I think I like my situation better. My porch is visible to the entire neighborhood. I can actually see packages in front of my door when I pull onto my street.
But that means that anyone looking to steal anything off my porch has to assume that any nosy neighbors will see them as well.
Never had anything stolen.
Slightly different note, I recently bought a new computer, it was a bit pricy, and the seller demanded that it have signature verification. Fortunately, I happened to be off on the day that it was supposed to be delivered. I stuck around the house, and had a front door window cracked so I could hear the truck (of course, it was trash day, so I had a bunch of false positives from them). I heard a truck, looked out the window and it was a UPS truck.
I went down, opened the door as he approached (I even put on a mask), and he put it down outside my door, and said, “Oh good, you’re home.” and left. Didn’t actually ask for a signature.
So what sort of crime is involved when the Amazon deliveryperson sticks small packages in my mailbox (which is located across the street)? Federal crime for stealing “mail”, Amazon crime for using a mailbox for private deliveries, both, or neither?
This has occurred several times in the last few months. Recently there was a package with my new cellphone in the mailbox (fortunately I was on the lookout for it and when I got the notice saying “delivered” I hunted it down).
Keep in mind that Amazon uses USPS for many deliveries. As far as putting other stuff in mailboxes, we have done threads on this and the consensus is “Yes, it is technically a crime, but unless it becomes a real pain in the ass, the USPS isn’t sending detectives out to investigate.”
I’ve had crazy situations (don’t remember the deets) where something was wrong, and the seller just said, “We’ll issue a refund - keep the item.” Really makes you wonder about the economics involved. How does so much stuff get delivvered so quickly and cheaply, for such low prices. What should the damn thing REALLY “cost”?
I had the opposite happen. At work, we get a bunch of deliveries all the time. During the COVID shutdown, I wasn’t here more than once a week. I left a note on the door asking that any deliveries be left with the pizza place right next door (same strip mall, literally 25 feet away), and I would pick them up from there.
Some of the items ended up being listed as lost in transit, and I was issued a refund. When we opened back up, my mail carrier asked, “Are you going to be open tomorrow?” I said yes, and she said, “I’ve got a pile of packages for you, I’ll bring them then.”
So the next day, I get the packages that were listed as lost and refunded. I contacted Amazon, and they told me that they would send me shipping labels. I told them that I actually needed the stuff, and it would be easier if they just canceled the refund and let me keep it, rather than send it all back, then order it and have it shipped out again.
They told me to just keep it and the refund. I wasn’t going to argue.
Don’t ask questions like that when it comes to Amazon. It’s not a normal business. For most of its existence, it wasn’t even turning a profit; just growing and driving up their stock price. Now its profits are based on an economy of scale never seen in human history, that depends on squeezing suppliers and carriers to eek out the thinnest of margins (which when multiplied by volume brings in trillions.)
A couple of years ago I bought a foam roller from Amazon. Two were delivered. I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out how to tell them that, and gave up. I decided it was their problem, and if they contacted me about it, I would cooperate. I did check that they only billed me for one.
After two or three weeks I gave the extra one to a friend.
I went back to the item that said “Refund in process” and looked for a button to cancel the refund and it wasn’t there. There was a “Help with this item” or something similar and when I clicked on that and it gave me the option to call or chat online. The refund couldn’t be cancelled through the chat, so the chatter (chatee?) asked if it was okay if I receive a call, I said yes, and they called me.
If you click around for a bit, there is the option to chat with someone. It starts with an automated script that may resolves some issues, and has a couple of times.
I had a similar situation just this week. Amazon left a package addressed to 733 [MyStreet]. There is no such number so the driver left it at my address, 737. I looked for a way to contact them for about ten minutes then googled amazon chat. The first thing on the page was Amazon Live Chat which led me to https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html
There were pauses in the dialog – I assume the agent was handling three of four convos at a time. I had the package available so I could read off any numbers they might need but they didn’t care, just said to keep it or give it away.
Something has gone wrong somewhere along the line here, where there is an assumption I am somehow against porch drop-offs, or that I prefer the driver waiting at the door for X amount of time for me to arrive. None of that is my opinion (and for the record this was posted in GQ because I thought there were more straight-forward fact-based answers regarding the semantics of “delivery,” to the point of my post #7 " 49 U.S. Code § 80111 - Liability for delivery of goods which I had hoped smarter people than myself could help interpret).
I have no issues with the manner in which Amazon and the like leave boxes, and, as also stated upthread, I have very little experience with lost/stolen packages and little knowledge of the remedy process, altho the experiences I HAVE had do not align with what others are saying here. More on that below…
This is mostly a thought experiment in semantics, apparently, at this point. I had a package “delivered” to “me” when I was way out of town on a mural project. “We delivered your package to you!” No, you delivered a package TO MY HOUSE and just left it there, which under most circumstances is a-ok, but if I’m way far away and cannot get it, and something bad happens to it while it remains unsecured, I would put the onus of remedy on the carrier. You guys are all saying the seller will just refund you without issue, and maybe that is true with Amazon, but it CERTAINLY is not the case with every seller, as I have had experience with packages that show tracking as “delivered” and said tracking was given as proof that they were not liable. The end for me, no item, no refund, no recourse. Also of note: Amazon, in your cases, is eating money to remedy the carrier’s screw-up, which certainly smaller companies cannot afford to do, and in my experience, will not do.
Is Amazon just shelling out for all 36% of those missing packages? Or is the actual carrier liable? I know Amazon now has a fleet of their own carriers, but that is (at least around here) a recent development in the last ~3 years.
Well, apparently we’re overpaying by some absurd amount if all these companies will happily just let you keep items AND get refunds from them. I’m starting to hatch a scheme in my mind (kidding).
Judging from this thread, it appears the definition and interpretation of “delivered” is highly flexible on THEIR end. Left it on the porch? Delivered. Handed it to some guy who happened to be standing on your porch? Delivered! Driveway too steep? Dump it on the ground–DELIVERED! I agree there’s obviously some optimal system of leaving them in somewhat safe, reliable places out of the weather where you can reasonably pick them up without much issue, with ease and efficiency in cost for both parties, but I also think carriers cut corners and will stretch the semantics of “delivered” to fit what best suits them.
Just for the record this would be my preferred system, I think, but there’s such inconsistency between carriers and drivers, some knock, some ring the ever-so-finicky wifi doorbell, some put the packages AS BARELY AS POSSIBLE ON THE TIPPY EDGE OF THE PORCH, some throw them down in front of the door, others (the good ones!) stack the packages against my porch rails as to not be seen from the street, which is 100% the best. Love whoever does that.
I can’t butter anyone’s palm (or whatever the phrase is) because there’s no consistency in carriers, not even my mail carrier–it’s a different person daily.
Funny story: My fiancee orders everything off Amazon (I’ve made TWO Amazon purchase on my own in the last few years) so we get a lot of packages, and do well to track and prepare to grab them ASAP. One day last week the grey Amazon van pulled up in front of our driveway to drop our packages off, while another grey Amazon van going the other way directly across the street stopped to drop packages on THAT side of the street, as if the driver couldn’t walk across the street to deliver both. Reminds me of the Brian Regan skit about two log trucks passing each other on a highway. “You HAD logs?! We’re BRINGING logs!”
…both Amazon vans were ushered away by the Fed Ex truck who couldn’t get past them.
This has been my experience (altho it’s been a long time ago). Any time they could show tracking as “delivered,” it was my problem. In retrospect I believe most of my bad dealings were through the USPS who, as someone else pointed out, has immunity, so they don’t cooperate much.
Again, this is not my preference for all deliveries in general, but again for the record, I’d at least like them to wait a few seconds for signature items. We ordered our engagement ring custom made and I was eagerly awaiting. I just happened to be letting the dogs out when the carrier arrived, but they had left a ticket before I could even get to the door. I literally had to RUN down the street to catch them at the stop sign.
I’m pretty sure I’m fairly young by this board’s standard, but I as well remember things being different. I remember OFTEN finding pink tags, or worse, the dreaded FedEx “sorry we missed you” tag, which meant going to the sorting facility to pick up. TBH it wasn’t the end of the world for me, and not that much of an inconvenience, plus I liked the peace of mind knowing my item was safe and not lost.
These days, when it happens, it IS a hassle. USPS closed all the post offices near me, so now my zip’s sorting facility requires me to get on the interstate and drive quite a ways. Strangely I have to pass at least 3 closer post offices to get there. Very apropos for the US Government.
It’s worth noting that a lot of these companies seem to be banking on you just giving up because there’s no simple solution to contact them.
My fiasco with Paypal/eBay recently is case in point: PP has a “messenger center” where you can start an idle chat with “someone.” Every post you type out can and usually is answered by a different person, and they attempt to close the issue at the end of every reply. So in my case, 3 people gave me 3 responses to 3 different sections of my question, finally settling on “every aspect of this seems like fraud but since there’s a tracking number, we assume it’s legit.” They told me to contact eBay, which I was convinced wasn’t possible.
EBay’s customer service number now is just a recording that tells you to go back online and read their “articles” which just loop you around without ever letting you contact a person.
I discovered–and have been discovering with many companies–that their automated chat robots will let you through to a human if you just type “REAL AGENT” several times, which was the case with eBay–their AI chatbot just gatekeeps the real people who will in turn help you (in my case, immediately).
I typically use a debit card, but apparently I need to switch to a credit card instead. I typically try to avoid using CCs but the protections seem worth it.
