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AIBU?

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Original poster

to think that placing a parcel on a doorstep near a busy footpath is not delivered. Amazon, looking at you

69 replies

cakeorwine · 03/12/2023 17:32

So I open my door and find a parcel on the doorstep. It had been delivered 2 hours earlier.

The item is worth about £100. My doorstep is near a very busy pavement. Very easy for someone to have stolen it.

I don't get how someone can just do that. Just drop and run.

I am going to mention it to the company. I could easily have claimed it was stolen. It could easily have been stolen.

Surely you wait until someone opens the door. Or you give it to a neighbour and leave a card. Or something.

OP posts:
MooseAndSquirrelLoveFlannel · 03/12/2023 17:55

Drives me mad! Pre-covid they always handed it to you, since covid they just toss and run. Luckily I live on a quiet private (ish) road.

MurielThrockmorton · 03/12/2023 18:00

They used to be an option to say leave it in the porch, I have an enclosed porch, and some drivers try the door, but others just leave it on the path two metres away from the pavement. I don't know why the leave it in the porch option has disappeared from the list.

Original poster
cakeorwine · 03/12/2023 18:00

MooseAndSquirrelLoveFlannel · 03/12/2023 17:55

Drives me mad! Pre-covid they always handed it to you, since covid they just toss and run. Luckily I live on a quiet private (ish) road.

I don't mind if they waited till I opened the door and then put it on the floor.
But the person didn't even know if I was in.

OP posts:
Hatty65 · 03/12/2023 18:04

I bought my DD a really good food processor last year. Amazon left in on the pavement outside her house UNWRAPPED. Just basically in its box, so that every passerby could see that 'hey - there's a £300 food processor lying on the street'.

I know this because of the photo they sent, demonstrating it had been delivered. Unsurprisingly she never actually saw the gift herself - some thieving git had helped themselves to it before she came home from work.

Changednayme · 03/12/2023 18:06

I personally hate it when they try and get me to answer the door and wish they’d just leave it

TicTacNicNak · 03/12/2023 18:11

I agree OP. I live on a busy main road with a bus stop outside my house but Amazon in particular do this to me too.

We have a shed in the front garden where my husband keeps his motorbike (locked) and most other couriers leave parcels down the side of that, out of view, if there's no answer, which is much safer. I've had large expensive parcels left on the doorstep in view. It's just bonkers.

daffodilandtulip · 03/12/2023 18:16

DPD chucked a delivery of Whittards tea and coffee over the gate last week in the pouring rain. I was out all day and it was a soggy mess when I returned.

Newuser75 · 03/12/2023 18:18

Amazon delivered a book to us recently, threw it over the fence without even ringing the door. It sat there in the pouring rain and was ruined.

Coconutter24 · 03/12/2023 18:23

Amazon last week left 2 of my parcels on our doorstep without knocking, went back to van got another 2 parcels which wasn’t even for my address or even street, again didn’t knock and then left.

mantyzer · 03/12/2023 18:26

Its because the couriers are given virtually no time to deliver items. They do not have time for you to come and answer the door. So most put it on the doorstep, ring the bell, and move onto the next delivery.
Cheap items means corners are cut and usually it is the poorly paid staff jobs where corners are cut.

amylou8 · 03/12/2023 18:36

You can specify a safe place or a neighbour if you're not going to be home, otherwise it's going to get left. If you don't deliver the parcel you have to make a lengthy call to the call centre before the app let's you move to the next delivery. Then you have to spend your own time and fuel at the end of the shift returning it to the depot. This is why they get left.

Original poster
cakeorwine · 03/12/2023 18:46

amylou8 · 03/12/2023 18:36

You can specify a safe place or a neighbour if you're not going to be home, otherwise it's going to get left. If you don't deliver the parcel you have to make a lengthy call to the call centre before the app let's you move to the next delivery. Then you have to spend your own time and fuel at the end of the shift returning it to the depot. This is why they get left.

I've never had a parcel left on the doorstep before.
I have had plenty of Sorry we missed you cards - and that's from a range of delivery companies.

OP posts:
Flev · 03/12/2023 18:48

amylou8 · 03/12/2023 18:36

You can specify a safe place or a neighbour if you're not going to be home, otherwise it's going to get left. If you don't deliver the parcel you have to make a lengthy call to the call centre before the app let's you move to the next delivery. Then you have to spend your own time and fuel at the end of the shift returning it to the depot. This is why they get left.

I have a safe place set - tuck it behind the wheely bin up against the wall (which they have to walk past on their way to our front door). But no, every time they just dump them in full view on our doorstep. If we're lucky they ring the bell to alert us, but that's about 50-50.

shellyleppard · 03/12/2023 18:50

They did this to me last year.....was out all night 🥺🥺

SpaceRaiders · 03/12/2023 18:59

I had around £600 worth of clothes and gifts nicked off our footpath a few Christmases ago. They apparently left it on our footpath, which wasn’t visible from the front door but visible to anyone walking on the public footpath. Thankfully it was bought on a credit card and they refunded in full. We’ve since moved, our front door now is even more exposed and UPS have done same with a similarly high value package.

LindorDoubleChoc · 03/12/2023 19:04

I've had two Amazon parcels "delivered" to my door step when two of us were home in the past couple of weeks. No ring on the doorbell. We're paying £8.99 per month for Amazon Prime. It really is crap. I don't care if the delivery drivers have impossible targets for the day - Amazon needs to sort that out. They aren't short of money.

mantyzer · 03/12/2023 19:05

Amazon don't care. They will only care if you stop using them and telling them why.

Luxell934 · 03/12/2023 20:56

I’ve had two Amazon packages left outside my front door in the past week. One time we weren’t home, the other they knocked, left it on the step and drove away before we even opened the door. Literally anyone could have stolen it from outside the door!

Laurama91 · 03/12/2023 21:00

I report this to amazon before and they sent my order out again. I wasn't asking them to. I was asking for them not to leave it there. I think the 2nd time I reported it they put a note on my account and nothing was allowed to be left anywhere

fairygalaxy · 03/12/2023 21:03

The only way to avoid it is to stop using amazon

shearwater2 · 03/12/2023 21:07

I find Amazon absolutely brilliant, I have been a customer since 1999. If any other company had ever been as good I would use them, but they aren't. Never as reliable or as quick. I'm not using them because they are cheap, I'm using them because they are good.

PinkflowersWhiteBerries · 03/12/2023 21:13

Amazon are pretty good at following my ‘safe place’ instructions. Royal Mail leave parcels anywhere on the drive- under a car , on the doorstep in view of the road. No matter what the packaging or the weather. Even if you tell them to deliver to local Post Ooice for collection. They are the pits around here.

mindutopia · 03/12/2023 21:19

Our Friday/Saturday Amazon guy ‘delivers’ parcels by shoving them somewhere in the hedge up the lane because he doesn’t like driving to our actual house. Dh happened to see an Amazon parcel hidden in the hedge driving home one day and poked around a bit more and found 4 others that we had reported as never delivered in the past 6 months or so. It’s not even in front of our house or even our hedge. It’s like a 1/4 mile from our house. Now if things say they’ve been delivered but we can’t find them, we have to drive down the lane and hang a child out the window with a torch trying to find them hidden in some brambles. So far nothing gone missing because even we didn’t think to look there, but it’s bloody annoying. They obviously know where our house is, you can’t miss it. They just don’t want to drive all the way there.

WoollyRosebud · 03/12/2023 21:22

Amazon earlier this week said they left a parcel for me 'near your doorstep'. The accompanying photograph could have been taken on Mars it's so vague. According to Amazon I have to contact the seller which I have done. Like the PP I'm not interested in the delivery person's targets, I want the delivery service provided properly. Where possible I have things delivered to the nearest pick up point but that's not always allowed by Amazon c*s that they are

StillWantingADog · 03/12/2023 21:28

its ridiculous but as others have said, what’s far more ridiculous is how many deliveries these guys are expected to do in a day. Obviously this time of year they’ll be more pressured than usual.

It wouldn’t happen if we all voted with our feet and stopped using them.