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Are you upset with Amazon for hypothetically refusing to deliver to your home unless you give them a virtual key fob to your garage? Let’s just take a step bac

Are you upset with Amazon for hypothetically refusing to deliver to your home unless you give them a virtual key fob to your garage? Let’s just take a step back here and recognise that we’re asking online retailers to leave our deliveries outside our homes, with direct access to members of the public, but we’re also asking for them to assume responsibility if the packages are stolen. Morally, in isolation, it’s not a very defensible position for the consumer to take. I personally don’t feel so bad about it when it’s Amazon — they can afford it, basically — but in general it’s not realistic for porch pirates to be anyone else’s problem except the consumer’s.

yrro 3y ago
This sounds totally mad to me. If I order something for delivery, it is the retailer's responsibility to deliver it to me. If they leave it where it is stolen before it's in my posession than that is not my problem. Were it any other way I would not order anything online!
XorNot 3y ago
I think the point is that there's little reason to trust that you would not simply be robbed either by them leaving the garage open, or robbing it themselves. If Amazon want to leave packages securely, then I am more then happy for them to partner with mail carriers and other delivery services and come up with a common standard for an externally secure lockbox system*. But they're not getting an open door into my house. The problem in the delivery space is everyone does whatever - there's no standard or common code for communicating secure delivery logic for a premises. You can come up with whatever and it just won't be used. But "give me access to inside your private property" is one of the more insane solutions given that a garage is not an unvaluable area, nor necessarily a non-hazardous one.
citizenkeen 3y ago
I would happily check a box that says "deliver to human being, if none home try again tomorrow".
jabroni_salad 3y ago
something like 50% of the time I try to redirect a fedex package to walgreens (local drugstsore) the retailer has that feature disabled. I'm sure they have a great reason for it but it seems that putting the package unsigned on my doorstep is specifically the service that they are choosing and I do not have a choice nor do I get to find out about it until after the order has shipped.

yrro 3y ago

This sounds totally mad to me. If I order something for delivery, it is the retailer's responsibility to deliver it to me. If they leave it where it is stolen before it's in my posession than that is not my problem. Were it any other way I would not order anything online!

XorNot 3y ago

I think the point is that there's little reason to trust that you would not simply be robbed either by them leaving the garage open, or robbing it themselves. If Amazon want to leave packages securely, then I am more then happy for them to partner with mail carriers and other delivery services and come up with a common standard for an externally secure lockbox system*. But they're not getting an open door into my house. The problem in the delivery space is everyone does whatever - there's no standard or common code for communicating secure delivery logic for a premises. You can come up with whatever and it just won't be used. But "give me access to inside your private property" is one of the more insane solutions given that a garage is not an unvaluable area, nor necessarily a non-hazardous one.

citizenkeen 3y ago

I would happily check a box that says "deliver to human being, if none home try again tomorrow".

jabroni_salad 3y ago

something like 50% of the time I try to redirect a fedex package to walgreens (local drugstsore) the retailer has that feature disabled. I'm sure they have a great reason for it but it seems that putting the package unsigned on my doorstep is specifically the service that they are choosing and I do not have a choice nor do I get to find out about it until after the order has shipped.