10 ms·

90k Packages Disappear Daily in NYC

84 points by koolba 7y ago

MrBuddyCasino 7y ago
Does NYC not have parcel shops?
- msheng 7y ago
  We do, but probably not with 90k capacity across the city
  - nateferrero 7y ago
    The capacity of parcel shops seems to be a lot more than 90k based on my unsubstantiated guesswork; more likely things aren’t bad enough to merit a change https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-delivery.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-deliv... say 1.5M total deliveries per day. This means 6% of packages are stolen. So 94% of the time, it works, and that’s good enough for most. What can be done?
    - MisterTea 7y ago
      > What can be done? Explosive decoy packages.
      - alistairSH 7y ago
        Just in case you haven't seen it yet... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo
    - chrischen 7y ago
      Costs are eaten by retailers who then pass the cost back to consumers transparently.
    - frockington1 7y ago
      In my neighborhood we have a constant gradual uptick in crime until someone catches a criminal in the act and blows them away. Then crime goes back down until enough criminals forget the potential consequences. This might not be possible in a city as dense as NYC but increasing the severity of punishment could help
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  A lot of the convenience of online shopping is that it's shipped right to your door. Make it almost as inconvenient as having to go shopping and the appeal is dramatically lessened. Besides, losing occasional packages is still less expensive than having to operate a retail store front in Manhattan!
smileysteve 7y ago
I find it alarming that our policing (in)abilities are hurting the institutions that we trust, that have traditionally made us different from the less developed world (such as mailing something in Brazil)
- magduf 7y ago
  Have you looked at America's infrastructure lately? It's really no better than the "less developed world".
  - burgerboy 7y ago
    Imagine being this stupid
  - mitchty 7y ago
    Yes I have, provide some substance to what infrastructure you mean, and what "less developed world" means. As it stands, these statements are vacuous. Context helps. And to be honest, it seems like people making these statements haven't ever been to the "less developed world". America isn't perfect, but if you're going to just blanket write stuff like this, at least be prepared to back it up with examples.
    - magduf 7y ago
      Well for a prime example, try driving around the nation's capital sometime. The roads really are 3rd-world. And that's not the only city disgraced with horrible roads. On top of that, there's bridges literally falling apart. Do you really need examples for this?
  - leggomylibro 7y ago
    Oh, I dunno. Major freeways are generally well-paved and easy to drive on at 70-80mph, pipes reliably deliver water which is usually safe to drink in most areas, blackouts/brownouts are very uncommon outside of extreme weather events, and there's been a lot of visible investment in stuff like solar/wind power recently. We even have reasonably-maintained primitive road networks running through most of the nation's forests and wilderness areas. Sure there are some dim spots, like the huge number of bridges that badly need renovation and the frequent need to replace old lead pipes, but it's fairly uncommon to notice the infrastructure in most states. And that's pretty high praise for infrastructure. IMO there are plenty of good arguments that our social institutions are in a worse state than most other nations, but our physical infrastructure doesn't seem to be going to ruin just yet.
css 7y ago
According to [0], there are 1.5m deliveries per day, so the 90k number here gives us a 6% failure rate. They cite 15% in the article [1], which is insane. I guess this goes to the security facade most buildings have, where saying "UPS" at the buzzer gets you near-unlimited access. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-delivery.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-deliv... [1] (pdf) https://depts.washington.edu/sctlctr/sites/default/files/SCTL_Muni_Tower_Test_Report_V4.pdf https://depts.washington.edu/sctlctr/sites/default/files/SCT...
- Finnucane 7y ago
  If it's 6% in NY, and averaging 15% elsewhere, there must be places where getting a package delivered is pretty high risk.
  - arkades 7y ago
    Lived near Yale for a little while. It is difficult to believe the theft rate in my area was <80%. We firmly gave up on deliveries to the home, and had to warn friends and relatives not to send us anything. Nearly everything got grabbed. It was beyond ridiculous. I hear that area has improved now, but certainly back then...
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    Just this week package theft was part of the tv show The Rookie and last December Mark Rober had that staged video highlighting it. For my apartment complex, generally the carriers will just leave it at your door. However, at this time of year, USPS won't even attempt to deliver packages and takes them all to the office and makes the office text/email recipients (I don't think this is legal and I've complained about it but no one cared) and the other carriers (except for Amazon delivering themselves) will knock and if you don't answer in the time it takes them to scan the bar code they'll take it back to the distribution center for UPS and to the FedEx office a couple miles away for FedEx packages. This is purely done as a response to theft. At my current apartments I have had some Amazon packages go 'out for delivery' then just never come. Most recently this happened 2 weeks ago and Amazon issued a refund as a gift card balance. In this case it was just 10$~ of microfiber eyeglass cloths. When I still lived in a house 2 years ago, I'd regularly have Amazon packages taken off my porch that was 20 ft from the street and blocked by bushes. I never had any plain brown boxes taken though, only stuff with the Amazon tape. Fortunately a lot of the stuff was garbage I was getting for free to review and the few times it was something I paid for Amazon would reship or issue a refund without hesitation. Without running the numbers I'd say my personal theft rate is probably below 1% in the apartment and probably below 10% when I was at the house.
shackenberg 7y ago
Walking through Manhattan this Summer, I once saw several delivery people sorting dozens of Amazon packages directly on the sidewalk. I could not believe my eyes.
- css 7y ago
  USPS employees still push carts with letters and packages around [0] and in NYC have master keys to many buildings' front doors so they can put packages inside. [0] https://people.howstuffworks.com/when-postal-carrier-delivers-mail.htm https://people.howstuffworks.com/when-postal-carrier-deliver...
  - shackenberg 7y ago
    The packages were laying directly on the street.
    - frutiger 7y ago
      Where else can they sort them?
      - arkades 7y ago
        Ten feet away, inside the apartment building?
        jamestanderson 7y ago
        NYC is not the most accessible city, and as such you'd have a hard time bringing a cart into many apartment buildings that have steps but don't have a ramp. Even if you manage to bring a cart to the front door of an apartment building, you'd still likely have to deal with a self-closing door which will fight you while trying to pull the cart through. Sorting inside the building is just not feasible.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  This is an every day sight here, especially during the holiday season. It's not uncommon to see entire carts stacked full of packages left unattended on the sidewalk as the employee is delivering packages inside a building.
Semaphor 7y ago
Wait, are packages just left outside? And the recipient or sender are at fault? That seems pretty strange. Here (Germany) if you aren’t home (and haven’t given special instructions which could include leaving the package outside) it’s either given to a neighbor, a package-holding place or goes to the post office for you to get.
- Finnucane 7y ago
  Here in the US, private services like UPS and FedEx can't deliver to the post office. You can ask for a package to be delivered with signature required, but what that means is that if you aren't home it will be held at a distribution center for you to go pick up. Otherwise, yes, packages will just be left wherever in front of your door.
  - Semaphor 7y ago
    We have private services as well, they have contracts with small stores to keep those packages. And a distribution center (unless very far away) seems better than a stolen package.
    - ritchiea 7y ago
      The distribution center is usually a nightmare to travel to. I've lived in NYC and Berlin and both systems are disasters in their own way. Here in Berlin someone is always posting a note in the stairwell that a package was delivered and they aren't sure who in the building has it. And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for? An abundance of packages disappear in both systems. Although if your package happens to be left at a local Spati/Bodega/corner store instead of with a neighbor the German system works out pretty well.
      - Semaphor 7y ago
        > Here in Berlin someone is always posting a note in the stairwell that a package was delivered and they aren't sure who in the building has it. Well, they are supposed to tell you where they left the package. In that case I’d probably tell the sender it wasn’t delivered and leave the delivery service to bear the cost if they can’t remember where it ended up. > And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for? I find that improbable. But if after a few days there was no contact whatsoever I’d simply drop a note with my phone number in their mailbox reminding them that I have their package ;) > An abundance of packages disappear in both systems. Never had problems unless it was Hermes, and even that is somewhat rare (happened twice in 15 years), but then I live in a vastly smaller city (pop 200k) than Berlin.
bob_theslob646 7y ago
>Around the country, more than 1.7 million packages are stolen or go missing every day — adding up to more than $25 million in lost goods and services, according to an analysis for The Times by José Holguín-Veras, an engineering professor and director of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems. 1) the value of goods seems off. How can the average package only be 15 bucks? ( I wonder if they are keeping the costs down to deter people from stealing 2) What the heck is "Sustainable Urban Freight Systems?" >Gabriel Cepeda, 23, came up with the idea for a start-up company built around collecting packages, called Pickups Technologies, after his own Amazon order of computer hard drives was stolen last year outside of his parents’ home in New Jersey. He spent hours on the phone trying to get his order replaced. “It was bad enough to motivate me to brainstorm,” he said.Now Mr. Cepeda’s company connects online shoppers with a network of about 30 residents in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg who will accept packages at their homes at all hours, for fees ranging from $4.99 for a single delivery, to $9.99 for a monthly service. The company plans to expand to more neighborhoods. Decent idea, but the liability has to be insane. I think he would need to grow rather large in order to cover insurance costs if God forbid a few of these people decided to sue if something valuable were damaged/stolen. It literally sounds like finding people who are not working ( retired, elderly, stay at home, disabled, etc, ) who are home at x time per day. Sounds like a crazy optimization problem. >In New York, the police do not break out stolen packages into a separate category. Instead, these cases generally fall under grand larceny if an item is valued at more than $1,000, or petit larceny if valued at less. With all that budget, why cannot they keep statistics on package theft? Seems like the city is behind the times.
- TomVDB 7y ago
  I checked my Amazon orders for the past two months: ~60% of the packages are $10 or less. However, there are a bunch of them that are $50+, and a few expensive packages can compensate for a large number of smaller ones. If my buying pattern is typical for your average Prime user, $15 per package isn't completely outrageous.
bluedino 7y ago
I live in a much smaller city (~50k) in the US. The post office will leave anything, anywhere. Once in a while I need to go downtown to the main post office to pick stuff up. Takes them forever to find my packages, and there's always a big line. Terrible. UPS/FedEx packages that need a signature are a pain, you can't do anything until they try to deliver at least once. Then you have to drive to the hub which is either by the airport or the next town over and pick it up, their hours suck. FedEx lets you re-route your package to the local Walgreens, which I really find useful.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Sign up for MyChoice or the Fedex equivalent, they're free for basic stuff like this. If you really want to you can prerelease a package but it essentially indemnifies the company from any delivery problem unless you have proof it never made it to your door step. You can also redirect them to a store or partner location before they attempt delivery at all through UPS's service and I think Fedex has a similar option.
hateful 7y ago
I live in the suburbs and have long thought about building a small package shed in the front of my house. I use Amazon for most of my packages and was thinking about getting Amazon's smart lock and putting it on this shed.
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  There have been a couple startups that have attempted something similar with large cooler sized boxes and shared keycodes.
jariel 7y ago
Well there was this thing called 'BufferBox' in Canada and a similar thing in the US, essentially semi-private boxes into which mail could be placed with a temp. combo. The UW grads that sold it to Google were borderline arrogant about it, boldly assumptive about how they were going to change how packages were delivered in Canada. That was 10 years ago and of course nothing has happened. I suggest there are some fairly simple technological solutions along those lines (i.e. a series of larger boxes in each building with a temp code) that could really work, but that the USPS etc. are fundamentally not interested in doing anything innovative. Private entities just aren't positioned to do this, as the pervasive nature of 'mail' is something that lends to socialised/government action. I really wish UPS/FedEx/Amazon would get together in this because collectively they have enough power to lobby/influence enough cities to create a critical mass for this, and they have the incentive and operational capabilities to do it. Making boxes available for purchase for homes, having everything standardised etc. and the legal issues sorted out around it would be so beneficial. It's one area where we hardly need 'new tech' rather some 'operational innovation' at scale.
insickness 7y ago
Like a lot of apartment buildings in NYC, in my building, packages are left in the hallway instead the key-pad locked front door. There were some problems in the past with packages getting stolen, but not recently. However, there are a few packages that have been siting there for a few months that are at the wrong address. None of the carriers seem to give a shit to pick them up, even when people mark that they are at the wrong address.
- CoolGuySteve 7y ago
  Yeah I had more packages stolen when I lived in Cupertino than NYC. But I've had quite a few packages delivered to the wrong address and our lobby constantly has wrong deliveries of both USPS mail and packages. Usually the Ave/Street are mixed up or off-by-one or a digit in the street number is different from ours. We once had a huge box of pet food from China mostly blocking our main egress for a week until we found the person it was supposed to go to. It's a nuisance that the city should fix.
  - magduf 7y ago
    >Usually the Ave/Street are mixed up There should be a federal law against this kind of stupidity. It's unbelievable that many towns and cities actually thought it'd be a good idea to have two different streets with the exact same name, but one is an "Avenue" and one is a "street". I have a relative who lives on a "Second Ave" and has had all kinds of problems with mail because there's another address in that same small town with the same house number, but on "Second Street", and the person there is not cooperative when mis-addressed mail goes there.
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      Ok how do you solve the problem of annexing where two towns might have both been maintaining unique street names within their own systems but have overlap when they merge. Towns grow like that all the time.
      - 7y ago
TheAdamist 7y ago
Amazon lockers aren't even a perfect fix, received an opened and empty package the other day. Stolen by the driver or someone hacked the lockers.
- drdeadringer 7y ago
  How easily are Amazon Lockers hacked? I've not heard about that before.
  - TheAdamist 7y ago
    No idea, the most plausible explanation is that the driver stole the item and left the empty envelope. Although what they thought they could do with replacement foam pads for a particular set of headphones I don't know. But I'm sure it's possible to lockpick the door or do something else to the locker, as it was an outside 24/7 one. fairly unlikely though.
jeffrallen 7y ago
If you can't be bothered to at least shop in your neighborhood stores, could you at least be bothered to sign for your packages at the post? It's just the cost of living in civilised society: either you interact with the store clerk or the postman. Choose.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 7y ago
  I can't really be bothered to drive 30 minutes home from work, wait for the package, then drive back. For 90% of my orders I'd be more than happy to have them delivered on a Saturday, which is what I do for Amazon since they give me that option. I buy a lot more locally, but there's just a lot of things that need to be purchased online these days.
- magduf 7y ago
  In a truly civilized society, people don't generally steal things from each other. If theft is a big problem in your society, then it isn't really that civilized.
  - Shivetya 7y ago
    which is a sad statement on the what the US has become. Just look at the looting that comes during disasters here. This is a cultural issue that needs correction starting in schools where it gets repeated day and day out to respect others and the property of others. Then top this off with not accepting politicians who incite negative behavior by telling people their situation was caused by others whose gains were unfairly acquired. It is far easier for people to reason theft if someone in authority gives them that scenario, that people who have more than them probably did it unfairly and it is not just that they lack the same.
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      > Then top this off with not accepting politicians who incite negative behavior by telling people their situation was caused by others whose gains were unfairly acquired. Maybe you meant it exactly this way, but I can't tell if you were referring to Democrats or Republicans, because both have the same message about different groups.
gwern 7y ago
How do they handle this in East Asian cities, where densities and package volumes seem like they ought to be just as high?
- et-al 7y ago
  In Taiwan and Japan, they'll leave packages at the convenience store (konbini). Also, people are more respectful of others in those two countries, so property crime isn't as high as most American cities anyway.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
treyfitty 7y ago
I have used FedEx for my business only 5 times this year in NYC to have important packages delivered (our vendors weren't flexible in these instances). 3 out of those 5 times, the driver slapped a "sorry we missed you sticker" and just left, or they delivered it to the wrong address (the next street over). The drivers are pretty careless and simply don't care enough. I even get deliveries that are clearly not the right address, yet they end up on my building doorstep. FedEx is simply frustrating to deal with. Their "investigations" will reveal one story, but my security camera reveals another, and even management doesn't care that my building's deliveries are never made because the drivers just slap the sticker and move on.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  The best part is that, at least in my FedEx delivery area, the drivers "own" the route. So, if you file a complaint about them, they typically just make your experience more frustrating out of spite.
- mnm1 7y ago
  I had a package delivered to the wrong address, across town, multiple times, even after I contacted FedEx, confirmed my address, and gave them directions (because they are too stupid to figure them out on their own). This was just the worst case out of many. It's shocking whenever a FedEx truck actually shows up to deliver packages. It's also shocking how incredibly bad FedEx is at their one job, delivering packages. Amazon is even worse, but let's not go there. The package was finally returned to the shipper, Newegg, and then the fun started trying to get a refund. Took about a month of calling every day. That was a lot of fun.
jordache 7y ago
nyc is such a *hit show
mensetmanusman 7y ago
$10-100M theft per year? Seems obvious to install drop boxes....
daniel2x 7y ago
I suppose we figured out where all those npm packages are coming from then... ;)
dwnvoted2hell 7y ago
This sounds like a massive class action lawsuit waiting to happen. I wonder who would be hit first, the shippers or the city? Surely they are both at fault.
ConcernedCoder 7y ago
So far this week I've had 2 packages left right in front of my front door ( actually blocking it ) with full visibility from the street with no knock or doorbell ring ( I work from home and my office is right next to the front door ). One package left right in front of my front door ( actually blocking it ) with a light knock on the door. Two packages delivered to my neighbors house 2 doors down the street ( thanks USPS )... it's no wonder packages disappear daily, I think either the delivery drivers are co-conspiritors with the actual package thieves, or these services are hiring/using people actually unfit to do the job... I mean in the USPS case, both packages were clearly marked with my address... it's a number, how do you get that wrong?

84 points by koolba 7y ago

MrBuddyCasino 7y ago

Does NYC not have parcel shops?

msheng 7y ago
We do, but probably not with 90k capacity across the city
- nateferrero 7y ago
  The capacity of parcel shops seems to be a lot more than 90k based on my unsubstantiated guesswork; more likely things aren’t bad enough to merit a change https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-delivery.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-deliv... say 1.5M total deliveries per day. This means 6% of packages are stolen. So 94% of the time, it works, and that’s good enough for most. What can be done?
  - MisterTea 7y ago
    > What can be done? Explosive decoy packages.
    - alistairSH 7y ago
      Just in case you haven't seen it yet... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoxhDk-hwuo
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Costs are eaten by retailers who then pass the cost back to consumers transparently.
  - frockington1 7y ago
    In my neighborhood we have a constant gradual uptick in crime until someone catches a criminal in the act and blows them away. Then crime goes back down until enough criminals forget the potential consequences. This might not be possible in a city as dense as NYC but increasing the severity of punishment could help
CydeWeys 7y ago
A lot of the convenience of online shopping is that it's shipped right to your door. Make it almost as inconvenient as having to go shopping and the appeal is dramatically lessened. Besides, losing occasional packages is still less expensive than having to operate a retail store front in Manhattan!

smileysteve 7y ago

I find it alarming that our policing (in)abilities are hurting the institutions that we trust, that have traditionally made us different from the less developed world (such as mailing something in Brazil)

magduf 7y ago
Have you looked at America's infrastructure lately? It's really no better than the "less developed world".
- burgerboy 7y ago
  Imagine being this stupid
- mitchty 7y ago
  Yes I have, provide some substance to what infrastructure you mean, and what "less developed world" means. As it stands, these statements are vacuous. Context helps. And to be honest, it seems like people making these statements haven't ever been to the "less developed world". America isn't perfect, but if you're going to just blanket write stuff like this, at least be prepared to back it up with examples.
  - magduf 7y ago
    Well for a prime example, try driving around the nation's capital sometime. The roads really are 3rd-world. And that's not the only city disgraced with horrible roads. On top of that, there's bridges literally falling apart. Do you really need examples for this?
- leggomylibro 7y ago
  Oh, I dunno. Major freeways are generally well-paved and easy to drive on at 70-80mph, pipes reliably deliver water which is usually safe to drink in most areas, blackouts/brownouts are very uncommon outside of extreme weather events, and there's been a lot of visible investment in stuff like solar/wind power recently. We even have reasonably-maintained primitive road networks running through most of the nation's forests and wilderness areas. Sure there are some dim spots, like the huge number of bridges that badly need renovation and the frequent need to replace old lead pipes, but it's fairly uncommon to notice the infrastructure in most states. And that's pretty high praise for infrastructure. IMO there are plenty of good arguments that our social institutions are in a worse state than most other nations, but our physical infrastructure doesn't seem to be going to ruin just yet.

css 7y ago

According to [0], there are 1.5m deliveries per day, so the 90k number here gives us a 6% failure rate. They cite 15% in the article [1], which is insane. I guess this goes to the security facade most buildings have, where saying "UPS" at the buzzer gets you near-unlimited access. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-delivery.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/nyregion/nyc-amazon-deliv... [1] (pdf) https://depts.washington.edu/sctlctr/sites/default/files/SCTL_Muni_Tower_Test_Report_V4.pdf https://depts.washington.edu/sctlctr/sites/default/files/SCT...

Finnucane 7y ago
If it's 6% in NY, and averaging 15% elsewhere, there must be places where getting a package delivered is pretty high risk.
- arkades 7y ago
  Lived near Yale for a little while. It is difficult to believe the theft rate in my area was <80%. We firmly gave up on deliveries to the home, and had to warn friends and relatives not to send us anything. Nearly everything got grabbed. It was beyond ridiculous. I hear that area has improved now, but certainly back then...
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  Just this week package theft was part of the tv show The Rookie and last December Mark Rober had that staged video highlighting it. For my apartment complex, generally the carriers will just leave it at your door. However, at this time of year, USPS won't even attempt to deliver packages and takes them all to the office and makes the office text/email recipients (I don't think this is legal and I've complained about it but no one cared) and the other carriers (except for Amazon delivering themselves) will knock and if you don't answer in the time it takes them to scan the bar code they'll take it back to the distribution center for UPS and to the FedEx office a couple miles away for FedEx packages. This is purely done as a response to theft. At my current apartments I have had some Amazon packages go 'out for delivery' then just never come. Most recently this happened 2 weeks ago and Amazon issued a refund as a gift card balance. In this case it was just 10$~ of microfiber eyeglass cloths. When I still lived in a house 2 years ago, I'd regularly have Amazon packages taken off my porch that was 20 ft from the street and blocked by bushes. I never had any plain brown boxes taken though, only stuff with the Amazon tape. Fortunately a lot of the stuff was garbage I was getting for free to review and the few times it was something I paid for Amazon would reship or issue a refund without hesitation. Without running the numbers I'd say my personal theft rate is probably below 1% in the apartment and probably below 10% when I was at the house.

shackenberg 7y ago

Walking through Manhattan this Summer, I once saw several delivery people sorting dozens of Amazon packages directly on the sidewalk. I could not believe my eyes.

css 7y ago
USPS employees still push carts with letters and packages around [0] and in NYC have master keys to many buildings' front doors so they can put packages inside. [0] https://people.howstuffworks.com/when-postal-carrier-delivers-mail.htm https://people.howstuffworks.com/when-postal-carrier-deliver...
- shackenberg 7y ago
  The packages were laying directly on the street.
  - frutiger 7y ago
    Where else can they sort them?
    - arkades 7y ago
      Ten feet away, inside the apartment building?
      - jamestanderson 7y ago
        NYC is not the most accessible city, and as such you'd have a hard time bringing a cart into many apartment buildings that have steps but don't have a ramp. Even if you manage to bring a cart to the front door of an apartment building, you'd still likely have to deal with a self-closing door which will fight you while trying to pull the cart through. Sorting inside the building is just not feasible.
CydeWeys 7y ago
This is an every day sight here, especially during the holiday season. It's not uncommon to see entire carts stacked full of packages left unattended on the sidewalk as the employee is delivering packages inside a building.

Semaphor 7y ago

Wait, are packages just left outside? And the recipient or sender are at fault? That seems pretty strange. Here (Germany) if you aren’t home (and haven’t given special instructions which could include leaving the package outside) it’s either given to a neighbor, a package-holding place or goes to the post office for you to get.

Finnucane 7y ago
Here in the US, private services like UPS and FedEx can't deliver to the post office. You can ask for a package to be delivered with signature required, but what that means is that if you aren't home it will be held at a distribution center for you to go pick up. Otherwise, yes, packages will just be left wherever in front of your door.
- Semaphor 7y ago
  We have private services as well, they have contracts with small stores to keep those packages. And a distribution center (unless very far away) seems better than a stolen package.
  - ritchiea 7y ago
    The distribution center is usually a nightmare to travel to. I've lived in NYC and Berlin and both systems are disasters in their own way. Here in Berlin someone is always posting a note in the stairwell that a package was delivered and they aren't sure who in the building has it. And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for? An abundance of packages disappear in both systems. Although if your package happens to be left at a local Spati/Bodega/corner store instead of with a neighbor the German system works out pretty well.
    - Semaphor 7y ago
      > Here in Berlin someone is always posting a note in the stairwell that a package was delivered and they aren't sure who in the building has it. Well, they are supposed to tell you where they left the package. In that case I’d probably tell the sender it wasn’t delivered and leave the delivery service to bear the cost if they can’t remember where it ended up. > And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for? I find that improbable. But if after a few days there was no contact whatsoever I’d simply drop a note with my phone number in their mailbox reminding them that I have their package ;) > An abundance of packages disappear in both systems. Never had problems unless it was Hermes, and even that is somewhat rare (happened twice in 15 years), but then I live in a vastly smaller city (pop 200k) than Berlin.

bob_theslob646 7y ago

>Around the country, more than 1.7 million packages are stolen or go missing every day — adding up to more than $25 million in lost goods and services, according to an analysis for The Times by José Holguín-Veras, an engineering professor and director of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems. 1) the value of goods seems off. How can the average package only be 15 bucks? ( I wonder if they are keeping the costs down to deter people from stealing 2) What the heck is "Sustainable Urban Freight Systems?" >Gabriel Cepeda, 23, came up with the idea for a start-up company built around collecting packages, called Pickups Technologies, after his own Amazon order of computer hard drives was stolen last year outside of his parents’ home in New Jersey. He spent hours on the phone trying to get his order replaced. “It was bad enough to motivate me to brainstorm,” he said.Now Mr. Cepeda’s company connects online shoppers with a network of about 30 residents in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg who will accept packages at their homes at all hours, for fees ranging from $4.99 for a single delivery, to $9.99 for a monthly service. The company plans to expand to more neighborhoods. Decent idea, but the liability has to be insane. I think he would need to grow rather large in order to cover insurance costs if God forbid a few of these people decided to sue if something valuable were damaged/stolen. It literally sounds like finding people who are not working ( retired, elderly, stay at home, disabled, etc, ) who are home at x time per day. Sounds like a crazy optimization problem. >In New York, the police do not break out stolen packages into a separate category. Instead, these cases generally fall under grand larceny if an item is valued at more than $1,000, or petit larceny if valued at less. With all that budget, why cannot they keep statistics on package theft? Seems like the city is behind the times.

TomVDB 7y ago
I checked my Amazon orders for the past two months: ~60% of the packages are $10 or less. However, there are a bunch of them that are $50+, and a few expensive packages can compensate for a large number of smaller ones. If my buying pattern is typical for your average Prime user, $15 per package isn't completely outrageous.

bluedino 7y ago

I live in a much smaller city (~50k) in the US. The post office will leave anything, anywhere. Once in a while I need to go downtown to the main post office to pick stuff up. Takes them forever to find my packages, and there's always a big line. Terrible. UPS/FedEx packages that need a signature are a pain, you can't do anything until they try to deliver at least once. Then you have to drive to the hub which is either by the airport or the next town over and pick it up, their hours suck. FedEx lets you re-route your package to the local Walgreens, which I really find useful.

rtkwe 7y ago
Sign up for MyChoice or the Fedex equivalent, they're free for basic stuff like this. If you really want to you can prerelease a package but it essentially indemnifies the company from any delivery problem unless you have proof it never made it to your door step. You can also redirect them to a store or partner location before they attempt delivery at all through UPS's service and I think Fedex has a similar option.

hateful 7y ago

I live in the suburbs and have long thought about building a small package shed in the front of my house. I use Amazon for most of my packages and was thinking about getting Amazon's smart lock and putting it on this shed.

michaelbuckbee 7y ago
There have been a couple startups that have attempted something similar with large cooler sized boxes and shared keycodes.

jariel 7y ago

Well there was this thing called 'BufferBox' in Canada and a similar thing in the US, essentially semi-private boxes into which mail could be placed with a temp. combo. The UW grads that sold it to Google were borderline arrogant about it, boldly assumptive about how they were going to change how packages were delivered in Canada. That was 10 years ago and of course nothing has happened. I suggest there are some fairly simple technological solutions along those lines (i.e. a series of larger boxes in each building with a temp code) that could really work, but that the USPS etc. are fundamentally not interested in doing anything innovative. Private entities just aren't positioned to do this, as the pervasive nature of 'mail' is something that lends to socialised/government action. I really wish UPS/FedEx/Amazon would get together in this because collectively they have enough power to lobby/influence enough cities to create a critical mass for this, and they have the incentive and operational capabilities to do it. Making boxes available for purchase for homes, having everything standardised etc. and the legal issues sorted out around it would be so beneficial. It's one area where we hardly need 'new tech' rather some 'operational innovation' at scale.

insickness 7y ago

Like a lot of apartment buildings in NYC, in my building, packages are left in the hallway instead the key-pad locked front door. There were some problems in the past with packages getting stolen, but not recently. However, there are a few packages that have been siting there for a few months that are at the wrong address. None of the carriers seem to give a shit to pick them up, even when people mark that they are at the wrong address.

CoolGuySteve 7y ago
Yeah I had more packages stolen when I lived in Cupertino than NYC. But I've had quite a few packages delivered to the wrong address and our lobby constantly has wrong deliveries of both USPS mail and packages. Usually the Ave/Street are mixed up or off-by-one or a digit in the street number is different from ours. We once had a huge box of pet food from China mostly blocking our main egress for a week until we found the person it was supposed to go to. It's a nuisance that the city should fix.
- magduf 7y ago
  >Usually the Ave/Street are mixed up There should be a federal law against this kind of stupidity. It's unbelievable that many towns and cities actually thought it'd be a good idea to have two different streets with the exact same name, but one is an "Avenue" and one is a "street". I have a relative who lives on a "Second Ave" and has had all kinds of problems with mail because there's another address in that same small town with the same house number, but on "Second Street", and the person there is not cooperative when mis-addressed mail goes there.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Ok how do you solve the problem of annexing where two towns might have both been maintaining unique street names within their own systems but have overlap when they merge. Towns grow like that all the time.
    - 7y ago

TheAdamist 7y ago

Amazon lockers aren't even a perfect fix, received an opened and empty package the other day. Stolen by the driver or someone hacked the lockers.

drdeadringer 7y ago
How easily are Amazon Lockers hacked? I've not heard about that before.
- TheAdamist 7y ago
  No idea, the most plausible explanation is that the driver stole the item and left the empty envelope. Although what they thought they could do with replacement foam pads for a particular set of headphones I don't know. But I'm sure it's possible to lockpick the door or do something else to the locker, as it was an outside 24/7 one. fairly unlikely though.

jeffrallen 7y ago

If you can't be bothered to at least shop in your neighborhood stores, could you at least be bothered to sign for your packages at the post? It's just the cost of living in civilised society: either you interact with the store clerk or the postman. Choose.

SparkyMcUnicorn 7y ago
I can't really be bothered to drive 30 minutes home from work, wait for the package, then drive back. For 90% of my orders I'd be more than happy to have them delivered on a Saturday, which is what I do for Amazon since they give me that option. I buy a lot more locally, but there's just a lot of things that need to be purchased online these days.
magduf 7y ago
In a truly civilized society, people don't generally steal things from each other. If theft is a big problem in your society, then it isn't really that civilized.
- Shivetya 7y ago
  which is a sad statement on the what the US has become. Just look at the looting that comes during disasters here. This is a cultural issue that needs correction starting in schools where it gets repeated day and day out to respect others and the property of others. Then top this off with not accepting politicians who incite negative behavior by telling people their situation was caused by others whose gains were unfairly acquired. It is far easier for people to reason theft if someone in authority gives them that scenario, that people who have more than them probably did it unfairly and it is not just that they lack the same.
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    > Then top this off with not accepting politicians who incite negative behavior by telling people their situation was caused by others whose gains were unfairly acquired. Maybe you meant it exactly this way, but I can't tell if you were referring to Democrats or Republicans, because both have the same message about different groups.

gwern 7y ago

How do they handle this in East Asian cities, where densities and package volumes seem like they ought to be just as high?

et-al 7y ago
In Taiwan and Japan, they'll leave packages at the convenience store (konbini). Also, people are more respectful of others in those two countries, so property crime isn't as high as most American cities anyway.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

treyfitty 7y ago

I have used FedEx for my business only 5 times this year in NYC to have important packages delivered (our vendors weren't flexible in these instances). 3 out of those 5 times, the driver slapped a "sorry we missed you sticker" and just left, or they delivered it to the wrong address (the next street over). The drivers are pretty careless and simply don't care enough. I even get deliveries that are clearly not the right address, yet they end up on my building doorstep. FedEx is simply frustrating to deal with. Their "investigations" will reveal one story, but my security camera reveals another, and even management doesn't care that my building's deliveries are never made because the drivers just slap the sticker and move on.

stronglikedan 7y ago
The best part is that, at least in my FedEx delivery area, the drivers "own" the route. So, if you file a complaint about them, they typically just make your experience more frustrating out of spite.
mnm1 7y ago
I had a package delivered to the wrong address, across town, multiple times, even after I contacted FedEx, confirmed my address, and gave them directions (because they are too stupid to figure them out on their own). This was just the worst case out of many. It's shocking whenever a FedEx truck actually shows up to deliver packages. It's also shocking how incredibly bad FedEx is at their one job, delivering packages. Amazon is even worse, but let's not go there. The package was finally returned to the shipper, Newegg, and then the fun started trying to get a refund. Took about a month of calling every day. That was a lot of fun.

jordache 7y ago

nyc is such a *hit show

mensetmanusman 7y ago

$10-100M theft per year? Seems obvious to install drop boxes....

daniel2x 7y ago

I suppose we figured out where all those npm packages are coming from then... ;)

dwnvoted2hell 7y ago

This sounds like a massive class action lawsuit waiting to happen. I wonder who would be hit first, the shippers or the city? Surely they are both at fault.

ConcernedCoder 7y ago

So far this week I've had 2 packages left right in front of my front door ( actually blocking it ) with full visibility from the street with no knock or doorbell ring ( I work from home and my office is right next to the front door ). One package left right in front of my front door ( actually blocking it ) with a light knock on the door. Two packages delivered to my neighbors house 2 doors down the street ( thanks USPS )... it's no wonder packages disappear daily, I think either the delivery drivers are co-conspiritors with the actual package thieves, or these services are hiring/using people actually unfit to do the job... I mean in the USPS case, both packages were clearly marked with my address... it's a number, how do you get that wrong?