the postman always leaves a note apologizing when I have to).
Beyond the note, it really pays to make friends with the mailman and delivery drivers who have your route. The guys know me and that I like having my stuff left and will go out of their way to help me out.
I work nights and so I tend to be asleep when the delivery folks come around. I leave a note at the door telling FedEx or whoever that I’m home and ask them to ring several times. It’s worked every time. I suggest anyone having the same issues that the OP is give it a try.