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

[cakeorwine]

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.

You don't see the problem with a parcel being left on the doorstep without the delivery person knowing if anyone was in?

It apparently was delivered at 12.45. I had no idea it had been delivered until I stepped outside 3 hours later.

Can you see the problem?

I’m so fed up of this! I’ve had expensive books left out in heavy rain and they were damaged. And often the couriers will put things inside my wheelie bin, even on bin day!!

I wish people would just use royal mail and Inalso wish that royal mail would take things to the sorting office like they used to. I don’t mind waiting til the weekend and driving to the next town to pickup my parcel. I do mind it being thrown into my bin amid the cat litter bags.

I've ordered several items from Amazon in the last few weeks. Every single bloody one left as a dump and run, propped against the middle of the front door in full view and with no protection from the rain, without even knocking on the door. There has always been someone in the house. But you don't know the parcel's been dumped on your doorstep if the driver doesn't even knock before running off to the next delivery.

They used to knock, and if no answer, try the neighbours, and as a last resort put them over the back fence (safe from theft but unideal if raining) or hide them behind the hedge or the bins or under an upturned recycling box (giving some minimal protection from the worst of the weather if not the damp). But propping against the front door without knocking seems to be standard now.

What especially annoys me is that every single bloody one is also logged in "My Orders" as having been "handed to resident". Also, I can't find on their website any obvious route to communicate unhappiness, unless the parcel got stolen or damaged by the rain.

They need to hire enough delivery drivers and give them a realistic to dom their jobs properly.

• realistic time to do their jobs

It's not just Amazon. Yodel and Evri are terrible too. Even if you give them directions for where to leave it, they don't Nd just toss it where it's quicker for them no matter the weather or how visible it is from the road.

Yes, I can see the problem, though the issue is your local courier. Personally I find Amazon by far the best for everything and never have this issue.

There are three options:

-Keep complaining to Amazon and wait for it to be resolved, and watch out for delivery notifications for any further deliveries.

-Use a locker or other delivery location

-Go elsewhere

You can put whatever delivery instructions you want on your Amazon delivery info but they don’t pay attention. I’ve had notes that Amazon put on for me saying don’t bring the van down the drive since they knocked the wall down. They still come down, still get stuck at the bottom and have knocked several lumps out of the replacement wall.

The Drivers of late haven’t spoken English, hardly surprising the notes are ignored.

fortunately our parcels don’t get stolen though.

The issue is with Amazon as well.
Give their drivers more time / less deliveries
Have the option of a calling card, please rearrange delivery.
Ensure that photographs are taken either with someone with the parcel or in the safe place.

Our local Amazon delivery guys are good for this actually, they tuck parcels right up against the front wall where they're not visible from the pavement. Doesn't help if it's wet though.

I get things delivered to my local corner shop instead if they're too large to go through the letterbox. Much safer.

I am still totally flabbergasted with what a DPD driver did a few weeks ago.
My house is set back from the road and there is a brick porch which keeps things dry from rain. There isn’t a problem leaving things in here, they have been leaving them there for years.
But not this time…. he left a box of Emma Bridgewater china balanced on top of a 1 inch wide, 6 foot high gate and took a picture of it, which I got on the app while I was a at work and could do nothing about it.
When I got home it had fallen on the concrete on the ground behind the gate (unsurprisingly). Fortunately EB are very good at packing things!

I’m totally mystified by him doing this though - what on earth was he thinking?

I'd be inclined to tell them it's been stolen and ask for a refund.

I can beat that. You have to walk about 20m up a footpath to reach our house and we have had parcels left at the road end of the footpath.

Amazon are masters of the database. They know and categorise their customers. Some of you are categorised as people who will put up with this kind of behaviour. Who will go out knocking on neighbours doors if a package is misdelivered etc, and who won't pursue a claim. I am categorised as someone who will not take this kind of shit and will insist on them doing their job. When I have an order coming over a certain value, amazon text me a one-time passcode and the delivery person has to input that code into their device before they can mark the package as delivered. I didn't ask for this. I suspect it happened because I made sure they dealt with it properly every time they got it wrong. Until a package is in your hands it has not been delivered and you are entitled to a full refund.

Yes, but it's not the same across the board. I don't have any issue with them and never have. I've had loads of problems with John Lewis, M&S and other deliveries though and I use them much less frequently.

Why should OP specify safe place if she is at home to take parcel in?

I'd be inclined to call that theft.

I don't see the problem if you are in, you just go and get it! Surely the problem is parcels being nicked when someone isn't in, or being left in the wrong place, as you would have realised if you had read the thread properly. The answer is to contact the supplier or have it delivered elsewhere to a locker or shop.

And how am I supposed to know there is a parcel sitting on my door step in full view of the street? By my great powers of being able to see through doors, or just by my spidey senses?

I just went downstairs to make a cup of tea (WFH). Let the dogs out for a wee to discover an Amazon parcel on the doorstep in the rain. Doorbell hasn't rung. always select a safe space which is the shed right next to the gate. The gate has a big red sign saying please leave parcels in the shed next to the gate. So they have walked past that sign, the designated safe space, through a 2nd gate and past a 2nd shed up a fairly long path to leave it in the rain next to a 3rd small shed.

If other companies can leave calling cards, then so can Amazon.

"Sorry we missed you, we'll try later or please contact us to rearrange"

And yes, so can other companies do this.