Help: Ebay/fed-ex question: stolen item

[Douglas]

Originally Posted by ljh34465

quite a story .
I think you will enjoy the D70 - I got mine (from EBay) a little over a year ago and have done pretty well with it - there is definitely a learning curve but there is also a wealth of information on the Web. Check out Thom Hogan's e-book - pretty good reference and specific to that camera.
Glad it worked out - could not have gotten much more bizarre

lol, no kidding. Ive wanted a D70 for 4 years now, and all this just to get it makes me feel

Ill check out Thom's book. Ive also been looking and reading through Ken Rockwell's as well. I love it when they use plain english. Makes it a bit easier to keep up.

[roncgizmo]

Glad to hear it all worked out for you.

[loraksus]

FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc are terrible when it comes to stuff like this. Often it isn't just a lazy driver, but an semi official policy that states in the interests of time, they will accept the occasional claim.
Kind of understandable - if the fedex guy had everyone sign for every package, the route would take much, much longer, they'd have to hire another person (or 2, 3, etc) to do do the same route, pay for vehicles, maintenance, etc - all that adds up pretty quick, and if the cost of A is less then B...
I was told by a fedex guy that actuaries work all this out based on crime stats and previous losses on that route. I'm sure UPS does the same.

I had a job where I shipped a bunch of stuff out "signature required" and when people called and never received their stuff, I frequently saw signatures like "Dr. Porch", "Mrs. Gazebo", "Red Doggi" etc.
I even put in "DO NOT LEAVE AT DOOR", "THIEF IN NEIGHBORHOOD", etc in the second address line and stuff still got left at doors (and stolen again)

There really isn't a good solution to this unfortunately. Asking FedEx / UPS / etc to make sure every package delivered will be signed for is a waste of time. What will fix this is a number of stolen packages, but it will take an annoying number and annoying amount of time for this to start occurring.

With FedEx, at least, you'll probably get a slightly accusatory call to follow up after a few when they start to get suspicious - but even if you rip into the "followup" caller, it won't get immediate results - I know I really laid into one person who called and felt really bad about it later, but that didn't change anything immediately. I had something like 10 packages stolen in a year and it really pissed me off.

The best thing is to give your delivery guy a gift basket or something at christmas or whatever and ask him nicely to make sure it gets signed for or left at the branch office (which sucks as a solution, especially now with gas prices, but...)
After I had built up a relationship with the driver, he would often drop by at the end of his route and try and do a followup delivery that day. Cold coke every once in a while or whatever also works. The drivers are usually really busy, but they are human

Oh... calling the shipping company and asking them to hold the package probably won't work since requests like that take at least a business day to get through. You'd think with computers and stuff nowadays they would be more on top of it, but I can understand that finding a leftover package on a truck isn't a priority.

[brice]

Actually the solution, in the OP's case, is to have it shipped to the management office of the apartment building or have it shipped to himself at this work location. Even when I have items shipped to my home, I leave specific instructions on a piece of paper where they should deliver if I am not home. I specify which house and who can accept it.

There are precautions, nothing fool proof, but if you are in an apartment, home delivery is not the best option unless you use USPS. Then you can at least, pick it up at the post office.

Originally Posted by loraksus

FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc are terrible when it comes to stuff like this. Often it isn't just a lazy driver, but an semi official policy that states in the interests of time, they will accept the occasional claim.
Kind of understandable - if the fedex guy had everyone sign for every package, the route would take much, much longer, they'd have to hire another person (or 2, 3, etc) to do do the same route, pay for vehicles, maintenance, etc - all that adds up pretty quick, and if the cost of A is less then B...
I was told by a fedex guy that actuaries work all this out based on crime stats and previous losses on that route. I'm sure UPS does the same.

I had a job where I shipped a bunch of stuff out "signature required" and when people called and never received their stuff, I frequently saw signatures like "Dr. Porch", "Mrs. Gazebo", "Red Doggi" etc.
I even put in "DO NOT LEAVE AT DOOR", "THIEF IN NEIGHBORHOOD", etc in the second address line and stuff still got left at doors (and stolen again)

There really isn't a good solution to this unfortunately. Asking FedEx / UPS / etc to make sure every package delivered will be signed for is a waste of time. What will fix this is a number of stolen packages, but it will take an annoying number and annoying amount of time for this to start occurring.

With FedEx, at least, you'll probably get a slightly accusatory call to follow up after a few when they start to get suspicious - but even if you rip into the "followup" caller, it won't get immediate results - I know I really laid into one person who called and felt really bad about it later, but that didn't change anything immediately. I had something like 10 packages stolen in a year and it really pissed me off.

The best thing is to give your delivery guy a gift basket or something at christmas or whatever and ask him nicely to make sure it gets signed for or left at the branch office (which sucks as a solution, especially now with gas prices, but...)
After I had built up a relationship with the driver, he would often drop by at the end of his route and try and do a followup delivery that day. Cold coke every once in a while or whatever also works. The drivers are usually really busy, but they are human

Oh... calling the shipping company and asking them to hold the package probably won't work since requests like that take at least a business day to get through. You'd think with computers and stuff nowadays they would be more on top of it, but I can understand that finding a leftover package on a truck isn't a priority.

[Douglas]

UPS usually works great. If im not home, I get a tag. I call them up and ask for them to hold it and I run over there at about 630 to pick it up (or the next day).

Of course other times, they leave the package. If its small they put it between my screen door and door. One time they did this and put a stepping rock (one of those big square rocks people have when they dont have a sidewalk to a patio area) against the door. This kinda shocked me, but it was the first time ever that they did that.

I probably should start having things that arent big shipped to the office or work. Of course the box this came in was huge. It came with a camera bag, so the guy used like a 3ft by 1.5 ft box.

[Mr Mikey]

Something to think about as well, as long as you use FEDEX and they don't change drivers you are safe as can be. I do not imagine that driver ever leaving something at you address without the correct signature again