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FedEx pointed out that shippers of high-value goods "can request Hold at Location or Direct Signature Required services, or redirect a package to FedEx Office”
Can’t tell you how many times FedEx has just completely ignored the direct signature required part. If it’s not something like alcohol where the government will crack down on them then they don’t care.
You can look up the signature for the package on their app. I can’t sign my name in Times New Roman…so clearly I didn’t sign for that. If I do sign for it then it’s an image of my actual signature.
They also have a bad habit of delivering stuff to my neighbor without ever setting foot on my property because apparently they can’t read house numbers…FedEx is terrible in my area.
FedEx is terrible in my area
FedEx is terrible in everyone’s area.
The big thing is unlike UPS, they use a lot of contractors for delivery, and well, you get what you pay for.
And then there’s Kansas City…
In the UK you’re not getting a phone delivered to your house and left without providing a pin to the delivery driver.
I’m all for leaving low value items outside but phones and stuff, come on people.
In France you can have it delivered to a post office. To pick it up you’ll need to show a state id card as proof.
In Germany you have to show your ID card to get it, at least in theory.
At least in my area, theft really isn’t a thing. I don’t know anyone on my street who has had a package stolen, and I’ve ordered TVs, phones, consoles, etc, all of which could be pawned pretty easily.
So the security around these things really should take area into account. A densely populated area like NYC or SF would probably need more strict protections than a place like mine.
I think at lot has to do with the company. Like Amazon don’t care as they make so much it’s just not worth waiting around for PINs or signatures as it’ll cost them more than lost stock. Plus they probably have some insurance.
Right, and we’re talking about iPhones here, so Apple has certainly done the math on whether paying for the signature service costs more than buying insurance on the item.
As a customer, I don’t particularly care which they do. When I order things from smaller retailers, I usually have to sign. When I order from larger retailers, I usually don’t. Either way, I have never had a stolen package, and if I did, I’m confident I could report it and get a new one sent out quickly. If I had packages stolen frequently, I would expect the retailer to get suspicious and require signature and photo to make sure I’m not the one stealing them or something.
Apple don’t deliver their own parcels, at least in the UK, so that’s all on the courier. I was more referring to buying on contract from carriers anyway as this is also how they’re delivered and it’s the delivery companies that give drivers like 30 seconds per drop because they make more money delivering more parcels so it’s likely cheaper.
Right, and my point is that the carrier probably sells enough phones that insuring them could end up being cheaper than requiring a signature. So whether you buy from Apple or your local carrier probably wouldn’t matter, they’ll just mark it as a loss and send a new one.
And since the insurance is probably with the courier, the courier is the one that decides if a faster delivery is better than fewer stolen packages.
Last one I ordered was left inside a wheelie bin. Which my neighbour helpfully put out the next morning.
Which network? That’s madness.
Why do package delivery companies in the United States seem to just leave the package on the doorstep when the person isn’t home. That seems like such an obviously stupid thing to do.
Pretty much everywhere else the package delivery companies would either take the product back with them and deliver it on another day or contact the person via the contact details they have and request a safe place to leave it. Most delivery companies will let you specify this when you make the order.
Or if it’s not bin day they can just put it in the recycling bin.
Because if the delivery requires you to sign for it, the delivery driver will just walk up to your house and slap a “we missed you” sticker on your door and get right back in his truck without even attempting to deliver it. If they even bother getting out of the truck at all that is.
We don’t have enough PTO time to take entire days off from work just so we can be home for a delivery that doesn’t show up over and over.
I had that happen once, and it was a new laptop and I guess they were running late that day.
Meanwhile I’ve had FedEx give me the “sorry we missed you” email as their truck is still speeding away from my house
Why do package delivery companies in the United States seem to just leave the package on the doorstep when the person isn’t home. That seems like such an obviously stupid thing to do.
Because no one forces them to.
I’ll tell you why. Time.
I used to live two hours away from a UPS delivery hub. it could take weeks for me to get a delivery from UPS after I was supposed to get it.
they used to not deliver packages unless you were there. I missed the first delivery, the next two times they never showed up and said they did.
over two months later I finally had to drive two hours to the distribution hub and claim my package.
I had no option of who to ship my package with. that was entirely left up to the seller.
I now live 15 minutes away from the same distribution hub and it STILL takes a month extra to get my packages.
this is why I tell every delivery service to just leave it at the door.
our options suck, sellers refuse to use USPS because we have a corrupt bitch running it that’s running it into the ground, and I just don’t have the time to wait 3-4 times the shipping length for products I bought.
Wow, you must live in the Bermuda Triangle or something. The latest I’ve had a package be delivered is like 2 days, and usually my packages get here early. It doesn’t matter if it’s USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, OnPoint (or whatever it’s called), or some other random carrier, I’ve never had a package stolen, lost, or significantly damaged. FedEx seems more likely to be a day or two late, Amazon, UPS, and USPS are usually a day early, and the others are less consistent.
That said, I live pretty close to an Amazon warehouse, my USPS office seems to be a regional hub, and I’m just outside the area for the worst FedEx in the state. It’s probably because I’m just outside a larger metro area of a smaller state, but honestly, my delivery service rocks.
In Germany they give it to your neighbor. Kinda drives me crazy, especially for security hardware
This just happened to a friend of mine on Wednesday. Had a new phone from AT&T delivered, and was almost immediately taken from their porch. Their doorbell camera caught both the delivery and the theft.
It baffles me that “delivering” packages like this is a standard practice over there. I’m in the EU, and if I’m not home by the time the delivery is attempted, the company would call and ask when is a good time to try again, or would leave the thing to be collected at an office.
I’m in the EU and I don’t have to be present for anything.
My guess is that wherever they is more prevalent they would require signatures/presence.
Well — Amazon has made package delivery such a common thing that few people would have the time to be around during package delivery hours because they are at work. Few people can go home from work just to wait for a package.
The seller can mandate a signature. I’ve had to sign for valuables like laptops, phones and ammo. (That last one was to prove I’m American.)
So it’s possibly cheaper for the seller not to require a signature (since it’s an extra service), but it’s no biggie if the package gets stolen? Seems logical…
Well yeah, if it only gets stolen 1% of the time, and the cost of that service is more than the replacement cost when things get stolen, it makes sense to not require a signature. It’s just like retail, they just factor in a certain amount of loss into the price of the items they sell.
Fair point, yeah. If it’s a no-hassle process for the customer to report something as stolen (even without proof - because I figure not everybody has surveillance cameras), sure.
The other thing that’s quite common is to require proof of delivery. Always fun because now the delivery driver has to take an awkward photo of me holding the box.
🤣damn
It used to be that they would not leave packages unattended at a residence, they would leave a note on the door about an attempted delivery. I suppose with the rise of online shopping things had to change. I don’t see American delivery companies bothering with trying to contact you/retrying deliveries, they just want to get out as many packages as possible… and there is a LOT they have to deliver in a day.
You do have a lot of choices in how you want your items delivered depending on the delivery company. Most of the have apps/websites where you can choose to have them hold the package, or deliver it to a specific location on property. By default packages will be left at the door.
Personally I have never had a problem with porch pirates, and if a package is expensive or important I will have the delivery company hold it and pick it up there.
Yeah, same up here in Norway. If I’m not home they will offer to leave the package at a collection point, or drop it off at my place of work. As far as I know, they’re not allowed to just leave it at my door step and hope for the best.
Someone let’s you these days like porter buddy
TIL I learned of porter buddy, thanks.
When I had my phone delivered it was from a special courier, not the normal post. I had to show ID in order to accept the delivery.
(EU)
In Germany you have to give permission in the tracking menu to have them drop the package off somewhere else. I live in an apartment building so I usually tell them to drop it in the hallway of the building, since there’s usually someone at home to at least open the door downstairs if I’m not at home. I’ve seen packages outside the front door only once here and it is not a place I’d ever choose.
In my region, I see packages in front of doors in a lot places 😂 guess I live in a peaceful country.
We can even leave cars unlocked, and they don’t get stolen, but we don’t, out of fear that a kid may loosen the handbrake in play…
It’s not so much a matter of the region itself, I live in a pretty decent area of my city. It’s more that the houses here are all apartment buildings so in most cases the packages will get placed in the hallways instead of the front door of the building. There’s just not really a need to ever have them drop it off there.
Here it gets most of the time placed where the “Briefkästen“ are, if not specified by customer, that wishes their package placed. So, sometimes in and sometimes outside. A phone would most likely be placed in the “Milchkasten” which is a place in the “Briefkasten“ emerged from a time where it was normal to get daily milk delivered. 🤔 well as far as I got told by my parents.
Most of us wouldn’t buy from someone who made us jump through hoops like that.
How inconvenient is getting your package stolen lmao
It’s literally never happened to me and, if it did, is still less inconvenient than waiting for a delivery one single time. It’s as simple as contacting the retailer and getting a replacement shipped in a day or two for anyone big. The worst case is maybe a week.
All of that is better than going out of my way to go to a pickup location or staying home waiting for a package.
Exactly. I’ve never had a package stolen, but if I did, I would just report it and it would come later that week. No big deal.
It’s not really a lot of hoops to jump through, and this seems to be standard practice by DHL, UPS, FedEx and others, over here.
I actually appreciate getting the options on delivery day. E.g. I usually get to choose what collection point they leave the package at (so I can pick a spot I pass by going home from work or whatever), or if I want them to come back the next day, or have it dropped off at my office (not always an option, kinda seems to depend on how stressful a day the driver is having). I certainly prefer it to risk having the package stolen, then reporting, waiting for a new delivery…
Of course, if the package is large, heavy or otherwise unwieldy it might be a pain not having it delivered directly to the door, but if I’m expecting such a thing I try to be home to accept delivery.
Call it what you want; anyone who changed their policy would go bankrupt overnight as they lost 95% of their sales volume, because no one else does that silly nonsense.
You’re free to waste time going to pick up “deliveries”, and this has more or less always been the case. But that’s a dealbreaker for the vast majority of the population, because no other competitor will pull that nonsense.
Welcome to the rest of the world mate. This issue here is another “no way to prevent this, says only nation where this happens” as The Onion would say.
OK, in the rest of the world you have dogshit service. Why is that relevant to the fact that Americans are unwilling to do business with companies that don’t respect our time?
Stolen packages aren’t an actual problem at any scale, and I’m willing to bet shrinkage from theft is meaningfully lower than it is in physical stores. Expecting people to sit around all day waiting for deliveries is a terrible trade off for a rounding error worth of loss to the retailer.
We UPS drivers at least get signatures for the damn things. Who would have thought the delivery drivers getting paid shitty wages would be working with thieves to augment their wages lmao
That is why apple is sending iPhone using UPS, I guess…
Really? Where at? Every phone delivery I’ve gotten via UPS does a ding, dong, dash (and sometimes not even ringing the bell). No I don’t have a release signed.
I have to either redirect it to UPS store (hard to do since it’s overnighted and I don’t want to pay an additional fee), or make sure I’m monitoring my camera for motion alerts all day.
FedEx too, even for packages marked signature required I’ve waited at home for them and the driver leaves the package and rushes off before I can even get to the door.
I really do think UPS does a better job than FedEx overall, but I gotta say the last time UPS delivered a high ticket item to me, it was supposed to be signed for. The driver dropped it off, gave a knock on the door and immediately left. Did not wait, didn’t leave a tag, didn’t take it back. I reported it to them. I was across the country at the time and the original delivery estimate was supposed to be two days later, after my return home. It’s possible Best buy was the one that fucked up and gave wrong info to UPS though.
Generally, phone delivery requires the residents signature at the time of delivery. At least that has been the case with T-Mobile and Verizon in my experience. Does AT&T not require signature?
It’s in the article. Most of the time they don’t, but in areas where theft is an issue they do. But I’m guessing they haven’t caught on yet to change the signature policy.
It’s unfortunate that the signature requirement isn’t a standard policy for all.
Aren’t these things trackable? Don’t phones have an IMEI and can’t they be remote-bricked if stolen?
I mean, police don’t care, but Apple could render these useless if they wanted to.
Not completely bricked, but they can be blacklisted from all carriers
I mean it still makes a great camera, even if imei is blacklisted.
I don’t even use SIM cards, for security, so I literally wouldn’t notice.
Generating planet-harming e-waste out of brand new phones to spite thieves who are largely motivated by economic desperation…
What an American idea.
Edit: Your downvotes have changed my mind. Now I love corpo killswitches on all of the devices I own. /s
Well the thieves should be stealing from corporations and not peoples houses. That’s something I can get behind.
Not bricking these devices will just mean that more people do it.
The US isn’t as bad as some Americans. In Ecuador it’s literally illegal for any business to sell used phones. The reason is to discourage phone theft.
Its really sad :(
🤔and no used phones leave the country??
I’m about to take all your shit out of economic desperation…it’d be one thing if we didn’t have literal free food everywhere and free shelter may not be what you like but it’s there plus we give fucking smartphones away for free in the USA.
Thinking when the “leaving packages before door” will stop (by shops refusing to send it that way due to cost related to stealing)
It’s a bit of a rock and a hard place for then. If you won’t leave my package and I have to be there or go somewhere else to pick it up? I’m not ordering your shit.
That’s pretty much how the rest of the world works, either delivery to pickup points or delivery to person only
Really? At least 90% of packets I get are deposited without signature.
You’re saying you prefer it when the delivery man leaves your expensive gear in your porch, so thieves can pick it up?
In this case why order anything? You might as well leave cash on your porch.
I think it is necessary to make a difference between delivering cheap stuff and a new iPhone or laptop.
I for one prefer pick-up spots as there’s “always” someone there, convenient for the driver and myself.
Big steel box with a one-way door and keyed access anchored into concrete next to your door, with a sign saying to drop packages into it. That’s what I’ve started seeing some people do. Basically, a personal mail deposit box.
Won’t they just put the package in front of the box?
Yes, if they are working with the thief. I’m dumb. It’s still early.
I’ve seen seasonal properties with one-way mail chutes. Looks like a mailbox, but with a deep, locking mail storage container. The lock is a deterrent as well as obscuring how many weeks of mail any one home has. Of course that would only work for small packages (like phones), but it’s better than nothing!
