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Comment by phodo | Hacker News Reader

I've been a prime member for a while, and ordering from amazon is part of our regular routine for acquiring stuff. I've never had much of a problem, until recently. And UPS was entirely to blame. They (UPS) forgot the AC on the dock, and it ended up being delayed by a week. When it arrived, there were broken parts in the box. Amazon took responsibility and sent me a new one (with a $50 cash back due to inconvenience). I had them file a complaint w UPS. The replacement unit ended up being late as well... it was sent to the wrong address and signed by the recipient. UPS left the package at the wrong address! Amazon was very apologetic and told me they would escalate the complaint to their shipping logistics dept. I could tell they were super frustrated at the lack of control they had over UPS. So they sent me a _third_ AC unit. This one arrived, but there was water damage in the box. I, for one, am for Amazon owning the full experience and removing UPS from the chain.

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I'd have to agree with you.

I've had 2 bad experiences with Amazon orders, and USPS was to blame for both. They put the envelope/package in the wrong mailbox in the apartment complex I live in and marked it as delivered. I've received other people's mail in the past too...

Amazon's customer service has been exceptional, they send an overnight replacement with UPS and required a signature.

Recently, Amazon opened a pickup location near where I live, and I've been shipping more expensive items there. The pickup process takes less than 15 seconds. Literally, walk in, scan barcode, locker opens up, and I pickup my package.

Can't wait for Amazon to own the entire vertical and optimize the living shit out of it.

Yeah, last week USPS delivered $1800 of SSDs to my house. Great. Except they flagged it as "delivered, on front porch", two days prior, leading to much consternation, shoulder shrugging and the like while I attempted to find them.

Same has happened to me twice, although I'm pretty sure the mailman is scanning items as delivered in order to make a quota and then waiting until the next day to deliver them.

This. I'm pretty sure there is a huge problem with USPS workers fraudulently scanning items as delivered (to meet Amazon's SLA) and then actually delivering them a week later. I'm surprised Amazon hasn't done anything about it yet.

Hm, now I want my order email to include a (nonce) barcode that I print out and leave on my door, and the USPS worker has to scan that before they can claim anything was delivered.

In general, USPS does have the infrastructure to do this: Managed Service Points are barcodes placed on mailboxes that can be scanned by the carrier, to establish when he/she reaches certain checkpoints.

https://about.usps.com/strategic-planning/cs02/2f3.htm

It's a more modern version of the mechanical "watchclocks" installed in buildings to ensure that guards make their appointed rounds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_tour_patrol_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchclock

I have no idea how regularly USPS examines or audits their MSP data.

I know a couple of (rural-route) mail carriers personally.

Working for USPS is not a comfortable place to be. USPS kind of got taken over by Amazon traffic, and it's been an adjustment.

I don't think this is related to Amazon's SLA. I had this happen to me too, but the package was marked delivered 2 days before it's expected delivery date, and was actually delivered 1 day prior. So yes, strange it's happening, but might not be related to amazon's SLA.

This would be hard to pull off long term because the scanner also logs the current GPS position.

Source: I recently had a package stolen from the usps pipeline and was told this by their investigators.

I've had LaserShip report items as delivered multiple times, only to have them actually delivered a day later.

Definitely file a complain with amazon and provide the order number. They will lay down the hammer.

So this happens to me all the time. I'm pretty sure they deliver it to my neighbors, and two days later a neighbor puts it on my porch.

This happens to me seemingly every time I order from Amazon and USPS fulfills. Either that or the mailman gets lazy and marks it undeliverable even though they have keys to my building and the mailboxes are inside. I cannot wait for Amazon to put USPS out of business.

> I cannot wait for Amazon to put USPS out of business.

Lack of competition would raise the likelihood of eventual declines in service. Better for Amazon to put pressure on UPS to do a better job of running their business than to eliminate them all together.

Perhaps it is USPS that should be exposed to competition [1]. If other carriers were permitted to ship to mailboxes, I have no doubt they would provide a better service. Note I am referring to the United States Postal Service (government run), not United Parcel Service.

[1] http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/

im surprised that in each of these cases, the same company is used to deliver the package?

why dont they send the first try with UPS, and the second with FedEx or someone else?

I don't know. That would make a lot of sense.

One time, I had a package coming via Amazon Logistics. It was marked as delivered but was not there. I asked for it to be sent via a different carrier but their customer service said they couldn't control that.

I guess nobody has built that feature yet. :(

This happens to me every time a USPS package is to be delivered on a Saturday or Sunday. My local post office has "temps" delivering on the weekends and they simply just don't come. They mark it "undeliverable as addressed" and then my normal mail carrier brings it on Monday.

Amazon says there is little they can do about it, except offer me a small credit on my account and file a complaint with their folks that handle the USPS relationship.

Have had that happen a lot with USPS. When I asked the mailman about it he said "Oh yeah I don't like carrying that scanner thing around so I just scan all the packages back at the post office and then we'll deliver them in the next day or two." Sigh.

Cause he knows it's got GPS in it and tracks his every movement. This way he can make a few "pit-stops" along his normal route and relax.

For me it's usually Amazon Logistics that causes problems like that. Just had a order last night that was marked delivered with no sign of it, so it depends on where you are. Usually I get better tracking and notification from some of the others too.

Hmmm this is a human problem at the end of the day. You don't get the wrong mail because of USPS policy.

When the mailperson that delivers your mail currently gets fired by USPS and gets hired by Amazon - do you think much will change in that regard??

Definitely. Amazon would fire them after about the second time. They have much better data and know exactly which one of their people makes a mistake.

When you give bad shipping feedback, if the same person gets bad feedback multiple times, they get retrained and then fired.

It comes down to a price.

These big shipping companies started out good, but with time things slid downhill. You don't start out with the goal of providing mediocre service.

The problem is if you want top employees, you have to pay top dollar. Amazon's shipping service company will probably start out good, but it may windup in a similar place once they start trying to "optimize" their shipping service.

They will cut cost, overwork existing employees, and try to extend the reach of their service. If they don't, you will be over-paying for "Amazon" services and many will look elsewhere when it comes down to paying an extra 5% or more for better service.

On the topic of feedback: You can provide feedback to shipping companies. I called FedEx and reported their driver for dropping 2 packages in a row (and damaging the contents). He came back 2 days later with the 3rd package, apologized, and read me back my report. You just have to be proactive and communicate with them.

Not unless there's some strong union action going on.

Exactly. I mean everyone has a horror story from UPS/USPS/FedEx, but for each of those, millions of packages get delivered every year without a single hitch. Amazon running their own service just adds another one to the list.

Personally, I stopped shopping on Amazon after I returned to the US. I realized they had become the new Wal-Mart, and I haven't shopped there since 2009.

If that person is paid a better wage, or given better hours, or less-unreasonable targets/deadlines, then the service might change.

Or just has these delivery issues treated more seriously. Amazon knows exactly which orders they reship and the complaint that the customer makes, they could directly track that metric against delivery drivers.

Very much so. Early on in our Prime experience about 2 years ago one of the delivery men, after dropping off the package, went back to the van, whipped it out and started peeing in the street. All while our neighbors kids were playing in the front yard. I thought twitter would be a good place to contact Amazon's support, and they didn't seem to care. That guy never delivered again, but no real response to my concerns was a bit creepy to say the least.

Otherwise packages come from all makes and models of cars over the last 6 months. Still pretty cool to get most things same day delivery cheaper than me driving to Fry's for a piece of hardware. I don't see how they make money though and compete in the long run after VC runs out.

We are still talking about Amazon here.

Yea, they're not know for their wages or working conditions, unless you're in IT ... or a robot.

USPS pays fairly well, I thought. Don't know much about working conditions though.

None of that will happen, what might happen is better technology, like having to take a photo of the delivery address that gets OCRed and compared before the package is confirmed as delivered.

More likely they will go from a union job with more security to being worried about their job all the time..

There are policy changes around labelling, IT, or whatever that I'm sure could reduce the error rate for this. Amazon has a direct incentive to, at least for Amazon packages, solve these problems. UPS has an incentive to ignore complaints.

I think Amazon will use the data. USPS operator probably fills in a paper form, it get stamps and then it get filled never to be used in any meaningful way again.

> The pickup process takes less than 15 seconds. Literally, walk in, scan barcode, locker opens up, and I pickup my package.

So they magically transport you there in a second as well?

I'm not going to defend UPS, but have you ever had a package delivered by Amazon? I wouldn't say they're an improvement. Items are delivered late at night, broken, and most of the time they don't even bother ringing my apartment when they deliver.

Anecdotes are anecdotes, sounds like your local UPS driver isn't very good at his job. I'm not sure Amazon can have much of an effect in this area. Delivery positions aren't glamorous high paying jobs that inspire people to care, and amazon doesn't have a reputation for inspiring employees either.

I had my wife's birthday present delivered two days after her birthday, and no one at Amazon Customer Service knew of a way to contact Amazon Local (the carrier). None of the two phone numbers Google returns work.

At least with FedEx and UPS you can talk to someone and sort things out. I recently dropped by the local FedEx warehouse to pick up a packet that was on its way to be returned because they'd miss me at home. Amazon Local? You can't even know what are their business hours.

A nearby friend has problems with fedex. Their driver that covers the neighbourhood seems hell bent on delivering things to the wrong addresses. At one point he even delivered a massive bulky item to her front door. It completely blocked the door and was far too large/heavy for her to move. This would have been great except it was a Friday evening, and was clearly marked for someone else several blocks away on a different street.

I've had a UPS driver just slap a "missed you" note on the door, rather than actually deliver the item. I did complain to UPS, but it seemed like complaints were rare, nor did they seem to have a standardised system to address them.

It seems like the incentives, feedback loops etc aren't really present for the final part of the delivery. And it seems like neither UPS nor Fedex care, or care enough. Amazon could do a lot better in collecting the feedback, and then potentially do something about it.

Yes, there's much disillusionment here about Amazon's capability in a field they're just getting into. Apparently they'll pay everyone extremely well, fire anyone who makes a mistake, and everything will work out perfectly.

On the flip side, I have had no problems with UPS, our local UPS delivery guy is nice and actually brings stuff around back to reduce theft chance.

The one package I've had delivered end to end by Amazon got stolen because they dropped it off without even bothering to ring our doorbell. (They replaced it for free though, so that's nice).

UPS is amazing where I am. Our local driver knows where to put my packages. When he is off, he has trained the other drivers to do the same.

USPS and Fed-EX are horrible in my area. They often mark packages as "undeliverable as addressed" and I have to call and complain.

I had an Amazon rep stick up for this behavior recently. The rep said "well maybe you aren't on a GPS or perhaps you haven't labeled your house clearly enough or maybe your address is different than what you think it actually is (given roads get re-named over time)"

Canadians also loathe UPS. Anybody who ships UPS or FedEx ground to Canada is going to get angry customers complaining about $50 CODs, often more than the shipment is worth... Or even refused packages sent back at the sender's expense.

It's one thing to say "customs is expensive" - it's another to dump a massive fee on the recipient without even warning the vendor thst this is possible.

>Canadians also loathe UPS

Are you our new spokesman?

My company orders through Amazon Prime almost daily, and we've never had an issue. And I'm certainly not in a metropolitan area.

>get angry customers complaining about $50 CODs

These people should learn about brokerage fees and do the leg work themselves if they don't want to pay those fees. You're obligated to do the paperwork when you import something. UPS will do it and charge you for it (albeit a bit expensively). If it's a problem, blame the seller.

>it's another to dump a massive fee on the recipient

Refuse the shipment.

I order from Amazon about once a month, possibly more. UPS is usually okay, but it really depends on the driver. One of the drivers is actually stellar, others are average, and I've had drivers who just put up the couldn't deliver sticker despite the fact that I was home all day and didn't get buzzed.

Purolator was terrible, but the last time was during the whole Canada Post upheaval and they were swamped. It was "Out for Delivery" for about 5 days.

Canada Post is much like UPS in that it depends on who is making the delivery. I've had some excellent ones, some average ones, and others who just put up the sticker without contacting me.

It entirely depends on the people. At my old place it was UPS that went out of their way to deliver things early, make sure it wouldn't get stolen, etc. FedEx was the opposite.

Now here in SF USPS is great, except on my carrier's off day. The sub doesn't give a shit, delivering to the wrong address, throwing packages in the bushes, or just leaving packages behind for my normal carrier to deliver a day late.

Eh. I live in San Francisco and USPS was so bad that I broke down and got a PO box a few years ago. I would regularly get people's magazines and whatnot from the same house number a few blocks away. Mail between my house and both of my next door neighbors' houses gets mixed up frequently enough that my landlady put a big sign on the house with instructions for the mail carrier.

You're gonna have problems with all carriers at some point. You're talking about a very labor intensive and time sensitive job. Someone's gonna get tired at the end of the day or need to meet unrealistic performance metrics. Shit happens.

What put USPS over the top for me though was the PO box. That affords me a semi-anonymous address and the ability to pick up packages at my convenience. If you get a box at the Lakeshore station they're even open on Sundays.

Same in the UK.

Only Amazon is reliably delivering(1) to my address. I have received parcel for somebody else, at a different flat number of a different building ( building have names here ) at a different street name and number, and different postcode ( postcode contains generally very few buildings, mine for example only contain my tiny block of 11 flats ).

I have 3 parcels that were lost in the last month. And I live in London, on a High Street, in a building that has existed since the 70's and is found precisely in literally every mapping application.

I can see why people paint Amazon as the evil empire bound on destroying everything it touches and I actually agree with it. But it is hard to ignore how incredibly reliable they are compared to basically everything else. I buy from Amazon even if they are more expensive, and often I don't buy stuff when they are not available there. The "Dispatched from and sold by Amazon." is worth paying for.

(1) Within the parcel shipping companies. I must say that Royal Mail is doing great at my address.

For me in London, DPD are the only reliable one. Royal Mail and Amazon both do terribly.

Everyone has their own experiences; I think the only thing that would work for everyone is choice of carrier on checkout.

In three different locations in London I've had problems with three different carriers. At my current address Amazon Logistics is by far the worst.

DPD is the only one I've found entirely reliable across those three locations (two offices and my home; one of the offices some of the carriers insisted didn't exist, while DPD had no problems delivering to it), but from what I see they too get plenty of complaints in other locations.

It seems to vary hugely depending on which depots and drivers delivers to your address.

Sorry for the "me too" post, but my experience is a mirror of yours in that I am a longtime Amazon Prime member who orders quite a lot from the site and have been really happy until about the past year where I've noticed a huge uptick in failures for packages to arrive when expected.

In every case it was one of the carriers who failed, not Amazon. USPS has been the absolute worst for me, followed by UPS, but all three of them (including FedEx) have had a noticeable increase in strange events like claiming to have attempted to deliver a package when I was home the entire time and am 100% positive nobody attempted to deliver anything. Who the best/worst is for anyone in particular probably varies based on the local staff of whatever carrier, but it seems like all of them have slipped quite a bit.

It varies greatly by location, from what I hear. Where I live (London suburb) Amazon Logistics is the delivery company I have the most problems with. Last office I worked at it was another company that caused all the problems.

They (UPS) forgot the AC on the dock

In this case does AC stand for air conditioner?

In my experience, usually on big shipments like air conditioners, FedEx and UPS prefer for you to pick it up at their warehouse. So if they made a mistake there, my guess is its a relatively recent policy change.

I spoke to my mailwoman the other day, and she told me USPS will be delivering the majority of the amazon prime packages. And what that told me is that the other companies are trying whatever they can to get that amazon order, even potentially guaranteeing delivery of 'AC's, when thats not something they would normally do.

Yes, air conditioner. I was not aware of picking up at warehouse policy.

Same here, I have bad experiences with UPS all the time. I have caught them twice manipulating the system and lying to Amazon (they said they attempted delivery although they didn't).

For me UPS has been the weakest link in the otherwise marvelous Prime program.

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