They won’t deliver alcohol without a signature, AFAIK. Our wine club delivery goes back to the depot if we’re not home to sign for it.
I haven’t signed for the last dozen wine deliveries.
My kid lives in an area where all the mailboxes are at one location. in addition to the small individual boxes, there are larger boxes that can be used for packages. (Don’t ask me how it works.) But they have had items stolen from their porch when the USPS deliverers failed to use the mailbox, and instead just left it on the porch. I didn’t go into it to much, but my understanding is that the delivery contract allowed such delivery, so my kid was on the hook (a couple of pens, costing a couple hundred $).
If you put something right up next to my door, it is pretty concealed from the street. But a while back my wife ordered a ridiculously overpriced toaster (it IS really nice!) When I drove up, I saw a box prominently bearing the maker’s name perched up on a retaining wall right next to the driveway.
Yeah, someone would have to at least pull into my driveway or get out of their car, but it wasn’t even a plain brown box. Basically, “Anyone want a nice toaster?”
Hell, I was raised in the city, where my bike was stolen out of my yard. It AMAZES me to see stuff left out, garage doors left open, etc.
But are you home to greet the delivery guy? I think you’re right that the signature itself isn’t required but someone over 21 has to be there. They’ve asked me to show ID but never more than just opening my wallet. I guess I really meant they won’t leave wine on the porch with no one there.
I went looking for “when” we all agreed, but I couldn’t find good information. Around here, sometime in ?? the late '70’s ?? , postmen stopped notifying delivery with a double blast on the Postman’s Whistle. I was told that their union had negotiated the change. I can’t find any details.
Greet, is probably the wrong term. Last time I stuck my head out of my office and waived at the delivery guy through the side light from 20’ away but yes I’m home. I’ve never showed ID but I’m also in my 30s and don’t look under 21.
We’ve had that in the past but we’re one of the few houses in our neighborhood not to have the mailbox on our property just the 5 of us on our dirt rd have a cluster but its just regular mailboxes not those walls of mailboxes with parcel boxes I’ve had at apartment complexes. Last christmas we has a box wrapped in a plastic bag and dropped in the snow at the foot of the mailbox. Sometimes USPS will deliver to our door and other not its random. We’re looking at moving our driveway and our address so that we can move our mailbox to our property and hopefully get consistent delivery at least to the box so we know where to look for stuff. Our next door neighbors with a driveway on that street (we’re on a corner lot) have everything delivered to their door.
If this is a problem put up a large parcel mail box:
Porch-piracy hasn’t been an issue anywhere I’ve lived. I’ve had numerous packages left outside my door, and none have ever been stolen (knock wood). So for me, having packages (that are too big to fit in the mailbox) set outside my front door with no fanfare is my preferred delivery option. It’s the quickest and easiest for everyone involved.
But yes, I understand that this isn’t true for everyone.
Another book addict, eh?
Absolutely, thought, technically, that was a research book paid for by work. Not that I haven’t already read it cover to cover twice. Historical distilling manuals are expensive, stupid prohibition.
In our complex, they leave a key in your “personal” box, then you leave the parcel box key in the lock after you remove your package.
Heh. I mostly like getting first editions (or close) of older novels I want to read and keep. Some are ridiculously expensive, as well.
Is this a new commercial that’s indicating you can get a contact free delivery in the time of Covid-19?
I think contactless delivery is just the way it’s going to be in most cases right now.
My take-away was more that it’s a promise from USPS that they commit to getting the job done (more about the whole “we halfway tried to destroy the postal service for the election and now we can’t handle the increased volume of Christmas DURING A PANDEMIC but we promise we’ll get your boxes there!”) rather than specifically about COVID safety, but regardless the practice of dumping boxes on the porch has been going on for years now.
How would they put the package in your hands? Ring the doorbell and wait for you to answer? Maybe you are not home, maybe you are one of those people who dont answer their doorbell. How long do they wait?
Look, I dont want my packages delivered days or weeks late because the delivery person has to spend 15 minutes extra each door. And now with Covid, it increases risk.
You are being totally unreasonable.
This. I live in a relatively safe neighborhood. I’ve never had a package stolen. I’m delighted that fewer and fewer vendors require signatures. I used to pay extra for UPS when FedEx was requiring me to sign for everything and UPS wasn’t.
Yeah, my unsecured mail box is by my front door, but then, the good delivery people leave packages by my front door, too. The bad ones leave them in the middle of the driveway during a rainstorm. I got a refund for that. The box actually disintegrated before I found the package. But there’s a little bit of overhanging roof by my front door, so it’s reasonably safe to leave packages there.
I agree. I mean, I know that Fedex and the like are often careless and could display a lot more common sense and courtesy about leaving a package in a reasonable spot. But if you want the package delivered in your hands every time for an item that’s not signature confirmation, feel free to sit on your doorstep and wait. Putting every package into someone’s hands is horribly impractical, and not what most people want.
Companies like Amazon will readily replace or refund occasional lost packages, so average losses can’t be that high. Shouldn’t the onus really be on the resident to provide a secure drop box outside their home if they feel the standard delivery method doesn’t work for them? A UPS P.O. Box as a delivery point is another possibility.
I have no fond nostalgia for the past era when many things could not be delivered at all, or any economically-priced delivery took 2 weeks. In general, we now get incredibly cheap and efficient delivery of virtually anything. There’s a whole lot of confirmation bias for the occasions when it goes wrong.
That’s why I usually have my packaged delivered to my place of employment.
But, as I’m working from home for now due to the pandemic, packages are delivered to my door. My apartment faces right out onto the street and I don’t have a porch, and I’ve never had a delivery person just leave my package in the middle of the sidewalk.
I always hear the delivery truck so I’m already opening the door when they knock. And if a package was sent regular mail, the mailman knows me and we get along pretty well and he knocks. If he doesn’t see my car, he holds it and comes back later to deliver it to me.
It probably helps that I tip him pretty well at Christmas.
It’s been thirty five years since I had any concern over package delivery (so, predating Amazon and the internet itself). That was when I noticed a modest shop on my way home from work that advertised “mailboxes”. It was $8/month to have a place I could have packages shipped (the Post Office would only accept its own packages, so I never considered a PO box to be a viable option).
These days I have a box in a UPS store (it’s gone through three changes of name since I first rented my box). They accept packages (they’ll even do COD, which I’m not even sure is a thing anymore) and send me an email so I can stop by on the way home from work and pick the package up. I’ve bought items up to ~$4,000 with no worries or stress over their security. And if I’m going to be out of town for a week or so, I have no worries about deliveries.
Plus, I use the box as my “home address” for everything except things that require my actual residence (electric, cable, etc.). Another worry reducer. When I retire, if I decide to do some consulting, I will call my box a “suite” and it will become my business address.
Definitely. I was just wondering about this. Today they crammed a whole bunch of stuff into our mailbox. It’s the kind with the door in the back too, so you don’t have to stand out in the street to get the mail, and of course they just pushed enough stuff in to open the door in the back and a bunch of stuff ended up in the snow. That driver was might have been thinking “Wow! A lot more stuff fit in there than I thought!”.