A tale of two packages...

I really hate when UPS hands over packages to USPS Surepost or whatever it's called.  If it's going to end up in USPS' hands anyway, just give it to them to begin with. No fun to see that your package is going to be delivered by UPS on XX date, only to see nope, that's the date it was handed off to USPS and now it's another 2-3 days. We're lucky if we get our mail 2-3 days a week. They have started only delivering packages most of the time in our area and the normal mail just sits until they have someone to deliver it. If your package is small enough our mail person with put it with the mail, versus the packages so who knows when we will actually get it.  Week before last I was getting mail 5 days after it was supposed to be delivered (I check the Informed Delivery on their website daily as too many times important items come up missing)

I’ve come to terms USPS delivery, I know my package is going to take the scenic route and will eventually show up. Now Amazon Prime is another story.  Their overnight or 2 day delivery claim is a joke.  I ordered several things yesterday that all said 2 day delivery yet when I checked my order status nothing is going to be delivered until Friday and I live less then 25 miles from a major distribution center.  

It takes 7-10 days for most of my Amazon Prime deliveries now. The catch? They don't actually ship the items for several days. I do not use the "shipping day" feature, where you can add all your items purchases to a certain day to ship. This happens with every order I make now.

I am trying hard to funnel most of my purchases to Target or Walmart online. Not that they are not a big corporation too, but I get things in 1 to 2 days.

I have been ordering a lot of stuff to be delivered to the new house and for the most part, it has all arrived without issue. But, two items never arrived at all. Both of the missing items happened when I ordered more than one of something.

First, I ordered two lamps from Wayfair. Only one arrived. I looked at the order on Wayfair to see if they were being sent separately or if one was backordered. It just showed two ordered and delivery completed. I contacted Wayfair and they sent out a new lamp right away and apologized for the issue. That lamp has arrived.

The next shortage occurred when I ordered 4 ceiling fans from Costco. Only 3 arrived, appearing together in the same FedEx delivery with a couple more items from Wayfair. I contacted Costco and they are sending the 4th fan.

I was home for all of these deliveries. My dog alerts me to anyone even thinking about stopping in front of my house so I watched the trucks pull up and the drivers get my items from the truck. I always wait for them to return to their truck before I go retrieve the packages from the porch. And since I was home and watching, and brought my packages into the house immediately, I know there was nothing placed on my porch and then subsequently stolen by someone.

I know it has only been two things that either were not sent out or just didn’t make it off the delivery trucks, but it is very annoying when it happens. It requires about an hour of my time to go back to the order page and write down all the pertinent information about the order plus my customer numbers. Then I try to use the chat feature because I detest sitting on hold on the phone. I still have to sit in the queue when I use the chat feature, but I can read my book while waiting and just keep glancing at the queue numbers to know when there will be someone available to deal with my missing packages.

And I have to say, both Wayfair and Costco offered me a choice between either a refund or a replacement for the missing items and when I chose replacement, they ordered it to be sent right away. And both companies were very professional when dealing with me. I just want to know where the disconnect is happening. Are the warehouse employees pushing so hard that they miss the details when multiples of something has been ordered?

Is there some opportunity for my item to be taken from the delivery truck without the driver noticing? Both of these deliveries were made from FedEx, and both of the trucks were not marked as FedEx trucks. The first on was a rental Ryder truck and the second one was a plain white truck with no company markings at all. So obviously FedEx is using independent truck drivers or at least not their own trucks for deliveries. Neither of the drivers wore identifying clothing with Fed Ex on the shirt or even a FedEx hat. I would think these independent delivery guys have a high vested interest in having happy customers, so I doubt that they are just deciding to only drop off three of my fans and to keep one. The fans were in obvious boxes with a photo of the fan on the outside of the box. The lamp was in a second plain brown box with no photo of what was inside.

I have more items to order, but I am hesitating doing so online. I still need three more large rugs and felt underlays to go with them, and because they need to be 8x10, I would really struggle to bring them to the register and then home in my car. Ordering them online eliminated all of that. I did find a suitable rug at Costco, and I think if I ask at the front to have someone help me, they will at least get them to the register and then help me get them to the car and loaded. I may try that today.

I don’t know if the people waiting in the queue with me were for missing items or another issue, but there were a LOT of other people using the chat feature when I was using it. I would be interested to see the statistics on the number of items that just never show up.

I just wanted to add that a while ago I watched a doorbell video of a delivery driver setting a package on the porch of a home, stepping back and taking a picture of it, then returning to the porch to steal that package! Don’t these people realize that many people have surveillance cameras now? Or maybe their neighbor across the street does and it will capture their theft. My doorbell camera has a clear view of the three houses in front of my house and if a driver took a package to that house and then returned to the truck with that same package, I would have that on video.

When I googled just now to see if I could locate the video I saw to link it here for you to see, there were dozens of videos of other drivers being caught delivering packages and then stealing them back. One video showed an Amazon driver deliver a package, take a picture of it, and then steal the two UPS delivered packages on the porch that were there when she showed up. The homeowner looked at her video, saw the driver stealing, called the police, then she and her daughter got in the car and drove their neighborhood to try to locate the Amazon thief. They found her! The mom confronted the driver and they got into a verbal yelling match. The driver then got the stolen items from her truck and threw them at the woman! Then the police showed up. The woman was arrested. The article said the punishment for stealing mail like that is 7 years in prison! Again, surveillance cameras people! Taking a picture with your phone does not prove you left the porch empty handed! Greed. And stupidity. An unknown item for 7 years of your life!

There were also surveillance videos of food delivery drivers sticking their hands into your food order and eating the fries from it! So gross! If the driver is hungry, they are right there at McDonalds or wherever the food is coming from. Just buy your own damned fries!

Fedex has my Target package that has been delayed in Greenwood IN for the past 6 days. It was part of a gift. The other part of my order was delivered by UPS in 2 days.

Yes, they totally lie about stuff like this. Back during the height of the pandemic when everything was still shut down I ordered a cat tree from Amazon for my ds in Georgia. And for some reason even something that large was transferred from UPS (or whatever it was to begin with) to the local post office. So first my ds got a message saying "delivery attempted, no one home" or something like that. um... hahaha My ds called the P.O. and pointed out that it was a pandemic and someone was ALWAYS home. So then the post office changed their tune and said it was too heavy to deliver, that they don't deliver anything over 75 pounds. Ds replied that it was a good thing this only weighed 52 pounds then and he would be expecting it to be brought to his door tomorrow. grrr....

Ds said that if they had just told him "this is pretty heavy and your carrier can't handle it" he would have been happy to go pick it up. But when they lied -- twice -- he said nope, they can just do their job.

I received another Fedex update today- my package is now out for delivery in a city about an hour from my home. I wonder if it might get delivered today?