Question Of The Day, Friday, October 5

[Winchester]

Good morning! And Happy Friday! Another long week finished.

For all who do online shopping, where do you have your packages sent? Do you worry about theft? Have you ever had a package stolen?

When Rick's parents were still living in their house, we had everything shipped to them. They'd call me and tell me they had a delivery and I'd pick it up on my way home from work. I remember I had two Dell desktop computers delivered to their address (not at the same time). My FIL was worried that they were out on the front porch and I think he sat by the front window the entire day til I could get there to pick them up. The packages were too heavy for him to lift to bring into the house, but he was afraid that somebody would steal them. My MIL used to love to get the packages; she said it was almost like Christmas.

Now, I have everything delivered to work. It comes in, the person in the foyer gives me a call and I go out and pick it up. Whether it's Amazon, Chewy, Keurig, JCP, King Arthur, whatever, it comes to work. It's interesting around the holidays because the foyer person gets a kick out of whatever I've ordered and she likes seeing where things come from (she's a little nosy that way). I even had my Empress tree delivered to work; that got her attention! I'm not the only one who does it; my co-worker orders a lot from Amazon and eBay, too. Others do as well.

When I retire, I'll start having my orders just come to the house because I should be home more often and don't have to think about theft. As far as I know, nobody in my neighborhood has ever had anything taken *knock on wood*.

How about you? How do you have your packages delivered?

 

[Katie M]

If they're small, they go to my mailbox, which can only be opened with a key. The bigger ones go outside my door. I haven't had anything go missing yet

 

[LTS3]

Packages are sent to my home address. Small packages are either put into my mailbox or in the larger mailbox and the key for that put into my mailbox. Large packages just get put against the wall opposite the mailboxes.

I do worry about theft. Delivery people just drop packages off in the unsecured entryway. There are instructions posted there above the intercom for delivery people but those get ignored. Anyone can just walk in off the street and grab packages Sometimes packages are stolen right from the lobby area either by other residents (I suspect by renters who couldn't care less about the community they live in) or people who follow a resident in. Our regular USPS person will bring packages into the lobby if there are any.
The issue has been addressed by management several times.

I haven't had a package stolen yet Sometimes Amazon annoyingly marks a package as delivered but they really deliver it the next day
There is an Amazon Store that I can have those packages delivered to if needed. For really important or expensive stuff, I can have packages delivered to my parent's house.

 

[cassiopea]

Home Address - I live rural, so far no problems with theft! *Knock on wood*

 

[jcat]

We have everything sent to our home address. Our garage is detached, so we can leave the door unlocked when we're expecting packages. The 3 main carriers here have formal (i.e., written) permission to sign for any packages and put them in the garage when we're not home. I get an automatic email from the carrier whenever there's a package in there, usually within minutes.

 

[Columbine]

Home address here as well. There's generally someone home, and it's a pretty honest neighbourhood too (touch wood). It helps that we're set back off the street, too, and we have a ton of bushes and evergreens near the door - perfect camouflage

 

[verna davies]

Home delivered. If I'm not in they get left with a neighbour. We all take in one another's parcels so there's never a problem.

 

[kashmir64]

They go to the PO box. I tried to have UPS deliver a package to my door once, but they insisted that my address doesn't exist.

 

[neely]

Yes, we once had an important package stolen from our house. We found out someone followed the UPS truck and was stealing them. Since I could not get packages delivered at work the way we resolved this was to have UPS only deliver packages with a signature.

 

[Willowy]

They go to the PO box. I tried to have UPS deliver a package to my door once, but they insisted that my address doesn't exist.

That's a problem in the town I work in too. The other delivery services use USPS data for deliveries, and if USPS delivers only to a PO Box, that really complicates things. You'd think they'd develop their own address database, but noooo. . .

I live out in the country so I have home delivery. I live on the highway, and I can't decide if that increases the chance of theft (everybody driving by can see the package on my porch) or decreases the chance of theft (because everybody driving by can see them stealing it) but I've never had anything stolen. Most people probably don't need 6 cases of cat food anyway .

Once the FedEx guy couldn't figure out where to put my parcel (there's an old rundown house on my property too) so he left it in the yard by the mailbox, but after that he got the idea .

 

[maggiedemi]

I have packages sent here to the house. If they are too big to go in the mailbox, they set them inside the door of the breezeway. No, we don't have any theft out here.

When I lived in an apartment, they just brought my packages to my work if I wasn't home or gave them to my neighbor to hold for me.

 

[sivyaleah]

Most come to our doorstep, although we have had problems now and then with the people doing the deliveries. Leaving them out in the open for anyone to see is the worst of it. we have a HUGE DEEP porch so there's no excuse other than shear laziness on their part to walk up the stairs completely and tuck it aside.

Really expensive items that are on the smaller side (like my camera) were delivered to my office to assure it's safety.

No stolen packages yet, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. We did experience a "lost" Chewy delivery. Called them, and it was replaced asap (Chewy has the BEST customer service). 2 weeks later, we found the box outside a side door that is boarded up! That side of the house is clearly NOT the front of the house so I have no idea what the person was thinking leaving it there. Since is was under an overhang, it wasn't damaged and we let Chewy know - they told us to donate to a local rescue if not interested in keeping it - which we did.

 

[betsygee]

We have them delivered to our house. Our house is up a pretty steep driveway, not right on the street so you wouldn't know there was a package on the porch unless you walked all the way up our driveway. I don't generally worry about theft.

But we did have an Amazon package stolen out of our mailbox a couple of months ago. It turns out there was a rash of thefts in our neighborhood until someone caught the thieves on a home security camera and the police were able to catch them.

I'm on nextdoor.com and all the neighbors are great about posting if there are suspicious people around or reporting break-ins, so we have a good online 'neighborhood watch' sort of thing going on.

 

[kashmir64]

That's a problem in the town I work in too. The other delivery services use USPS data for deliveries, and if USPS delivers only to a PO Box, that really complicates things. You'd think they'd develop their own address database, but noooo. . .

I was wondering why they said that. This must be the problem. The post office doesn't deliver out here so they don't have the address in the database.

 

[bodester413]

I order cat food from Chewy and have it sent to the house. They put the box under the mailbox. I don't worry too much about it being stolen. The neighbors around here are all cool about watching out for each other....letting each other know if they see anything shady happening in the neighborhood.

 

[aliceneko]

I've never had any experiences with theft or really worry about it, though I mostly get my packages sent to the local newsagents or supermarket. Like bodester413 , my neighbours are reliable at letting each other know about anything happening so I haven't worried much at all.

 

[Beans<3r]

All my packages go to work! It works out wonderfully =)

 

[muffy]

I don't order many things by mail but when I do I have it delivered at home. I never had a problem with someone taking anything. I have had mail taken from my mailbox.

 

[denice]

I have them delivered to my home. I haven't had any issues. If they give me an option for plain box then I take that option. It seems like most things that don't give that option do come in a plain box. They occasionally put someone else's delivery at my door and I take it to the right place. Either that hasn't happened to any of my deliveries or someone has already brought them to the right place before I get home.

 

[MonaLyssa33]

I have them sent to my apartment and the mail carrier leaves them in the "lobby." I live in a small building (12 units), so nobody steals anything (at least they haven't yet). When I lived with my parents I had things sent to the house and nothing got stolen either. We lived on 38th Avenue and the next street over was 38th Place, and we got stuff delivered to the wrong house all the time. The neighbor would always bring it over when it happened.