Amazon attempted delivery theft

Amazon attempted delivery theft

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Discussion

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

56 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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It does seem suspicious though, that after 20 years of buying relatively inexpensive stuff that arrives without issue that something fairly expensive and probably quite easy to resell immediately goes west as soon as it leaves the Amazon depot.

I do hope it wasn't lifted, because I am already annoyed by the sheer dishonesty of claiming to deliver something when they clearly hadn't. Yes hopefully our money will get refunded and we'll know not to use Amazon in future when buying things like this. We could have bought via someone reputable and not had our time wasted.

Charlie1986

2,019 posts

137 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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Op what has Amazon said? Have they accepted they tried to deliver but couldn’t or had it stated that it had been delivered and now it’s missing?

As stated I’ll happy check your parcel for a break down of what happened. Or do you just want to have a groan at Amazon?

number2

4,357 posts

189 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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Charlie1986 said:
Op what has Amazon said? Have they accepted they tried to deliver but couldn’t or had it stated that it had been delivered and now it’s missing?

As stated I’ll happy check your parcel for a break down of what happened. Or do you just want to have a groan at Amazon?
Give Charlie the code.

NewNameNeeded

2,560 posts

227 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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Used Amazon for years at multiple addresses and for both costly and inexpensive items, and rarely had an issue. I've also found their customer service to be excellent on the occasion I have had a problem.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

56 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
quotequote all
Charlie1986 said:
Op what has Amazon said? Have they accepted they tried to deliver but couldn’t or had it stated that it had been delivered and now it’s missing?

As stated I’ll happy check your parcel for a break down of what happened. Or do you just want to have a groan at Amazon?
I did look for the code but it was paid for on my wife's account so I'll have to get her to log in and find out what it was. We've told them we're fed up of being messed about and requested a refund which they've apparently accepted. We've already spent two days being in all day to make sure we didn't miss them all to no avail. I suspect the package is currently in Worcester based on when we last checked the tracking system.

I'm not really having a moan at Amazon just the lazy dishonest sods they use to deliver their stuff.

The Moose

22,918 posts

211 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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Freakuk said:
I worked for one of the UK largest delivery companies a few years ago helping to unplug them from their ageing parcel tracking system and onto a new one, every parcel is scanned at every leg of the journey. When the driver collected that from the depot that morning he will have scanned that parcel "in" and onto his route.

His HHT (hand held terminal) will convey this information to the backend systems, where it will retrieve the delivery information, Likewise depending upon the system and the driver it will calculate the entire route and optimise this based upon mileage and delivery paid for i.e. morning delivery. The delivery driver will then usually number his parcels 1 through to whatever to help him find the next parcel to deliver on his route.

If they get delivered they scan the barcode and now usually take a photo to support this delivery, if you have selected a safe place etc they will photograph this (noting that they are off the hook if it gets nicked), a failed/attempted delivery to me suggests they couldn't find you given you a rural, probably a new driver and not knowing the area.

It is pretty hard to steal a parcel these days, unless it's be taken off the floor in the distribution centre before being scanned for delivery.
Is every parcel scanned at every stage or are they processed in batches?

Charlie1986

2,019 posts

137 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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The Moose said:
Is every parcel scanned at every stage or are they processed in batches?
Parcels will be scanned 6 times from arriving at station to being delivered. Every process is scanned. To give you an idea off how good the system is - 170,000 delivered In Wk40 in my region with 6k returned to Station ( 16 stations in the region) overall 396 parcels missing presumed lost at 978 damaged then delivered.

The system we have in place are excellent down to when they scan the parcel it will light up the bag in isle etc

random_username

143 posts

102 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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Charlie1986 said:
The system we have in place are excellent down to when they scan the parcel it will light up the bag in isle etc
On a related topic, assuming you work for Amazon Logistics - is it possible to update the address to location mappings somehow?

One of our neighbours has a similar house name, but is down a private drive. The Amazon delivery system dumps them right outside our house, and they ring our doorbell without looking at the house name. They get the hump when we point out it's the wrong address and point to the computer telling them they are in the right place...

I've had a look at the Amazon website but can't see any way to get it updated!

CoolHands

18,855 posts

197 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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To be honest the op just sounds like a posh person who should have gone to John Lewis

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

56 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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It’s worth pointing out that my issue is with the practice of using crap courier services who don’t deliver not and not with Amazon per se. I suppose the issue is that free delivery requires low cost couriers.

I will see if I can get the tracking number tomorrow so we can see what happened.

Simpo Two

85,883 posts

267 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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Newarch said:
Again, why pretend that you've attempted delivery then?
Because it looks better than 'I couldn't find the address'.

It was my thought too. Middle of the country, no house numbers, long driveways, Stefan from Estonia doesn't have the postie's local knowledge.

Sheepshanks

33,154 posts

121 months

Tuesday 12th October 2021
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Charlie1986 said:
Parcels will be scanned 6 times from arriving at station to being delivered. Every process is scanned. To give you an idea off how good the system is - 170,000 delivered In Wk40 in my region with 6k returned to Station ( 16 stations in the region) overall 396 parcels missing presumed lost at 978 damaged then delivered.

The system we have in place are excellent down to when they scan the parcel it will light up the bag in isle etc
If it’s that great how did 396 parcels get lost? Maybe the OPs is amongst them.

MustangGT

11,701 posts

282 months

Wednesday 13th October 2021
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Newarch said:
What's with this claiming they attempted to deliver something they clearly didn't though, I simply don't understand that. Years ago you might get a delivery delayed because the driver didn't get around their route in time, but lying about having done it twice seems really suspicious to me.

I was surprised Amazon seemed so disinterested too, obviously they're too big to really worry about customer satisfaction but they used to be pretty trustworthy.
Quite simple really, our rural address is very similar to another house a few miles away, the only difference is the last two digits of the postcode. We have multiple occasions where delivery has been attempted at the other house, and vice versa.

Sheepshanks

33,154 posts

121 months

Wednesday 13th October 2021
quotequote all
It's odd how some people seem to have all sorts of difficulties when for most it just works.

Our address is easily mixed up with two other local addresses. But we get a ton of stuff delivered so I guess all the couriers have got used to it. Royal Mail probably messes up the most, when our usual postman is off.

anonymous-user

Original Poster:

56 months

Wednesday 13th October 2021
quotequote all
MustangGT said:
our rural address is very similar to another house a few miles away, the only difference is the last two digits of the postcode. We have multiple occasions where delivery has been attempted at the other house, and vice versa.
We actually get this from time to time too, there are two houses in neighbouring villages with the same name and a vaguely similar postcode. But there are only four houses in my actual postcode and there should be no ambiguity about which house is ours (I work in a job where I frequently visit small properties in the middle of nowhere so I have extensive experience of this) and any sat nav would take you right to my house (a lot of houses are some distance from their stated location on sat nav).

I might go old school when I buy a replacement Nintendo Switch and physically collect it from the shop, at least it can't then disappear or end up sitting in someone's van whilst they pretend to deliver things.

Freakuk

3,210 posts

153 months

Wednesday 13th October 2021
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The Moose said:
Freakuk said:
I worked for one of the UK largest delivery companies a few years ago helping to unplug them from their ageing parcel tracking system and onto a new one, every parcel is scanned at every leg of the journey. When the driver collected that from the depot that morning he will have scanned that parcel "in" and onto his route.

His HHT (hand held terminal) will convey this information to the backend systems, where it will retrieve the delivery information, Likewise depending upon the system and the driver it will calculate the entire route and optimise this based upon mileage and delivery paid for i.e. morning delivery. The delivery driver will then usually number his parcels 1 through to whatever to help him find the next parcel to deliver on his route.

If they get delivered they scan the barcode and now usually take a photo to support this delivery, if you have selected a safe place etc they will photograph this (noting that they are off the hook if it gets nicked), a failed/attempted delivery to me suggests they couldn't find you given you a rural, probably a new driver and not knowing the area.

It is pretty hard to steal a parcel these days, unless it's be taken off the floor in the distribution centre before being scanned for delivery.
Is every parcel scanned at every stage or are they processed in batches?
Think of the route a parcel takes..... Let's say you bought something on-line from Next for example.

Next would box the item, start the postage process with the delivery company, delivery note raised in the system - barcode/label generated
Next put this info on the package within their distribution centre.
Delivery company now have a collection on their system from Next distribution centre
Delivery company collect parcel - scan barcode
Delivery company take parcel to local warehouse - scan off wagon and then onto conveyor belt
Parcel gets scanned on conveyor belt and sent to the appropriate line
At the hopper parcel will get scanned again as accepted into the main sealed cargo container
Sealed box is then moved and loaded onto main wagon, sealed box/container is scanned - all barcodes within that container then get scanned on
Loaded wagon drives to main distribution hub and unloads sealed containers - scanned in at hub
Container opened and all parcels loaded onto main conveyor belt system
Scans on conveyor belt determine which distribution centre they need to go to and go down the relevant shute into another hopper.
Hopper/bag is sealed and scanned - all parcels for that destination scanned onto that wagon
Wagon goes to depot and unloads onto conveyor and scanned again then shipped to relevant postcode/area hopper.
Local driver collects from hopper and scans onto his route

The above is a minimum of what I was involved in, there are a number of other variables, oversized/overweight packages that won't navigate around the conveyor belt system, could also be perishable goods - food/flowers etc, could be alcohol, and could also be tagged as high value, these scenarios would have different outcomes within the main distribution hubs - i.e. there would be secure/special areas for these items.

Obviously these systems aren't full proof, you can have damaged labels, parcels do occasionally fall off the conveyor, the barcode maybe face down on the conveyor so the overhead scanners don't scan to name a few. Most thefts etc will occur in the hubs/local distribution centres, I doubt any really go missing on the road these days certainly not stolen by the drivers. Saying that I had to visit one of the main distribution hubs several times in the middle of the night to oversee the upgrade of the software and subsequent system checks - I had to have my laptop bag searched on entering and leaving, and go through a metal detector like you would at an airport in and out.

Saying that you cannot account for stupid though, it's not a high paid job at the end of the day, long hours and they usually get paid for successfully delivering a parcel, so it's within their interest to deliver them. What you will find is at this time of year most logistics companies will be looking to hire seasonal workers as we are heading into the busiest time of the year and the 6 weeks leading up to and over the Xmas/NY period will see an uplift of around 50% in workforce, so there will always be some risk in the deliveries with the unknown drivers being employed I guess.


Edited by Freakuk on Wednesday 13th October 10:28

Charlie1986

2,019 posts

137 months

Wednesday 13th October 2021
quotequote all
Sheepshanks said:
If it’s that great how did 396 parcels get lost? Maybe the OPs is amongst them.
It may well but also “lost doesn’t just include missing presumed stolen. This can be lost in transit - damaged returned to fc.

It’s a term for Volume lost to the site.

Overall in Wk40 in the region there was 3 confirmed stolen parcels. So maybe the OP’s is there. But I can’t check it without a parcel number to settle his mind

StevieBee

13,020 posts

257 months

Wednesday 13th October 2021
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Newarch said:
Again, why pretend that you've attempted delivery then?
As someone mentioned, if a driver tried to find you and couldn't then this would mark as an attempted delivery. It may of course be that the driver couldn't be arsed to try too hard but either way, an attempt was made even if they didn't reach your house.

Apart from the annoyance, you shouldn't worry because you have documented evidence that it wasn't delivered. They haven't sent you a message to confirm it was delivered so they are confirming they still have it. So you'll either get it eventually or they'll refund you.

I buy plenty of high-value tech on Amazon and trust their security and system more than I would many independent retailers.

Charlie1986

2,019 posts

137 months

Wednesday 13th October 2021
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
My thoughts exactly it would take me seconds to track every step of the parcel down to what driver and what route number it was on with time and geo codes..

Big nasty company amazon and there service providers are at times but the locally produced burger and chips today completely free was amazing 🤩

David Beer

3,982 posts

269 months

Wednesday 13th October 2021
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Charlie1986 said:
My thoughts exactly it would take me seconds to track every step of the parcel down to what driver and what route number it was on with time and geo codes..

Big nasty company amazon and there service providers are at times but the locally produced burger and chips today completely free was amazing ??
My problem was quite the opposite, 2k camera collected by Amazon and it disappeared ! Proof of collection, camera footage etc . Still my problem apparently, Amex whom I paid with are on the case.