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I hope they can do a better job than Amazon but I'm not confident. I'm currently gaming their system of one day delivery failure credits because they can't seem

I hope they can do a better job than Amazon but I'm not confident. I'm currently gaming their system of one day delivery failure credits because they can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact hat USPS won't deliver to my door and the packages are too large. USPS gets a box, it won't fit, they take it back to the post office and tell me I can pick it up the next day. I contact amazon, tell them it's late because the package is too large and they picked the wrong carrier and they give me a $5 credit. I tell USPS I'm not circumnavigating a lake to pick up the package and they can send it back. I border again and go through the same thing. I've told Amazon that they can't ship large items to me via USPS but they can't seem to figure out how to handle it. I even asked them to not use USPS (they're unreliable anyway) but they're stick in a loop. I'm openly and publicly doing this and they don't care. It's stupid. Thankfully it's a low priority item and I don't actually need it. Some day it will show up... maybe. Walmart, if you can figure out that problem, you'll have my money.

seattle_spring 7y ago
That effort does not at all sound worth a $5 Amazon gift card
- igetspam 7y ago
  There's almost no effort. It takes less than five minutes each time, to both order and request a credit. I've wasted a lot more time than that on trying to get them to remove USPS as a shipping option. At this point, it's just a game for me.
  - codemac 7y ago
    A dollar a minute == $60/hr Or around 120k/yr @ 40hr/wk over 50 weeks, pre-tax.
    - axaxs 7y ago
      I'm not sure you'd report that as taxable income, so it would probably be closer to 'post-tax'.
    - igetspam 7y ago
      So you're saying this a pretty good investment of my time, right? On top of my salary, I can effectively make an additional $120k/yr? You know the opportunity cost argument you're making is false, don't you? You're arguing that I'm risking doing something else while doing this and there's a cost associated with that risk. In reality, I risk nothing because I'm a salaried employee whose time isn't 100% filled with must-do tasks. If that were true, the time you spent replying would be actually be worth even less than the time I spend getting Amazon credits because it has no return on investment. Or are you saying I should make this my full time job?
      - superhuzza 7y ago
        It's a different poster, he's agreeing with you by calculating that those 5 minutes are quite lucrative.
        igetspam 7y ago
        Whoops. Misread. Thanks for pointing that out. :)
- aiisjustanif 7y ago
  Or the gas wasted on each trip.
  - igetspam 7y ago
    That's covered by Amazon in the shipping cost they pay to move from their warehouse to the USPS sorting facility. USPS isn't making any additional trips to not deliver packages. They drive out to the mailbox cluster every day except Sunday (a day which Amazon also said they'd deliver a package via USPS...) and go no further.
    - ajross 7y ago
      You have a cite for that waste? That's not remotely correct. The marginal cost to ship one package across the world is literally pennies, that's why our junk is so cheap. The cost to drive to one store for one shopping trip is two orders of magnitude higher. Buy online and save the planet. I'm serious.
gambiting 7y ago
Unfortunately I'm convinced that the only thing this will achieve is getting your account suspended for suspicious activity(a lot of created and then cancelled orders).
- igetspam 7y ago
  Possibly but it's no big loss to me. For years I've been a customer more because of my spouse and my now toddler. As she's getting older, driving to the store (she hates cars) is less of a problem. Amazon, on the other hand, has grown increasingly worse in just about every aspect (quality of service, customer service, employee/contractor treatment, civic duties, etc).
  - adam12 7y ago
    You are probably on a list now: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/retailers-are-tracking-how-many-items-you-return-031418.html https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/retailers-are-tracking-...
    - igetspam 7y ago
      Probably one of many but to be clear, I'm not actually returning anything. The packages are _being returned_ as "undeliverable." Having never actually had possession of the item, I'm incapable of actually returning it. I've asked Amazon to ship it another way but they can't seem to figure it out. Since I do eventually want the item, I'm hoping it makes it some day.
CPLX 7y ago
I am in the same boat. I have called and begged and pleaded and escalated to get Amazon to stop using USPS but it just doesn't work. Here in Brooklyn if anything is unusually large they just punch in "attempted delivery" a couple days in a row and send it back. They don't even bother trying, I'm pretty sure it never even leaves the regional sort facility and gets on a truck. I'm not sure I blame them. Amazon once used USPS to send me half a dozen office chairs. I called Amazon as soon as I saw the shipping update and said there's zero chance whatsoever they will ever reach my door. Nothing they could do. I just ordered from another vendor the same day and waited the inevitable 2-3 weeks for the Amazon order to work its way through the system and back to Amazon without delivery ever attempted. It's one of a few things that perplex me about Amazon. Like why can't I just flag a shipping method as unusable. Why can't I search for stuff only sold by Amazon. Why can't you fucking stop selling fake chargers and headphones? But what do I know about running a multi billion dollar business right?
- igetspam 7y ago
  Technically you can flag a shipper. After recording delivery drivers stomping across my landscaping and literally throwing packages at my door, I got them to stop using that particular gig economy delivery service for my packages. Getting them to do feels like pulling teeth though. It seems you can't do it for a single incident but interestingly they'll gladly give you the number to the local shipping logistics company, so you can call and yell at them.
  - moftz 7y ago
    Was it lasership? I've had packages never delivered by them. I'm assuming the courier is just stealing them since the package will say "out for delivery" multiple times that day and then never show up. They don't respond to emails or calls so anytime a package is set to come through them, I know that I'm probably not going to get it. Nobody has questioned my reports that the packages aren't getting delivered most of the time. I guess the vendor already knows how much they suck but for some reason is ok with the spillage? Maybe the cost savings for using one of these gig economy delivery services is so cheap that its still worth it after having to replace customer orders that get stolen. Maybe it's like doing business with the mob, there's just a certain amount of money you're going to have to lose due to rampant theft but the money you save by getting around the normal business costs makes it worth it.
canada_dry 7y ago
I didn't renew my Amazon Prime after they pulled this "one-day" BS on me more than once: https://i.redd.it/p816orvkrr021.jpg https://i.redd.it/p816orvkrr021.jpg Hopefully Walmart will have better shipping logistics.
- pault 7y ago
  Yeah; I learned early on to always change the delivery from "1 day" to standard 2 day prime shipping. 1 day delivery always ends up with some joker trying to deliver a package at 9PM and marking it as "attempted delivery" without knocking or calling the number in my delivery notes. I've never had a problem with 2 day shipping, but 1 day always ends up being a nightmare.
- dmonagha 7y ago
  Not to point out the obvious but your example is an order placed on Cyber Monday...so the biggest online shopping day of the entire year...you might experience a slight delay that week.
  - canada_dry 7y ago
    I don't have a problem with delays... I have a problem with them being deliberately misleading about delivery times on their product pages. It happened several times where they used the term "same/one-day" delivery yet at checkout the delivery time was 2-3 days out. So... in other words... they knew damn well what the time frame was, but deliberately chose to use "bait-n-switch" like methods.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    Parent was not complaining about slow shipping. Parent was complaining about misadvertized shipping.
- pnutjam 7y ago
  Sam's has been offering free 2 day shipping to plus members for awhile. My order never fails to be marked delivered by Fedex on day 2. It doesn't actually arrive until day 5...
Shivetya 7y ago
Amazon has ten to twenty thousand new trucks for delivery and yet I am getting split deliveries from orders still. Example, ordered three items recently and UPS used one package in the morning and Amazon delivered the rest later. Wal Mart has improved but their use of Fed Ex has seen an order split as well between Fed Ex and Fed Ex Home all on the same day. I am just amazed Amazon ran the numbers and determined spinning up an entire last mile delivery process was cheaper than using the previous setup.
- moftz 7y ago
  It's all related to where the merch is sitting when you order. There is an online auto parts store called RockAuto that will let you know across the site which items are sitting in the same warehouse as other items in your cart. A lot of the stuff is standard auto parts so there will be like eight identical gas caps made by different vendors that are all priced within a few cents of each other. They all are located in different warehouses so I'll usually pick the parts I don't have as much choice over and then go back and pick the jellybean parts that happen to be in the same warehouse. They don't do free shipping so it really helps reduce shipping costs when you only have one box coming. It's also nice just getting all of your parts at once instead of having to wait for different ones to come in and not being able to work on anything until you get them all anyway. I'll play around with which identical parts I choose just to make sure I'm picking all the parts I need from the same, closest warehouse.
gtycomb 7y ago
Here in Nevada, my experience is that Walmart's online business and delivery is strongly superior. It has been a refreshing thing to see a massive global company turn around and do something very right.
- dfrage 7y ago
  I'm also in flyover country and have found the same to be true, aside from selection. But the products they do directly offer (it's easy to remove 3rd parties from your searches) come from their own supply chain which they really care about, the prices are almost always better than Amazon's, the shipping is fast, and free if you buy at least $35 per purchase, and they pack the boxes with a fair amount of care. The latter detail was the last straw for me and my Prime membership due to Amazon switching to pro forma padding by just throwing in a few air pillows. Between that and all the last mile delivery issues others are reporting, its clear Amazon is seriously pinching pennies in fulfillment without caring how much business and extra expense that costs them. Add in the counterfeit problem and it's hard to imagine how much damage the brand is suffering.
res0nat0r 7y ago
The only way likely for this to be resolved is for Amazon to 100% own the supply chain end to end, which means an Amazon owning last mile delivery company which it seems where most of these delivery issues like. I'm sure Amazon is looking how it can own this part of the chain (along with everything else), maybe someday soon...
- kiseleon 7y ago
  About 50% of my Amazon packages are delivered by Amazon at this point (Boise, ID area).
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    Yeah, I would say 90% of mine are (Los Angeles)
- xkcd-sucks 7y ago
  Owning the supply chain end to end and paying employees enough to maintain a quality of life which supports good customer service
- bluGill 7y ago
  Amazon doesn't need to own the last mile. They just need to ensure whoever does meets their standards. USPS has rules for what size packages they will deliver. Amazon either needs to get USPS to follow their rules and deliver that package, or they need to read the rules and ship via someone who can deliver. (I don't know the rules or package in question so I cannot say who is at fault). Of course Amazon might be too small a player in the eyes of USPS, but there are other choices for delivery if USPS doesn't meet their needs.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  They own it in a handful of cities: https://www.amazon.com/AmazonFresh https://www.amazon.com/AmazonFresh
  - StudentStuff 7y ago
a012 7y ago
I had really bad experiences with USPS recently, got multiple packages weren't delivered for unknown reasons and two were actually lost and their tracking were always like "Awaiting delivery scan".
steveeq1 7y ago
Is that an ethical thing to do?
- xfitm3 7y ago
  Why wouldn’t it be?
  - hnthrowaway5839 7y ago
    Knowingly placing orders you know will not get fulfilled to collect money... where have I seen this before... https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/seattle/press-releases/2012/brothers-who-defrauded-nordstrom-with-online-reward-scheme-plead-guilty-to-wire-fraud https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/seattle/press-releases/201...
  - steveeq1 7y ago
    He's "gaming" the system, he even said so himself.
- igetspam 7y ago
  That depends who you think is in the right. In return for money, a merchant guaranteed a specific delivery date. I paid my money, they failed to to deliver. I contacted them and told them they needed to pick a new shipper. I ordered again. Again I paid money and they guaranteed a delivery date. Again they failed to deliver. Again I contacted them saying they needed to pick a new shipper. Each time they fail to live up to their side of the agreement, they pay me a token amount in restitution. All they have to do is pick a shipper that will actually deliver (or cancel my subscription, which wouldn't pain me in any way) and the cycle will be over. Who's in the right?
  - steveeq1 7y ago
    Amazon, since you used the words "gamed the system".
    - fqw3b58w4n6 7y ago
criddell 7y ago
Have you tried calling the post office and asking them to deliver large packages to your door? Our carrier does this for us.
- igetspam 7y ago
  They called me while I was in a meeting and said I could drive 15 minutes out to them. They don't deliver to houses here.
ukyrgf 7y ago
You still get stuff through USPS? Everything I've ordered has been through AMZL, which means 100% of my orders are left at a neighbor's house, marked as delivered and then show up a few days later, or marked as lost after 5 days and refunded. The $5 credits they give me are only good on stuff sold by Amazon, which seems to be getting slimmer. I got three things last week figuring I'd get $20 off, and it was only after I checked out that I realized none of them were by Amazon.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  It completely depends on where you are. Bigger cities are more likely to use the AMZL system than smaller towns.
bsharitt 7y ago
Some how my wife got them to stop doing USPS on her account and she gets either UPS(which I rarely get from Amazon) or Amazon's own delivery. For a while she was getting quoted less next day and Sunday delivery dates since she was UPS only, but now that Amazon is doing a lot more deliveries in my area, she's about to about the same shipping days as me again(mine being split between USPS and Amazon).
tyopiuy 7y ago
Amazons own last mile has now consistently failed to deliver my sub $20 items several times in a row now. You can say the same for amazon.
- igetspam 7y ago
  I've had the same experience but their last mile deliveries at least have a chance to make it. USPS will _never_ deliver to my door.
throw20102010 7y ago
I suspect that the number of people that have to travel long distances (or across a lake) to get something from USPS are pretty rare, so Amazon's just eating the cost. Also, the number of people that actually call/IM customer support for a credit is probably fairly low- until everyone starts holding their feet to the fire Amazon will continue to eat the cost.
paulddraper 7y ago
So...you need a bigger mailbox?
- ghaff 7y ago
  Not an option for everyone obviously but it's actually not a bad idea. I got an "extra large" rural mailbox a few years back and it's been great. Not everything fits of course but most basic book and small to medium parcels do. It also means I don't need to get my mail held even if I'm out of town for 10 days or so. My postal carrier even thanked me for getting it at one point.
  - igetspam 7y ago
    Unfortunately it's a mailbox cluster at the entrance of a rural subdivision. The sizes are fixed and I believed they're property of USPS. An oversized package locker would be a great idea but it's not something I could do as a private citizen.
    - rovolo 7y ago
      I'm pretty sure residential mailboxes are owned by USPS. See section 632 at [1]: > Purchase, installation, and maintenance of mail receptacles are the responsibility of the customer. You should just ask your subdivision/postmaster about adding a bigger package mailbox. [1] https://about.usps.com/what-we-are-doing/current-initiatives/delivery-growth-management/residential-delivery.htm https://about.usps.com/what-we-are-doing/current-initiatives...
    - paulddraper 7y ago
      Well, it seems this here is the root of your problem. And given the amount of difficulty and delay it causes, would be worth serious investigation into a solution.
chaostheory 7y ago
This is probably one of the many reasons why Amazon has started shipping their own products with their own fleet.
reshie 7y ago
the funny thing is a lot of times they will us something like ups or fedex(even though those services will do it) and then locally let usps deliver to door. i have had issues with usps as well though.

seattle_spring 7y ago

That effort does not at all sound worth a $5 Amazon gift card

igetspam 7y ago
There's almost no effort. It takes less than five minutes each time, to both order and request a credit. I've wasted a lot more time than that on trying to get them to remove USPS as a shipping option. At this point, it's just a game for me.
- codemac 7y ago
  A dollar a minute == $60/hr Or around 120k/yr @ 40hr/wk over 50 weeks, pre-tax.
  - axaxs 7y ago
    I'm not sure you'd report that as taxable income, so it would probably be closer to 'post-tax'.
  - igetspam 7y ago
    So you're saying this a pretty good investment of my time, right? On top of my salary, I can effectively make an additional $120k/yr? You know the opportunity cost argument you're making is false, don't you? You're arguing that I'm risking doing something else while doing this and there's a cost associated with that risk. In reality, I risk nothing because I'm a salaried employee whose time isn't 100% filled with must-do tasks. If that were true, the time you spent replying would be actually be worth even less than the time I spend getting Amazon credits because it has no return on investment. Or are you saying I should make this my full time job?
    - superhuzza 7y ago
      It's a different poster, he's agreeing with you by calculating that those 5 minutes are quite lucrative.
      - igetspam 7y ago
        Whoops. Misread. Thanks for pointing that out. :)
aiisjustanif 7y ago
Or the gas wasted on each trip.
- igetspam 7y ago
  That's covered by Amazon in the shipping cost they pay to move from their warehouse to the USPS sorting facility. USPS isn't making any additional trips to not deliver packages. They drive out to the mailbox cluster every day except Sunday (a day which Amazon also said they'd deliver a package via USPS...) and go no further.
  - ajross 7y ago
    You have a cite for that waste? That's not remotely correct. The marginal cost to ship one package across the world is literally pennies, that's why our junk is so cheap. The cost to drive to one store for one shopping trip is two orders of magnitude higher. Buy online and save the planet. I'm serious.

gambiting 7y ago

Unfortunately I'm convinced that the only thing this will achieve is getting your account suspended for suspicious activity(a lot of created and then cancelled orders).

igetspam 7y ago
Possibly but it's no big loss to me. For years I've been a customer more because of my spouse and my now toddler. As she's getting older, driving to the store (she hates cars) is less of a problem. Amazon, on the other hand, has grown increasingly worse in just about every aspect (quality of service, customer service, employee/contractor treatment, civic duties, etc).
- adam12 7y ago
  You are probably on a list now: https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/retailers-are-tracking-how-many-items-you-return-031418.html https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/retailers-are-tracking-...
  - igetspam 7y ago
    Probably one of many but to be clear, I'm not actually returning anything. The packages are _being returned_ as "undeliverable." Having never actually had possession of the item, I'm incapable of actually returning it. I've asked Amazon to ship it another way but they can't seem to figure it out. Since I do eventually want the item, I'm hoping it makes it some day.

CPLX 7y ago

I am in the same boat. I have called and begged and pleaded and escalated to get Amazon to stop using USPS but it just doesn't work. Here in Brooklyn if anything is unusually large they just punch in "attempted delivery" a couple days in a row and send it back. They don't even bother trying, I'm pretty sure it never even leaves the regional sort facility and gets on a truck. I'm not sure I blame them. Amazon once used USPS to send me half a dozen office chairs. I called Amazon as soon as I saw the shipping update and said there's zero chance whatsoever they will ever reach my door. Nothing they could do. I just ordered from another vendor the same day and waited the inevitable 2-3 weeks for the Amazon order to work its way through the system and back to Amazon without delivery ever attempted. It's one of a few things that perplex me about Amazon. Like why can't I just flag a shipping method as unusable. Why can't I search for stuff only sold by Amazon. Why can't you fucking stop selling fake chargers and headphones? But what do I know about running a multi billion dollar business right?

igetspam 7y ago
Technically you can flag a shipper. After recording delivery drivers stomping across my landscaping and literally throwing packages at my door, I got them to stop using that particular gig economy delivery service for my packages. Getting them to do feels like pulling teeth though. It seems you can't do it for a single incident but interestingly they'll gladly give you the number to the local shipping logistics company, so you can call and yell at them.
- moftz 7y ago
  Was it lasership? I've had packages never delivered by them. I'm assuming the courier is just stealing them since the package will say "out for delivery" multiple times that day and then never show up. They don't respond to emails or calls so anytime a package is set to come through them, I know that I'm probably not going to get it. Nobody has questioned my reports that the packages aren't getting delivered most of the time. I guess the vendor already knows how much they suck but for some reason is ok with the spillage? Maybe the cost savings for using one of these gig economy delivery services is so cheap that its still worth it after having to replace customer orders that get stolen. Maybe it's like doing business with the mob, there's just a certain amount of money you're going to have to lose due to rampant theft but the money you save by getting around the normal business costs makes it worth it.

canada_dry 7y ago

I didn't renew my Amazon Prime after they pulled this "one-day" BS on me more than once: https://i.redd.it/p816orvkrr021.jpg https://i.redd.it/p816orvkrr021.jpg Hopefully Walmart will have better shipping logistics.

pault 7y ago
Yeah; I learned early on to always change the delivery from "1 day" to standard 2 day prime shipping. 1 day delivery always ends up with some joker trying to deliver a package at 9PM and marking it as "attempted delivery" without knocking or calling the number in my delivery notes. I've never had a problem with 2 day shipping, but 1 day always ends up being a nightmare.
dmonagha 7y ago
Not to point out the obvious but your example is an order placed on Cyber Monday...so the biggest online shopping day of the entire year...you might experience a slight delay that week.
- canada_dry 7y ago
  I don't have a problem with delays... I have a problem with them being deliberately misleading about delivery times on their product pages. It happened several times where they used the term "same/one-day" delivery yet at checkout the delivery time was 2-3 days out. So... in other words... they knew damn well what the time frame was, but deliberately chose to use "bait-n-switch" like methods.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  Parent was not complaining about slow shipping. Parent was complaining about misadvertized shipping.
pnutjam 7y ago
Sam's has been offering free 2 day shipping to plus members for awhile. My order never fails to be marked delivered by Fedex on day 2. It doesn't actually arrive until day 5...

Shivetya 7y ago

Amazon has ten to twenty thousand new trucks for delivery and yet I am getting split deliveries from orders still. Example, ordered three items recently and UPS used one package in the morning and Amazon delivered the rest later. Wal Mart has improved but their use of Fed Ex has seen an order split as well between Fed Ex and Fed Ex Home all on the same day. I am just amazed Amazon ran the numbers and determined spinning up an entire last mile delivery process was cheaper than using the previous setup.

moftz 7y ago
It's all related to where the merch is sitting when you order. There is an online auto parts store called RockAuto that will let you know across the site which items are sitting in the same warehouse as other items in your cart. A lot of the stuff is standard auto parts so there will be like eight identical gas caps made by different vendors that are all priced within a few cents of each other. They all are located in different warehouses so I'll usually pick the parts I don't have as much choice over and then go back and pick the jellybean parts that happen to be in the same warehouse. They don't do free shipping so it really helps reduce shipping costs when you only have one box coming. It's also nice just getting all of your parts at once instead of having to wait for different ones to come in and not being able to work on anything until you get them all anyway. I'll play around with which identical parts I choose just to make sure I'm picking all the parts I need from the same, closest warehouse.

gtycomb 7y ago

Here in Nevada, my experience is that Walmart's online business and delivery is strongly superior. It has been a refreshing thing to see a massive global company turn around and do something very right.

dfrage 7y ago
I'm also in flyover country and have found the same to be true, aside from selection. But the products they do directly offer (it's easy to remove 3rd parties from your searches) come from their own supply chain which they really care about, the prices are almost always better than Amazon's, the shipping is fast, and free if you buy at least $35 per purchase, and they pack the boxes with a fair amount of care. The latter detail was the last straw for me and my Prime membership due to Amazon switching to pro forma padding by just throwing in a few air pillows. Between that and all the last mile delivery issues others are reporting, its clear Amazon is seriously pinching pennies in fulfillment without caring how much business and extra expense that costs them. Add in the counterfeit problem and it's hard to imagine how much damage the brand is suffering.

res0nat0r 7y ago

The only way likely for this to be resolved is for Amazon to 100% own the supply chain end to end, which means an Amazon owning last mile delivery company which it seems where most of these delivery issues like. I'm sure Amazon is looking how it can own this part of the chain (along with everything else), maybe someday soon...

kiseleon 7y ago
About 50% of my Amazon packages are delivered by Amazon at this point (Boise, ID area).
- cortesoft 7y ago
  Yeah, I would say 90% of mine are (Los Angeles)
xkcd-sucks 7y ago
Owning the supply chain end to end and paying employees enough to maintain a quality of life which supports good customer service
bluGill 7y ago
Amazon doesn't need to own the last mile. They just need to ensure whoever does meets their standards. USPS has rules for what size packages they will deliver. Amazon either needs to get USPS to follow their rules and deliver that package, or they need to read the rules and ship via someone who can deliver. (I don't know the rules or package in question so I cannot say who is at fault). Of course Amazon might be too small a player in the eyes of USPS, but there are other choices for delivery if USPS doesn't meet their needs.
mikepurvis 7y ago
They own it in a handful of cities: https://www.amazon.com/AmazonFresh https://www.amazon.com/AmazonFresh
- StudentStuff 7y ago

a012 7y ago

I had really bad experiences with USPS recently, got multiple packages weren't delivered for unknown reasons and two were actually lost and their tracking were always like "Awaiting delivery scan".

steveeq1 7y ago

Is that an ethical thing to do?

xfitm3 7y ago
Why wouldn’t it be?
- hnthrowaway5839 7y ago
  Knowingly placing orders you know will not get fulfilled to collect money... where have I seen this before... https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/seattle/press-releases/2012/brothers-who-defrauded-nordstrom-with-online-reward-scheme-plead-guilty-to-wire-fraud https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/seattle/press-releases/201...
- steveeq1 7y ago
  He's "gaming" the system, he even said so himself.
igetspam 7y ago
That depends who you think is in the right. In return for money, a merchant guaranteed a specific delivery date. I paid my money, they failed to to deliver. I contacted them and told them they needed to pick a new shipper. I ordered again. Again I paid money and they guaranteed a delivery date. Again they failed to deliver. Again I contacted them saying they needed to pick a new shipper. Each time they fail to live up to their side of the agreement, they pay me a token amount in restitution. All they have to do is pick a shipper that will actually deliver (or cancel my subscription, which wouldn't pain me in any way) and the cycle will be over. Who's in the right?
- steveeq1 7y ago
  Amazon, since you used the words "gamed the system".
  - fqw3b58w4n6 7y ago

criddell 7y ago

Have you tried calling the post office and asking them to deliver large packages to your door? Our carrier does this for us.

igetspam 7y ago
They called me while I was in a meeting and said I could drive 15 minutes out to them. They don't deliver to houses here.

ukyrgf 7y ago

You still get stuff through USPS? Everything I've ordered has been through AMZL, which means 100% of my orders are left at a neighbor's house, marked as delivered and then show up a few days later, or marked as lost after 5 days and refunded. The $5 credits they give me are only good on stuff sold by Amazon, which seems to be getting slimmer. I got three things last week figuring I'd get $20 off, and it was only after I checked out that I realized none of them were by Amazon.

cortesoft 7y ago
It completely depends on where you are. Bigger cities are more likely to use the AMZL system than smaller towns.

bsharitt 7y ago

Some how my wife got them to stop doing USPS on her account and she gets either UPS(which I rarely get from Amazon) or Amazon's own delivery. For a while she was getting quoted less next day and Sunday delivery dates since she was UPS only, but now that Amazon is doing a lot more deliveries in my area, she's about to about the same shipping days as me again(mine being split between USPS and Amazon).

tyopiuy 7y ago

Amazons own last mile has now consistently failed to deliver my sub $20 items several times in a row now. You can say the same for amazon.

igetspam 7y ago
I've had the same experience but their last mile deliveries at least have a chance to make it. USPS will _never_ deliver to my door.

throw20102010 7y ago

I suspect that the number of people that have to travel long distances (or across a lake) to get something from USPS are pretty rare, so Amazon's just eating the cost. Also, the number of people that actually call/IM customer support for a credit is probably fairly low- until everyone starts holding their feet to the fire Amazon will continue to eat the cost.

paulddraper 7y ago

So...you need a bigger mailbox?

ghaff 7y ago
Not an option for everyone obviously but it's actually not a bad idea. I got an "extra large" rural mailbox a few years back and it's been great. Not everything fits of course but most basic book and small to medium parcels do. It also means I don't need to get my mail held even if I'm out of town for 10 days or so. My postal carrier even thanked me for getting it at one point.
- igetspam 7y ago
  Unfortunately it's a mailbox cluster at the entrance of a rural subdivision. The sizes are fixed and I believed they're property of USPS. An oversized package locker would be a great idea but it's not something I could do as a private citizen.
  - rovolo 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure residential mailboxes are owned by USPS. See section 632 at [1]: > Purchase, installation, and maintenance of mail receptacles are the responsibility of the customer. You should just ask your subdivision/postmaster about adding a bigger package mailbox. [1] https://about.usps.com/what-we-are-doing/current-initiatives/delivery-growth-management/residential-delivery.htm https://about.usps.com/what-we-are-doing/current-initiatives...
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    Well, it seems this here is the root of your problem. And given the amount of difficulty and delay it causes, would be worth serious investigation into a solution.

chaostheory 7y ago

This is probably one of the many reasons why Amazon has started shipping their own products with their own fleet.

reshie 7y ago

the funny thing is a lot of times they will us something like ups or fedex(even though those services will do it) and then locally let usps deliver to door. i have had issues with usps as well though.