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Comment by Schlagbohrer | Hacker News Reader

Amazon has implemented a password system for RAM delivery. You're supposed to give a password to the deliverer before taking delivery of the RAM, and you're not supposed to send the password over the phone at all (although the Amazon delivery guy still called me and asked for it over the phone).

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Depending on your location this will happen for any item with a certain value and presumably risk score. It's not a unique decision they made for RAM. Probably happened to your order because the value was high enough and your location, not because it was RAM specifically

This is normal for every item above ~100EUR delivered by Amazon here in Austria. Never had it happen that they asked for the code without showing me the package in-person first though.

I've already been burned via amazon a few times recently.

Most recent one I bought a multi-tb hard disk, but got an old multi-gb disk shoehorned into legitimate box. Couldn't just get a replacement - had to buy one for more money since that drive's price had increased.

This is quite common for all high value deliveries across all platforms in India.

can u provide some context? what is this trying to solve and how does it solve it? very curious.

Its a way to make sure the delivery takes place. A code is sent to recipient and recipient only gives it to the delivery person once item is handed over. Delivery person cant mark item as 'done' without the code. I've seen Uber Eats do the same thing sometimes.

What’s wrong with a signature?

It's to prevent theft by the delivery person or by the wrong recipient

Signatures are terrible, and especially it's hard to automatically confirm they're correct even if you have a sample on file.

Signatures are completely pointless. Literally draw squiggles as anyone else can. Nobody ever checks or compares them to the original, how can they?

My signature on a touchpad is noticeably different from my paper signature. It’s been a real challenge for me recently as I’ve had to sign a number of paper documents while the “official” signature on file for me is an electronic one from a touch interface. A few times I have had to resubmit fresh copies when the first ones were rejected.

You could also claim it wasn't your signature and be refunded, but you can't claim that if the delivery person obtained the password only you had.

Sometimes I wonder if true reason behind them is not any sort of verification but to maybe increase potential punishment if caught... So effectively nothing...

Increasing potential punishment if caught - or making it more likely that you will get caught - dissuades thefts.

Wow that's actually a really good idea to prevent delivery theft by the delivery person!

They did the same for a Samsung Fold phone delivered to me last month (in the US).

This is a shame, because now I cannot order from Amazon as orders go to building reception and nobody is going to remember the pin to take delivery.

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