Wait, are packages just left outside? And the recipient or sender are at fault? That seems pretty strange.
Here (Germany) if you aren’t home (and haven’t given special instructions which could include leaving the package outside) it’s either given to a neighbor, a package-holding place or goes to the post office for you to get.
Here in the US, private services like UPS and FedEx can't deliver to the post office. You can ask for a package to be delivered with signature required, but what that means is that if you aren't home it will be held at a distribution center for you to go pick up.
Otherwise, yes, packages will just be left wherever in front of your door.
FedEx has partnered with lots of pharmacies and bodegas around the city who can ostensibly receive your packages. The problem is that these locations are allowed to decide that they just don't want to deal with any given package even if it's within the allowed size and weight requirements, and/or FedEx is allowed to decide they aren't going to bother actually delivering it and instead of just routing it to another nearby location or holding it at the distribution center, FedEx will instead just send it back to the sender. It's basically a scam that FedEx is running to make senders pay multiple times for shipping the same thing across the country.
I recently had to stake out a Walgreens and wait for the driver to show up to actually get a package before it was returned to the sender.
I've had several packages delivered to a gas station not too far from where I live. I'm glad they're open until midnight because sometimes I've worked late.
I'm also fortunate that my nearest grocery store has an Amazon Locker, which I use as much as I can when purchasing from Amazon -- that grocery is also opened until midnight.
We have private services as well, they have contracts with small stores to keep those packages. And a distribution center (unless very far away) seems better than a stolen package.
The distribution center is usually a nightmare to travel to. I've lived in NYC and Berlin and both systems are disasters in their own way. Here in Berlin someone is always posting a note in the stairwell that a package was delivered and they aren't sure who in the building has it. And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for?
An abundance of packages disappear in both systems. Although if your package happens to be left at a local Spati/Bodega/corner store instead of with a neighbor the German system works out pretty well.
> Here in Berlin someone is always posting a note in the stairwell that a package was delivered and they aren't sure who in the building has it.
Well, they are supposed to tell you where they left the package. In that case I’d probably tell the sender it wasn’t delivered and leave the delivery service to bear the cost if they can’t remember where it ended up.
> And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for?
I find that improbable. But if after a few days there was no contact whatsoever I’d simply drop a note with my phone number in their mailbox reminding them that I have their package ;)
> An abundance of packages disappear in both systems.
Never had problems unless it was Hermes, and even that is somewhat rare (happened twice in 15 years), but then I live in a vastly smaller city (pop 200k) than Berlin.
I suspect a lot of this depends on the specific neighbor and delivery driver in question. I live on the ground floor and am frequently home when packages are delivered, so I end up handling a lot of packages. Most neighbors show up within a day whith a postcard the delivery driver put in their mailbox. The worst delay was when someone ordered a surfboard which didn't arrive until he'd left for vacation and then I left for vacation before he came back, so he got the package a couple of weeks later. But in that case it was basically the same as getting it a day late, since he didn't get to surf on it either way.
The weirdest part about seeing so many of my neighbors' packages is how much I learn about their consumption habits. There's the lady who orders two big boxes of cat food whenever there's a discount, the guy who uses his Amazon Prime account to its fullest, the guy who ordered a 50-inch TV without telling his wife (who came to collect the package), the guy who ordered a bunch of different hats (he didn't like the first few after trying them on), the guy who orders tools and parts for his motorcycle...
In Poland we have parcelmats - machines where you can post a parcel and get it delivered to. Parcel is stored for 48 hours and you can pick it up at convenient time using QR code.
wait, can you use USPS and require a signature?
here in france, UPS/Fedex etc will hold the items in their distribution center, or they have many partnerships with local "tabac" stores.
but the official postal system (La Poste) will simply hold it in the post office for up to 15 days, where I can collect it against a signature.
That sounds largely like the system here in the US except the default is to leave packages unless the sender (or recipient if they've registered with the company) specifically requests signature confirmation, which doesn't happen on most packages. UPS even has the same kind of relationships, in my area I can have them divert packages to the local drug store/pharmacy or to any of their physical store locations.
They deliver to a PO BOX, but you pay for that service, it's a distinct mailing address for your use.
They don't however fallback to the local post office when undeliverable, which is the point here.
I've lived in very rural small towns in California, and it required developing a personal relationship with the post office staff/postmaster and UPS driver to have undeliverable packages left at the local post office. The post office employees were technically bending the rules for me. But we had so few local residents it wasn't a significant problem.
Depends on the housing. When I lived in a condo it was more like you said held in a locked box.
When I lived in a duplex or single family home it’s left at the front door or garage. There’s no way I’d want my neighbor to have my packages. One neighbor is weird and the other opened my wife’s package when she messed up our address right when we moved in.
Condos can present a weird situation for packages delivered by small 3rd parties delivery companies. Amazon delivery services didn’t have the codes to get in like FedEx/UPS/USPS or keys to the lock boxes.
Remember US and Europe have much different living situations, NYC is dense and similar to Europe but the rest of the US is not. People in NYC have more of a not my problem or not dealing with this BS attitude and rightfully so.
>Condos can present a weird situation for packages delivered by small 3rd parties delivery companies. Amazon delivery services didn’t have the codes to get in like FedEx/UPS/USPS or keys to the lock boxes.
I live in a condo with keyfob access, and Amazon and Lazership are able to deliver right to my door. It probably depends on the condo management. Personally, I like the system I have right now; my neighbors could potentially steal my packages, but that's pretty unlikely, and random people off the street can't easily get in, so it's generally safe to leave packages at people's doors. I have a neighbor across the hall who's had some packages sitting in front of their door for a week now (they've probably been on vacation).
If I owned a single-family home and had a bunch of time on my hands, I'd probably engineer a drop box of some kind that shippers can drop my packages into, but that other people can't get them out of.
> If I owned a single-family home and had a bunch of time on my hands, I'd probably engineer a drop box of some kind that shippers can drop my packages into, but that other people can't get them out of.
If you honestly gave that some thought, it's not an easy problem to solve. Otherwise, I'm sure that the Amazon Home Locker would be a thing.
The main problem is multiple deliveries - how do you make a box that can lock and unlock (automatically or otherwise) for -only- delivery companies and drivers, for multiple deliveries and packages per day - but not allow others to do so?
Remember, the drivers and delivery people have very limited time to deliver packages; they won't read instructions, or even pay nominal attention to them. You won't be able to give them (or the company) some kind of RFID key fob or other item to use to open the locker (because you are only a single address, not a large company with "pull power" and a contracted service agreement - and even then, maybe not). There's also the possibility of freelance or other kinds of "couriers" that likely drive their own vehicles and have no other delivery identification (I've had packages delivered to my door by cab drivers in a marked cab - supposedly shipped by UPS).
I recall one kickstarter where the idea was a "pad" that packages could be put on, but if the pad or a package was removed, an alarm would go off (it also had some kind of camera and email notification capability). IIRC, it got funded, but I have no idea how well the idea worked. Likely, it probably didn't work well at all - simply because delivery people probably didn't use it, or didn't understand to stack packages on top of other deliveries, etc.
I'd personally love a solution for this problem, and so would tons of other people affected by "porch pirates" stealing their packages. My solution is the old fashioned way: Have them delivered to my employer. But this solution isn't available to everyone, unfortunately.
>The main problem is multiple deliveries - how do you make a box that can lock and unlock
I used the term "drop box" for a reason. You don't need to let drivers unlock the box. It's a drop box: they drop the boxes into it. It's just like a mail slot: the postperson puts the mail in, but can't get it back out. It doesn't require special access or knowledge to use; it would be just like a trash or laundry chute.
The challenge with this is retrofitting some kind of chute so stuff doesn't just drop 8+ ft to a hard floor, and this also requires having an underground floor where the boxes go. Of course, this isn't going to work for something like a 65" TV, but for most packages it's quite doable.
It would need to be similar to the current mail entry system where USPS has a key that opens all of them. For the new weird contractor system another option would be to have a scanner on the locker and open when it sees the barcode of a package you're expecting. [0]
Alternatively most shopping places already allow you to enter delivery instructions where you enter gate codes for unattended gated communities you could just provide them the key code there.
If neither of those would work for reasonably sized packages (ie no TVs) a larger box could have an airlock section like the clothing donation boxes where packages can't be retrieved because they're behind a second door.
Really though I think the actual solution is a combination of more prevalent generic lock boxes, like where Amazon or UPS setup drop locations but made so any company can use them, or partnering with grocery stores or gas stations to hold packages.
[0] Either with you entering it in or going through things like UPS MyChoice and the Fedex and USPS equivalents.
No delivery guy I've ever seen is going to sit around and wait for you to unlock the device. I can't remember the last time a delivery person even bothered to ring the doorbell.
In most cases its simply left outside. In some instances it will be taken to a local office for pickup, but that is not as common and often must be prespecified. I've never heard of packages being left with neighbors. I have to imagine people either don't trust their neighbors enough or view it as too much of a burden or something.
I've heard of packages being left with neighbors, usually in smaller or rural communities but I can't imagine it's actually legal in the US.
I trust some of my neighbors to bring me my mail and/or packages if there was an issue delivering them but there are a few that I absolutely do _not_ trust, either because they would just keep the package for themselves or throw it out, or because I don't see them often and they might just plain forget about it for a few days or weeks.
In Germany you get (or are supposed to get – delivery is not getting better as the competition resulted in a slow race to the bottom) a piece of paper telling you which neighbor has the package. You don’t have to remember the package as the neighbor (though I usually ring their door bell if they haven’t come to get it after a day or two).
Leaving it with neighbors seemed like it was much more common 20+ years ago. I remember it happening pretty frequently when I was in college. It seems to have gone out of style.
I lived with my girlfriend in Jena for a few months and I remember her building didn't have apartment numbers (she said that was common in Germany). Delivery people would typically knock on other people's doors and usually whoever was home would take a package and give it to their neighbor later.
According to [0], there are 1.5m deliveries per day, so the 90k number here gives us a 6% failure rate. They cite 15% in the article [1], which is insane. I guess this goes to the security facade most buildings have, where saying "UPS" at the buzzer gets you near-unlimited access.
Lived near Yale for a little while. It is difficult to believe the theft rate in my area was <80%. We firmly gave up on deliveries to the home, and had to warn friends and relatives not to send us anything. Nearly everything got grabbed. It was beyond ridiculous.
I hear that area has improved now, but certainly back then...
Just this week package theft was part of the tv show The Rookie and last December Mark Rober had that staged video highlighting it.
For my apartment complex, generally the carriers will just leave it at your door. However, at this time of year, USPS won't even attempt to deliver packages and takes them all to the office and makes the office text/email recipients (I don't think this is legal and I've complained about it but no one cared) and the other carriers (except for Amazon delivering themselves) will knock and if you don't answer in the time it takes them to scan the bar code they'll take it back to the distribution center for UPS and to the FedEx office a couple miles away for FedEx packages.
This is purely done as a response to theft.
At my current apartments I have had some Amazon packages go 'out for delivery' then just never come. Most recently this happened 2 weeks ago and Amazon issued a refund as a gift card balance. In this case it was just 10$~ of microfiber eyeglass cloths.
When I still lived in a house 2 years ago, I'd regularly have Amazon packages taken off my porch that was 20 ft from the street and blocked by bushes. I never had any plain brown boxes taken though, only stuff with the Amazon tape. Fortunately a lot of the stuff was garbage I was getting for free to review and the few times it was something I paid for Amazon would reship or issue a refund without hesitation.
Without running the numbers I'd say my personal theft rate is probably below 1% in the apartment and probably below 10% when I was at the house.
Walking through Manhattan this Summer, I once saw several delivery people sorting dozens of Amazon packages directly on the sidewalk. I could not believe my eyes.
This is an every day sight here, especially during the holiday season. It's not uncommon to see entire carts stacked full of packages left unattended on the sidewalk as the employee is delivering packages inside a building.
USPS employees still push carts with letters and packages around [0] and in NYC have master keys to many buildings' front doors so they can put packages inside.
NYC is not the most accessible city, and as such you'd have a hard time bringing a cart into many apartment buildings that have steps but don't have a ramp. Even if you manage to bring a cart to the front door of an apartment building, you'd still likely have to deal with a self-closing door which will fight you while trying to pull the cart through. Sorting inside the building is just not feasible.
No idea, the most plausible explanation is that the driver stole the item and left the empty envelope. Although what they thought they could do with replacement foam pads for a particular set of headphones I don't know.
But I'm sure it's possible to lockpick the door or do something else to the locker, as it was an outside 24/7 one. fairly unlikely though.
I find it alarming that our policing (in)abilities are hurting the institutions that we trust, that have traditionally made us different from the less developed world (such as mailing something in Brazil)
Oh, I dunno. Major freeways are generally well-paved and easy to drive on at 70-80mph, pipes reliably deliver water which is usually safe to drink in most areas, blackouts/brownouts are very uncommon outside of extreme weather events, and there's been a lot of visible investment in stuff like solar/wind power recently. We even have reasonably-maintained primitive road networks running through most of the nation's forests and wilderness areas.
Sure there are some dim spots, like the huge number of bridges that badly need renovation and the frequent need to replace old lead pipes, but it's fairly uncommon to notice the infrastructure in most states. And that's pretty high praise for infrastructure.
IMO there are plenty of good arguments that our social institutions are in a worse state than most other nations, but our physical infrastructure doesn't seem to be going to ruin just yet.
Yes I have, provide some substance to what infrastructure you mean, and what "less developed world" means.
As it stands, these statements are vacuous. Context helps. And to be honest, it seems like people making these statements haven't ever been to the "less developed world". America isn't perfect, but if you're going to just blanket write stuff like this, at least be prepared to back it up with examples.
Well for a prime example, try driving around the nation's capital sometime. The roads really are 3rd-world. And that's not the only city disgraced with horrible roads. On top of that, there's bridges literally falling apart. Do you really need examples for this?
Like a lot of apartment buildings in NYC, in my building, packages are left in the hallway instead the key-pad locked front door. There were some problems in the past with packages getting stolen, but not recently. However, there are a few packages that have been siting there for a few months that are at the wrong address. None of the carriers seem to give a shit to pick them up, even when people mark that they are at the wrong address.
Yeah I had more packages stolen when I lived in Cupertino than NYC.
But I've had quite a few packages delivered to the wrong address and our lobby constantly has wrong deliveries of both USPS mail and packages. Usually the Ave/Street are mixed up or off-by-one or a digit in the street number is different from ours.
We once had a huge box of pet food from China mostly blocking our main egress for a week until we found the person it was supposed to go to.
There should be a federal law against this kind of stupidity. It's unbelievable that many towns and cities actually thought it'd be a good idea to have two different streets with the exact same name, but one is an "Avenue" and one is a "street". I have a relative who lives on a "Second Ave" and has had all kinds of problems with mail because there's another address in that same small town with the same house number, but on "Second Street", and the person there is not cooperative when mis-addressed mail goes there.
Don't move to Atlanta, where Peachtree St, West Peachtree St, Peachtree Rd, Peachtree Circle, Peachtree Lane, Peachtree Avenue, Peachtree Way, Peachtree Drive, Peachtree Parkway, Peachtree Walk, and Peachtree Plaza all exist and are distinct roads.
Ok how do you solve the problem of annexing where two towns might have both been maintaining unique street names within their own systems but have overlap when they merge. Towns grow like that all the time.
On the South side of Chicago, the majority of the East/West streets are numbered, and most have a corresponding 'place': 53rd Street and 53rd Place. And they're a block apart.
I have used FedEx for my business only 5 times this year in NYC to have important packages delivered (our vendors weren't flexible in these instances). 3 out of those 5 times, the driver slapped a "sorry we missed you sticker" and just left, or they delivered it to the wrong address (the next street over). The drivers are pretty careless and simply don't care enough. I even get deliveries that are clearly not the right address, yet they end up on my building doorstep. FedEx is simply frustrating to deal with.
Their "investigations" will reveal one story, but my security camera reveals another, and even management doesn't care that my building's deliveries are never made because the drivers just slap the sticker and move on.
The best part is that, at least in my FedEx delivery area, the drivers "own" the route. So, if you file a complaint about them, they typically just make your experience more frustrating out of spite.
I had a package delivered to the wrong address, across town, multiple times, even after I contacted FedEx, confirmed my address, and gave them directions (because they are too stupid to figure them out on their own). This was just the worst case out of many. It's shocking whenever a FedEx truck actually shows up to deliver packages. It's also shocking how incredibly bad FedEx is at their one job, delivering packages. Amazon is even worse, but let's not go there. The package was finally returned to the shipper, Newegg, and then the fun started trying to get a refund. Took about a month of calling every day. That was a lot of fun.
So far this week I've had 2 packages left right in front of my front door ( actually blocking it ) with full visibility from the street with no knock or doorbell ring ( I work from home and my office is right next to the front door ). One package left right in front of my front door ( actually blocking it ) with a light knock on the door. Two packages delivered to my neighbors house 2 doors down the street ( thanks USPS )... it's no wonder packages disappear daily, I think either the delivery drivers are co-conspiritors with the actual package thieves, or these services are hiring/using people actually unfit to do the job... I mean in the USPS case, both packages were clearly marked with my address... it's a number, how do you get that wrong?
I live in the suburbs and have long thought about building a small package shed in the front of my house. I use Amazon for most of my packages and was thinking about getting Amazon's smart lock and putting it on this shed.
>Around the country, more than 1.7 million packages are stolen or go missing every day — adding up to more than $25 million in lost goods and services, according to an analysis for The Times by José Holguín-Veras, an engineering professor and director of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems.
1) the value of goods seems off. How can the average package only be 15 bucks? ( I wonder if they are keeping the costs down to deter people from stealing
2) What the heck is "Sustainable Urban Freight Systems?"
>Gabriel Cepeda, 23, came up with the idea for a start-up company built around collecting packages, called Pickups Technologies, after his own Amazon order of computer hard drives was stolen last year outside of his parents’ home in New Jersey. He spent hours on the phone trying to get his order replaced. “It was bad enough to motivate me to brainstorm,” he said.Now Mr. Cepeda’s company connects online shoppers with a network of about 30 residents in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg who will accept packages at their homes at all hours, for fees ranging from $4.99 for a single delivery, to $9.99 for a monthly service. The company plans to expand to more neighborhoods.
Decent idea, but the liability has to be insane. I think he would need to grow rather large in order to cover insurance costs if God forbid a few of these people decided to sue if something valuable were damaged/stolen.
It literally sounds like finding people who are not working ( retired, elderly, stay at home, disabled, etc, ) who are home at x time per day. Sounds like a crazy optimization problem.
>In New York, the police do not break out stolen packages into a separate category. Instead, these cases generally fall under grand larceny if an item is valued at more than $1,000, or petit larceny if valued at less.
With all that budget, why cannot they keep statistics on package theft? Seems like the city is behind the times.
I checked my Amazon orders for the past two months: ~60% of the packages are $10 or less. However, there are a bunch of them that are $50+, and a few expensive packages can compensate for a large number of smaller ones.
If my buying pattern is typical for your average Prime user, $15 per package isn't completely outrageous.
A lot of the convenience of online shopping is that it's shipped right to your door. Make it almost as inconvenient as having to go shopping and the appeal is dramatically lessened.
Besides, losing occasional packages is still less expensive than having to operate a retail store front in Manhattan!
The capacity of parcel shops seems to be a lot more than 90k based on my unsubstantiated guesswork; more likely things aren’t bad enough to merit a change https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-deliv... say 1.5M total deliveries per day. This means 6% of packages are stolen. So 94% of the time, it works, and that’s good enough for most. What can be done?
In my neighborhood we have a constant gradual uptick in crime until someone catches a criminal in the act and blows them away. Then crime goes back down until enough criminals forget the potential consequences. This might not be possible in a city as dense as NYC but increasing the severity of punishment could help
I live in a much smaller city (~50k) in the US. The post office will leave anything, anywhere. Once in a while I need to go downtown to the main post office to pick stuff up. Takes them forever to find my packages, and there's always a big line. Terrible.
UPS/FedEx packages that need a signature are a pain, you can't do anything until they try to deliver at least once. Then you have to drive to the hub which is either by the airport or the next town over and pick it up, their hours suck.
FedEx lets you re-route your package to the local Walgreens, which I really find useful.
Sign up for MyChoice or the Fedex equivalent, they're free for basic stuff like this. If you really want to you can prerelease a package but it essentially indemnifies the company from any delivery problem unless you have proof it never made it to your door step. You can also redirect them to a store or partner location before they attempt delivery at all through UPS's service and I think Fedex has a similar option.
In Taiwan and Japan, they'll leave packages at the convenience store (konbini). Also, people are more respectful of others in those two countries, so property crime isn't as high as most American cities anyway.
Well there was this thing called 'BufferBox' in Canada and a similar thing in the US, essentially semi-private boxes into which mail could be placed with a temp. combo.
The UW grads that sold it to Google were borderline arrogant about it, boldly assumptive about how they were going to change how packages were delivered in Canada. That was 10 years ago and of course nothing has happened.
I suggest there are some fairly simple technological solutions along those lines (i.e. a series of larger boxes in each building with a temp code) that could really work, but that the USPS etc. are fundamentally not interested in doing anything innovative. Private entities just aren't positioned to do this, as the pervasive nature of 'mail' is something that lends to socialised/government action.
I really wish UPS/FedEx/Amazon would get together in this because collectively they have enough power to lobby/influence enough cities to create a critical mass for this, and they have the incentive and operational capabilities to do it.
Making boxes available for purchase for homes, having everything standardised etc. and the legal issues sorted out around it would be so beneficial.
It's one area where we hardly need 'new tech' rather some 'operational innovation' at scale.
This sounds like a massive class action lawsuit waiting to happen. I wonder who would be hit first, the shippers or the city? Surely they are both at fault.
If you can't be bothered to at least shop in your neighborhood stores, could you at least be bothered to sign for your packages at the post? It's just the cost of living in civilised society: either you interact with the store clerk or the postman. Choose.
which is a sad statement on the what the US has become. Just look at the looting that comes during disasters here.
This is a cultural issue that needs correction starting in schools where it gets repeated day and day out to respect others and the property of others. Then top this off with not accepting politicians who incite negative behavior by telling people their situation was caused by others whose gains were unfairly acquired. It is far easier for people to reason theft if someone in authority gives them that scenario, that people who have more than them probably did it unfairly and it is not just that they lack the same.
> Then top this off with not accepting politicians who incite negative behavior by telling people their situation was caused by others whose gains were unfairly acquired.
Maybe you meant it exactly this way, but I can't tell if you were referring to Democrats or Republicans, because both have the same message about different groups.
I can't really be bothered to drive 30 minutes home from work, wait for the package, then drive back. For 90% of my orders I'd be more than happy to have them delivered on a Saturday, which is what I do for Amazon since they give me that option.
I buy a lot more locally, but there's just a lot of things that need to be purchased online these days.
Here (Germany) if you aren’t home (and haven’t given special instructions which could include leaving the package outside) it’s either given to a neighbor, a package-holding place or goes to the post office for you to get.