I wonder if this is similar to when weev & Goatse Security "hacked" AT&T by discovering that their website for managing iPad accounts was so poorly designed that you could just change the account number in the website's URL to access other people's accounts.
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
411 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
58731 readers
4601 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
PSA. Send stuff to your local post office and then go pick it up.
Bring back chopping off hands for thieves.
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.
Don't worry, it's shit in places in the EU as well. One delivery guy just left my whole apartment complex's packages, for thousands of households, in front of one apartment.
Do they send an SMS/email to ask for feedback after that? If they do, you probably don't need hints to know what to do with it.
No, after trying to contact them for multiple days because they only left me the name of the neighbour I had it with - I don't know all 2000 of them by name - they were so gracious to give me a house number. This was a 2000 EUR laptop btw.
They also routinely pretend I'm not at home so they don't have to come up with the elevators, and I get to go on an adventure to get it from a delivery point in the city. Which is its own lovely thing, since the one nearest is a tobacco shop, and the employee there routinely pretends that the "machine is broken, come back in the afternoon" so they don't have to deal with finding my package among the others, and can dump it on the afternoon shift.
This is DHL in the NL btw.
TL;DR: if something not from Amazon is delivered by Amazon Spain, it's a PITA and the recipient has no control over delivery.
I recently had one delivery sub-contracted to Amazon Spain, it was a nightmare. I was not able to choose a different date (only the original delivery company could, but they didn't answer me at all), not able to choose a pick up point (for the same reason), not able to correct the address that was slightly messed up. They emailed me that the parcel is up for delivery in 10 days, and delivered it next day after the email, probably 1 and 10 are close enough.
It's a lucky thing they even called me, I was away for several more days and couldn't receive the parcel. The support said they will usually make three delivery attempts and then send back, but that they may do more or less attempts. Also they responded that I should give the seller some time to respond to my inquiry about moving delivery date, but they will continue to try to deliver and maybe fail and send back.
By the way, the original delivery company never replied at all, if I were unable to finally catch a delivery I would be out of luck. Also, the delivery window is 10 AM to 10 PM, no details, just wait and hope
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.
load more comments
(28 replies)
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.
Do you have AT&T?
Apparently, those assholes didn't stipulate signatures for the phones. I had one today and waited for the lady to answer her door. Stupid bastards.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
I ship quite a few things and I only use USPS and UPS. I also use pirate ship, which only has those two anyway, but I won't use FedEx for a number of reasons.
FedEx has straight up forged my signature before
Had a delivery dude in the process of doing so when i opened the door, yada yada yada dude seemed like a meth head and i could barely understand him. Said whatever signed then took my package while he ran back to the van like i was gonna call the cops on him.
FedEx is amazingly bad
I've gone to just having stuff delivered to a place for pick up. It's just so mush easier in the long run. As a bonus it forces to actually walk around my neighborhood.
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.
load more comments
(10 replies)
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.
Many areas in the u.s. are spread out pretty far. If the office isn't open when I get off of work then I can't pick it up. There's a lot of post offices, even small towns have one, so that's not such a big deal. Amazon, FedEx, and UPS offices are few and far between. I couldn't even tell you where I found pick up one of their packages in my area.
How do you get anything delivered if you have a job?
Here in Germany, DHL and Amazon have their own parcel drop off lockers where they put your parcels in and send you a code to retrieve it. You then have several days to get it. And these stations are plenty in every city.
This is a relatively new technology; we have this in the states as well. As the systems get cheaper, more intuitive, more well-understood, they're rolling out to more places. I've seen one in a very small town, and there's a number of them outside of middle-high class apartment complexes.
The first ones were built in 2001 here, they're quite established. Problem is now that they sometimes are so full so that your parcel cannon be delivered to the one that you specified. Especially before Christmas it's insane. Sometimes DHL will deliver to a Post office instead which is not near the place you wanted.
Oh. The ones I'm referring to are the modern Amazon lockers & such, reliant on modern technology. Courier goes up, enters auth code. It then asks you to scan a pkg. Then there's the prompt, is the pkg: SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE, X-LARGE? Upon selection, it pops open a corresponding door. One pkg per locker. Rinse & repeat until all pkgs delivered to lockers, and recipients are notified of delivery.
Once you get the hang of it, it's actually super slick & helpful for everyone.
Kind of related but not as high-tech or secure, some nice apartment complexes are being built with sizeable delivery rooms. Which works unless you've got a klepto in your complex.
They are all over Europe. I have three or four within walking distance. And they can hold some amazingly large items, too.
But it’s more convenient when they bring your stuff right to you! What could be more important than convenience?
But more seriously the only time I use the package lockers is when I drive over the border to Nevada to pick up something that will only ship to 49 states.
If it’s a phone I wouldn’t want it left on my porch. But literally anything else? Leave it there. I don’t want to go out of my way to pick up a USB cable that was ordered online.
But we don't all have houses large enough where navigating it constitutes a chore.
Do you not go to work?
With varying degrees of success, you can create accounts with the delivery companies & specify what you want done with your pkg. Deliver to any address you like, or hold at facility or an access point. This is your best option, to dig a little deeper, take some time & really take control of how you want your deliveries. As best you can. 🙂
With most US residential pkgs, it is left because it's easy & economical. A third to half of the time, it's cheap bullshit. Theft or loss is often not a big enough problem to warrant not delivering the first time.
Calling every person that doesnt receive their pkg in person is patently ridiculous. Full-time drivers have anywhere from 130 stops to 300+ stops. Let's say 2/3 don't accept the pkg in person (it's more than 2/3); that is 86-200+ phone calls or 86-200+ stops' worth of pkgs, per driver, to be recycled back through facility.
The first time most residential pkgs are attempted delivery, the shipping company makes like 5-10¢ on that pkg. Say it goes back to facility, to be delivered tomorrow, as you said. That very low value pkg, to be recycled back into the system & taking up space, to be processed & put on a truck for delivery the next day, to be delivered for basically no profit/breakeven. Awesome 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻. Let's say 2nd attempt is unsuccessful, and we can't just leave the package on the doorstep when the person isn't home because that's such an obviously stupid thing to do. Driver starts swearing, sticks another notice on the door, 5+ people handle the pkg again...you know the deal...and the 3rd day it is delivered at a loss or, if failed, is held at facility for customer pickup. The company has lost money, and on some cheap foreign-made t-shirts from Kohl's, no less.
In short: they're doing the best they can, every single day, by the numbers. 🙂 Looking at the big picture, it works pretty well! Except for Amazon, they suck, but everybody keeps giving them money so basically they can fail up forever until that changes.
Hope this sheds some light on how logistics work behind the scenes. Leave some snacks, drinks out for your delivery drivers! The real-life Santas!
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.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
view more: next ›