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Comment by logicallee | Hacker News Reader

I was just reading here on HN how Amazon recently quietly replicated and replaced UPS and FedEx with their own fleet. These companies are $82.92 billion and $65.45 billion companies respectively so I was pretty impressed.

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I think you'd be a lot less impressed if you'd received any packages through their fulfillment services. Literally every single driver I've had has lied about attempting a delivery, usually multiple times, then flat out lied and said the package was delivered. The package will then show up 2-3 days later, defeating the purpose of paying for prime or faster shipping.

Customer support for these issues is kafkaesque.

"Hi I have not received my package which says it was delivered at a time when I was home"

"Let me check the tracking, sir it shows that you have received the package"

"I have not, no delivery was attempted"

"Yes you are right you will receive your package shortly"

I now get photos of my package when it was delivered.

I gave up and moved entirely to using the lockers when I order from amazon now. Curiously they still managed to lose a package between the last distribution center and their locker.

But larger scale it made me doubt if their model of Uber style contract workers doing just in time delivery with incredibly tight deadlines can ever work. For the speed they promise at their scale I don't see how they'll get around hiring more workers, giving more reasonable workloads, and providing incentives to actual get the job done right instead of lying to try and meet their numbers.

I had a package shipped to a locker. Delivery date comes and I get a notification that the driver couldn't complete the delivery because the location was inaccessible. Perhaps I "locked out the mailbox" the email says. I call them up to ask how I supposedly locked them out of their own locker, which is in the middle of a public mall. They assure me the driver will "try again" tomorrow. The status goes back to in-progress, then "location inaccessible" again, and finally "package damaged" a couple hours after. I don't know whether it was always damaged, or it got damaged in the process of not delivering it, but neither is a good look. Amazon automatically refunds me, presumably so I stop messing with the delivery time average. How its possible to screw up what's essentially an internal shipment so bad I don't know.

I went to buy it from the manufacturer's website instead. Ships without trouble right to my apartment, and I don't have to worry if I'm buying damaged goods, a knock-off, or some garbage. Someone is doing some terrible Pinto-style calculations, shaving pennies here and there while losing pounds building a delivery network that gets 'most' packages 'somewhere', 'most' of the time.

A local Amazon delivery driver was just found to have been taking the photos then swiping the package. The only reason he was caught was someones Ring doorbell. If anything the package photos are to help Amazon refute claims.

I don't know the pay structure for Amazon drivers, but I would not be surprised that we are giving up "trustworthy" drivers for the cheapest option Amazon can provide at scale. I've heard working at UPS as a driver is a great job long-term for some people perhaps leading to more integrity, but I'm just speculating. Maybe I'm wrong but I trust UPS or FedEx with my packages more than Amazon or their flex drivers.

Right. UPS drivers are union (Teamsters), Fedex are not.

I agree.

I have frequently had packages marked as delivered that were not delivered. When I contacted Amazon they would say if it does not show up in a day or two contact us again and they would also give me a $5 gift card. The package would always show up just like they said. It's pretty obvious that the drivers are lying about the delivery (due to aggressive quotas, I assume) and it's obvious that Amazon is aware of the problem because they have a pat answer when you contact them.

I have also had many packages marked as undeliverable for any number of completely made up reason. Reasons such as: no access code (not a gated community, no access code required), nobody in the office to receive the package (it's a condo, not apartments, there is no office), no safe place to leave the package (there is a six foot privacy fence around the front porch), could not find the address (receive multiple packages a week without issue), etc. These packages would always show up the next day proving these were completely fabricated excuses.

You got that right. I can’t even get them to deliver reliably to my mailbox at a UPS store. It’s like they just can’t figure out that it’s a business with business hours or something, even though I have it in the delivery instructions for that address. Either that, or they’re just straight lying like you said, but I’ve had enough repeated problems that I just suspect incompetence.

I once went so far as to try and get Amazon to blacklist my address for their contracted delivery drivers, but, of course, they wouldn’t do it.

It's ironic that we've found ourselves facing the same problem we criticized the Soviets for when they constantly fudged their metrics in order to meet their quotas.

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