this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Some countries stupidly accept non delivery as the norm, and that's on them.
If your delivery person leaves your package outside your house, that's NOT, I repeat NOT delivered.
They got 99.9% of the way to delivering it and then abandoned it on the street at the very last step. It must be handed to an occupant or pushed through the letterbox to be delivered. This is obvious.
What do real delivery companies in normal countries do? If they can't deliver the parcel, they don't just drop it on the floor and wander off, because they're not insane. They either try to leave it with a neighbour, or they try to deliver it again another day (or depending on the service, they may leave a paper slip in the letterbox indicating that it can be collected from the local depot).
Countries that accept delivery people throwing their stuff on the floor undelivered have nobody to blame for that but themselves. That is not the norm, it is not reasonable, and they only do it because the people in those countries allow it, and don't do anything about it.
It's madness. Utter insanity. Imagine if the postman did this with important letters!? "The letterbox is stuck, better just leave then on the floor outside!" Can you imagine! MADNESS.
Speak for yourself. I’d rather them leave the shit at the door then have to trudge my ass down to the post office to pick it up, which I have had to do for certain deliveries and it’s annoying every time.
You know even FedEx delivers packages into customers hands in Europe? You have to sign on their tablet that you received the package. They call you in advance if you are there for delivery and if you are nearby they even do a detour. This is general practice for all big delivery companiesike DHL, GLS, DPD, FedEx and many more.
You can pay extra to require a signature on deliveries in the US too but for most shipments it's really just a waste of money that may cause delays in receiving your package if they happen to come by when you're unavailable.
While I often get the package delivered to a pickup point, many carriers now offer a predetermined safe dropoff point on your property, and I utilize that as much as I can. Even if I didn't, I've always hated the ones that need a signature, as they used to have to come back multiple times because they tried to deliver during work hours when people were (surprise) at work. Luckily most don't require a signature these days (and yes, this is in Europe).
I know it is not working with every workplace but I often deliver packages to my work. Most carriers define the delivery time to an hour timeframe, some like ExpressOne are doing it down to 20min time frame with a live tracking showing your courier's progress to reach you.
You know they give us the option. If im not here I can select what happens to my package. Post office, post box next to the supermarket, give it it a neighbor, deliver it sometimes else or place itnon front of my door.
I prefer having my shit left at the door as opposed to being bothered to have to come to the door to personally accept it from them.
I'm typically busy and I'll get it when I get to it... But, I don't live somewhere where I have to be paranoid that someone is just waiting to steal my shit either.
But like you are still gonna go and get the package so what's the big deal with doing it when it arrives? You lose nothing by doing it that way. Or if you know you are gonna be busy at a certain time set the delivery at a more appropriate time (now that I think about it is this not a common option?)
There is no option to specify delivery times for USPS, UPS, FedEx, or Amazon deliveries in the US.
Editing to add: Also, I have zero interest in interacting with people in person more often than absolutely necessary.
In Poland there are parcel machines everywhere. Ordering pretty much anywhere on the internet you can just ask for there, it will be cheaper, and you will have to go just like 200 meters on average (I live in a point just between 3 machines so it is 300) in a city and less than a kilometer in most towns and bigger villahes and your parcel is always there. Much recommend. Wont work in america
Amazon has package lockers that people can choose to have their stuff delivered to if they're concerned about it being dropped at their front door but USPS, UPS, and FedEx don't.
They will however, for packages that require a signature, bring them back to their local depot and hold them for pickup if necessary.
USPs, FedEx and UPS all require "signatures" (really just a name) when delivering to businesses. They don't leave business packages in front of the door.
Source: I have to sign for stuff daily.
I've delivered for Amazon and have left lots of shit outside businesses...
Can't speak for the rest of them specifically with regards to businesses but I also don't think it's relevant to the conversation at hand.
Because I can't set the time for 8.5 minutes from now, because I'm taking a shit.
You say that, but in the US, if you don't live in an apartment, your letterbox most likely doesn't lock or anything like that either. They may as well just be tossing the mail onto the floor.
I don't know a single person without a locking mailbox
Cool story. I don't know a single person in my area with a letterbox let alone a locking one. It's just not something we have in the more rural areas.
Unless this is a language thing. To me, a letterbox is generally attached to a house, often it's just a slot on the front door. And a mailbox is on a post near the street (and generally they do not lock)
I believe @[email protected] was using letterbox and mailbox interchangeably.
Yeah, you're correct in that assumption.
I've only really ever heard of the box outside of someone's home being called a postbox or mailbox. Despite the fact that both terms also refer to the box at the post office where you can put outgoing mail, there's just no separate word for them. And I've only ever heard of the slot on the house door where the mail is placed being called a mail slot.
Letterbox is a completely new term to me in this context... and I still am not quite sure what it would mean, if not a mailbox. Haha.
It's an interesting discussion in general... I've lived in 5 states in the US and mail service isn't necessarily the same across all of them even among similar types of neighborhoods...
For example, in Georgia it's common for every house on a rural residential dirt road to have its own individual (non-lockable) USPS mailbox at the end of their dirt driveway.
In Colorado, on the other hand, it's not uncommon for many of those similar rural dirt road neighborhoods to have a communal (locking) mailbox at the entrance to the dirt road neighborhood similar to what most apartment complexes have.
It's also not uncommon in Colorado or even California for some suburban single family home neighborhoods to have similar communal (lockable) mailboxes but that's less common, in my experience, in most Southeastern states.
I've also lived in an old Victorian building with a mail slot but it had been converted to apartments and had a multi unit locking mailbox bolted to the front of the building at that point.
I don't remember if I had a point or not now other than that shit is weird.
Letter boxes are sized smaller, for just envelopes/letters. Mailbox is larger for newspapers etc. Small packages, also envolopes.
Not sure why the aggression, I was stating an objective point of view so that people can get some counter perspective. It's an important part of establishing the scope of things normally. But ok, go full steam ahead captain.
You're coming across as an unintelligent pedant right now.
Not really. Letters are generally of a known size so a house-side box is used to receive letters. It's a letterbox. Then mailboxes, which you may note are generally much larger than house-sixe boxes, are intended for more than letters, and are sized as such. They care called mailboxes dur to them holding more than letters/envolopes.
Please explain? After doing some quick googling, it looks like my interpretation is pretty accurate. But again this could be due to localized results. I'm not going to pretend all English speakers use the same words for the same things.
You could drop the hostility though.
The two are used fairly interchangeably, in my experience. Usually someone uses one or the other depending on where they're from.
What's your point? We know there's different infrastructure and protocol for delivery in different areas, which was established in the original comment.
Do you have a residence in every single place on Earth? No? I can tell you that I've never lived in a neighborhood with (outdoor) mailboxes with locks. Does that add anything to the conversation?
Brazilian here. Had a package get home when no one was there. Delivery girl called me and asked if she could leave it with a neighbor and which one. Told her the one to leave it with and that was it. Leaving it on the street is insane
I have an unlocked box outside on the street where letters go. That's where the postman leaves them. Tampering or stealing the mail = 30 years in prison.
nah I prefer them to leave. before covid the post here was notorious for not knocking, and dropping a card meaning you had to go to a post office and collect it in person, but only during business hours, you had to line up behind all the old people who paid bills at the post office, finally get your chance and if you are lucky they would find your parcel, but usually either way they would make out like you are being the biggest inconvenience in the world.
these days they drop and scan, sometimes knock, sometimes not, but it doesn't matter. havnt had a theft ever
Wow you're about to blow a gasket about something you apparently don't have to ever experience