I love this post. You’re blasting off about how impatient you are then call me unreasonable.
lol.
The whole point of this post, which is being largely ignored by everyone, is trying to sort out the legal or even contractual definition of when something is declared “delivered.” Some people are noting Amazon says things are “delivered” which means it will be delivered at some point in the near future…not like “you have it now.” “WE still have it!” That doesn’t fit any definition of “delivered” that I can tell.
I’m just wondering if push comes to shove and this was challenged in court, if there’s some legal standing that yes, porch drop offs are 100% legally defined as being fully and correctly delivered. It would seem, if that were the case, there would be more legal remedies for stolen packages (as stated before, interstate commerce, etc).
I don’t believe that Amazon is just going to eat the cost to replace every single stolen item just because someone claims it was stolen, especially considering the burden of proof would be on the receiver, who would have two handfuls of NOTHING as evidence. Maybe if they have a video doorbell…I dunno.
But yeah, that’s the point–if there was some sort of contractual or legal agreement that porch=delivered. Or, if not, if there could be, for example, a class-action lawsuit on behalf of everyone who had a lost or stolen package.
…but it appears it’s nothing more than a societal norm that we’ve all accepted, or, in your case, LOVE, which is fine, but has no bearing on what I’m trying to find out.
It’s being ignored because nobody thinks this is something where legal remedies are appropriate, except perhaps in rare cases where a very high value item that was supposed to be signed for is lost. It’s more question of consumer preference and practical/commercial considerations.
The damages from which would be paid for by increased shipping costs being passed on to all consumers, and packages not getting left without human contact, to the cost and inconvenience of everyone who is fine with that?
Why not? I think there are between 10-20 packages I haven’t received over the past 30 years. While 30 years ago , I might have received 10 packages a year, now it’s more like 10 a month.* Assuming I only received 1000 packages over 30 years ( which is very much an underestimate), that’s something like 2% of my packages that didn’t show up. And if memory serves, they were low-value items shipped in padded envelopes, like Fitbit replacement straps and that sort of thing. UPS charges about $5 for “signature required”. Even if UPS gives Amazon a discount, that’s a few hundred dollars a year for all of my packages to require a signature - it’s cheaper just to replace a few items that go missing. Sure, people complain about porch pirates a lot - but that doesn’t mean a huge percentage of packages go missing. It just means it’s annoying and possibly upsetting when they do. I saw an article that said 36% of Americans have had a package stolen from outside their home at least once. That means 64% haven’t.
I felt like I was exaggerating so I checked - 75 orders from Amazon alone this year and 85 last year. That’s just Amazon - believe me, that’s not the only company I order from.
Yeah, I’m in the 64% who has never had a package gone missing, although I’ve had one or two delayed because they were delivered to a neighbor by mistake. And i get a ton of packages. At the rate i lose them, Amazon could easily afford to pay to replace them.
I get outright cranky if a signature is required for anything worth less than about $500, and I was happy not to have to sign for a couple of recent purchases that cost more than that.
I’m sure that the USPS, UPS, Amazon, or the other relevant Terms of Service in the fine print of the click agreement specifies what is meant by “delivered.” In a situation where it isn’t, it comes down to what is a reasonable understanding of that term given the item. I would consider mail to be delivered if placed in my mailbox, but not a pizza. As others have said, in the furniture business, delivery can mean driving the new couch to your house, taking out the old one, and putting the new one in its place. It can also mean placing the new one at the end of your driveway and telling the 81 year old widow that getting it in the house is her problem.
A point against your interpretation would be the widespread acceptance of leaving Amazon items on the porch, and you continuing to use their service knowing that they define “delivered” meaning to your porch.
In any event, I’m with the other posters here. Especially with Christmas, I’m usually not here and if I am, I don’t want to go to the door every time a package arrives. Also especially during Covid when I am both working from home and do not want contact. Leave it on the porch and I’ll get it when I get a chance.
It is not only impatient, it’s cheap. I dont want my shipping fees to double or triple, because you want a delivery person to go all the way to the door, ring the doorbell and wait for what- 15 minutes? Half a hour? Until it is answered?
Do you answer your door within 2 minutes every time it is knocked/rung? Even if watching TV so you dont hear it, in the bathroom, taking a shower, whatever?
Every so often, Amazon tells me a package is undeliverable and refunds me. I have never had to tell Amazon a package wasnt delivered. And being a Amazon reviewer, I get about 3 Amazon packages every single day.
I had an undeliverable package recently. It was really weird, because I ordered two of the thing, and one of them was delivered. I assume the other must have been damaged before making it to my door, because the other was clearly deliverable.
We live in what is considered a safe area - I had a computer, in a clearly marked computer box, sitting on my porch when I got home from work one day. Our house sits back from the road, up a bit of a slope, so unless someone was actually following the delivery truck or walking down my driveway, anything on my porch is pretty much invisible. But even when plain brown boxes have been left next to the garage, visible from the road if you bothered to look, they’ve been untouched.
It would be nice if I’d at least get a passing ding-dong of the doorbell. On the other hand, our dog usually goes bat-crap crazy if she sees anyone passing the house, let along approaching “her” porch!
One particularly annoying time, tho, a package was left at the end of the driveway, beside the mailbox post, ON TOP of plants in the flower bed around the mailbox!! It couldn’t be seen from the house - I just happened to be running errands that day and I saw the box as I was leaving. This was a few years back, so “contactless” delivery hadn’t been invented yet. It was just laziness. Fortunately, it’s never happened again - I’m guessing that driver didn’t last.
I usually don’t, but the other day, a large box that only barely fit under the bit of overhanging roof was delivered. And it was pouring rain. And the delivery person rang the bell.
I was really grateful. It was a completely perfect delivery. Sometimes i get a little “how was your delivery” survey, but not that time.
The thing I’ve been getting recently is emails saying, “your package was delivered”. Now that i work from home, that’s been quite helpful. I assume they are automatically generated when the delivery person ticks the box indicating the package has been delivered.
In my years of work, I’ve learned the power of multiplication when it comes to efficiency, both in my own endlessly repetitive work and “optimizing” the work of others.
If a deliverer makes 200 deliveries in a day, and spends 30 seconds each delivery ringing the bell and waiting for the homeowner to open the door and take the package, that adds 6,000 seconds to his workday, an hour and 40 minutes. Let’s say that’s $20 per hour at time and a half, we’re talking $50 per day of extra cost.
If the UPS guy doesn’t leave the box when the homeowner fails to open the door, you have to put it BACK on a truck the next day to deliver, doubling the cost to deliver that package. If you do leave the box, and you would leave many boxes… why not just leave all of them, and keep your shipping costs low?
The bell-ringing I mentioned wasn’t a “ring and wait for me”. Effectively, he played “ding dong ditch it”. He placed the package on my stoop, rang the bell, and immediately walked back to his truck. I saw him when I turned to look because the doorbell rang. But he had pulled away before I got to the door.
Nobody goes to court. Everything is paid by credit card and the credit card companies will always side with the customer and reverse the charges. As a seller, I eat thousands of dollars a year in reversed charges and only recoup a portion by filing claims with the carrier. It’s all part of the cost of doing business. If you pay by credit card, you are completely protected. The worst that can happen is that sellers might blacklist you if you continue to claim your packages weren’t delivered.
Yeah. We didn’t want to get into it too deeply w/ my kid - he is an adult and seemed content to eat the couple hundred $ loss. But as I recall, the contractual language was sufficiently vague that dumping it on the doorstep could reasonably be considered sufficient delivery and the risk of loss could reasonably be interpreted as on my son.
Just one of many aspects in which this old fart doesn’t quite understand/appreciate recent societal/retail trends. ISTR “in olden days” getting notices that delivery was attempted, but as no on was home, we had to pick the package up. Likely more workable when the main deliverers were USPS and UPS. But with the proliferation of “fulfillment centers” and such, I could imagine this option being more common.
Yes, waiting for a response would take time and reduce the number of deliveries. But why did we come to the conclusion that delivery should be both overnight AND free. Sure, maybe most packages are NOT stolen, but when they are, why should the cost be imposed on the customer?
For much the same reason we expect clean water to be piped into our homes and our garbage to be picked up from the curb. New innovations cause new normals in society. In 1985, you were happy with ordering someone you saw on TV by phone and waiting 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. In 2020, due largely to Amazon, you want to click a button and have it at your house tomorrow. The formation of any contract comes with certain background assumptions that result from normal and customary methods in a commercial setting.
Of course, there will be issues with it. I have tracked my Amazon purchases and seen “delivered: handed to an adult at the residence” when I know that wasn’t true. I was the only one home. It was delivered, but it was on my porch. Don’t put that tag on there when it isn’t true.
I know it is anecdotal, but I have never heard of anyone not getting a refund when they claimed they didn’t receive their package. If it is an expensive package, they may send a representative over to discuss it with you (read–browbeat you into confessing that you really received it) but they then replace it, unless, as mentioned upthread, you are a serial claimer, then they just discontinue business with you.
If anything, they are too generous. Just this year, along with my Christmas stuff, I ordered a cheapo $150 portable scanner. I was busy that week, so all of the Amazon boxes got placed in a pile for later wrapping. The scanner said that it was undeliverable and that I should request a refund. I did. When I got to opening the boxes, there the scanner was. I called Amazon and informed them that I did receive the scanner, and they said, “We will cancel your refund. Thank you for being honest.”
Now, I wasn’t expecting a reward for being honest, but maybe I was expecting a small gift card or something because I could have just kept the damn thing for free. So maybe I was expecting a reward for being honest. I know that’s not the right thing to think.
My wife and I are pissed off at USPS right now because she wrote, and I designed and printed, an eight-chapter story (one booklet per chapter) for our grandkids about a fantasy adventure they go on during Hanukkah. We worked hard to get them finished in time to be sent to Rhode Island, so they could read one chapter each night of the holiday We used USPS Priority Mail, which is supposed to be two-day delivery (although not guaranteed). They went in two shipments, at least three days in advance.
We sent them on 12/5 and 12/8. Also on 12/8 we sent copies to a friend in California. That one got there in two days. The two to RI still haven’t arrived.
When it became clear that the first chapters might not arrive on time for the first night, we sent them again by USPS Express, and they arrived in RI the next day. (For $26 instead of $7.75.)
After hoping that the other two would arrive, even a week or more late, we just re-sent the second batch by Express and hope they’ll be there today, the day after Hanukkah ended.
And USPS doesn’t seem to think we’re owed a refund on the first two. I’m still fighting that.
It should be pointed out here that the reason USPS doesn’t give a … care is because even if they are responsible for you not getting your item, even when the carrier is known to have stolen it,they cannot be sued.
Isn’t honesty it’s own reward? You experienced no harm (other than possibly momentary distress over thinking you had not received something you just failed to open.) The deliverer made a mistake, and you are disappointed you did not get a token gift in addition to being thanked?
And in comparison to water delivery and trash pickup - my personal opinion is fast cheap delivery of any consumer whim is moving quite far down (up?) Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
