Stolen parcel left unattended by Royal Mail

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Exodi said:

Purely out of interest if your parcel was pinched by some toerag, despite the cameras, etc, would you expect the retailer to refund/replace? 

I don't like these sorts of questions because having never suffered a loss due to theft (and having greatly benefited from the convenience of 'non-physical' deliveries) I am aware I will be biased on this. Answering with the expected response would only prompt the retort "well you would say that."

But moving away from being a convenience spoiled consumer, I am a director of a manufacturing business that frequently sells direct to consumers - I have witnessed the sharp end of the other side, particularly the frustration caused from receiving an INR refund request for an item with tracking showing the item delivered to the correct address (though not specifically handed to the purchaser). We also see a lot of fraudulent returns (particularly processed through Amazon, but that's another thread...), so I'm additionally wary that if 'parcel not physically handed to the person named on the invoice = automatic refund' then some people might take the opportunity to report an INR whenever they see it has been delivered on their doorstep.

So genuinely, if I was at work and I see on my camera that someone has gone through my gate and stolen the parcel(s) down the side of my house, I wouldn't demand the retailer(s) send me a replacement, I'd possibly call the police with the footage (which I'm not naive to knowing 99% of the time will achieve nothing) and almost certainly be in a bad mood for a few days.

I think as I work in a senior position, I'm possibly not the best person to give advice on consumer rights on a forum like this (where advice is understandably tailored to benefit consumers). I also appreciate that some may feel that (faceless) 'businesses' generally have bigger pockets so can afford (or should have priced in) the blow from losses like this. I don't however think I'm 'right' in my view of this, and absolutely support peoples decisions to pursue the retailer if that's what they decide to do, it's just not something I would do personally.

My view expressed above about non-physical deliveries came strictly from the view of 'careful what you wish for or you just might get it'.

While we can agree that physically received deliveries are safer than non-physically received deliveries, I don't think many people are willing pay the inconvenience and cost of it. As I said before, it's already possible to mandate physical delivery (e.g. through signed for or ID special services), but no-one does.

It was a very unfair question  

Personally I don't see it as a case of business having big pockets, I see it as distance selling allows a business to access far more customers which increases their volume allowing them to benefit from economies of scale which not only drives down prices resulting in more sales cycling through to greater economies of scale but equally lower prices hinder competition who don't have such economies of scale.

That is a massive benefit to any business off set by a tiny problem of losing cost price on the odd sale where something happens to a parcel left in a safe place (of course there are other costs from obligations such as the right to cancel and other problems exclusive to distance selling that need overcoming). 

But yes I agree with all of what you said, similar situation of previously running a business and spending years dealing with INR claims which disappeared once Royal Mail tracking for Large Letters began and fully appreciate the problem of dishonesty is far greater than parcels being stolen from safe places with the balance being very hard to get right. 

Alderbank

I now regularly collect my Amazon stuff from my local Next store, eBay items from Argos and John Lewis from my local Shell garage. My local Post Office does Click&Collect as do convenience stores open until 10pm. Those digital lockers are handy too especially for returning stuff.
I feel emancipated from the thralldom of sitting in all day waiting for deliveries.

I realise this is not for everyone and doesn't work for very large items but it works fine for me.

What do others think about these alternatives to 'leave it round the back'?

Exodi

Okell said:

Whereas the correct argument is:

1.  Couriers not fulfilling the retailer's legal obligations by cutting corners provide a more convenient and cheaper online retail experience

While I don't necessarily disagree with your views, I do think that while I framed my response as my personal view (as that is what it is - including saying "I don't however think I'm 'right' in my view of this, and absolutely support peoples decisions to pursue the retailer"), I am suprised that you frame your views as unambiguous fact.

The problem is it's not. If you really want to argue that the legislation around 'physical possession' = received in person by the customer, then by the same logic, anything posted through a letterbox could also be argued as non-compliant/INR. Anything handed to anyone other than the purchaser could also be argued as non-compliant.

It's not as clear-cut or polarised as you wish it to be, hence 7 pages.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Exodi said:

Purely out of interest if your parcel was pinched by some toerag, despite the cameras, etc, would you expect the retailer to refund/replace? 

I don't like these sorts of questions because having never suffered a loss due to theft (and having greatly benefited from the convenience of 'non-physical' deliveries) I am aware I will be biased on this. Answering with the expected response would only prompt the retort "well you would say that."

But moving away from being a convenience spoiled consumer, I am a director of a manufacturing business that frequently sells direct to consumers - I have witnessed the sharp end of the other side, particularly the frustration caused from receiving an INR refund request for an item with tracking showing the item delivered to the correct address (though not specifically handed to the purchaser). We also see a lot of fraudulent returns (particularly processed through Amazon, but that's another thread...), so I'm additionally wary that if 'parcel not physically handed to the person named on the invoice = automatic refund' then some people might take the opportunity to report an INR whenever they see it has been delivered on their doorstep.

So genuinely, if I was at work and I see on my camera that someone has gone through my gate and stolen the parcel(s) down the side of my house, I wouldn't demand the retailer(s) send me a replacement, I'd possibly call the police with the footage (which I'm not naive to knowing 99% of the time will achieve nothing) and almost certainly be in a bad mood for a few days.

I think as I work in a senior position, I'm possibly not the best person to give advice on consumer rights on a forum like this (where advice is understandably tailored to benefit consumers). I also appreciate that some may feel that (faceless) 'businesses' generally have bigger pockets so can afford (or should have priced in) the blow from losses like this. I don't however think I'm 'right' in my view of this, and absolutely support peoples decisions to pursue the retailer if that's what they decide to do, it's just not something I would do personally.

My view expressed above about non-physical deliveries came strictly from the view of 'careful what you wish for or you just might get it'.

While we can agree that physically received deliveries are safer than non-physically received deliveries, I don't think many people are willing pay the inconvenience and cost of it. As I said before, it's already possible to mandate physical delivery (e.g. through signed for or ID special services), but no-one does.

It was a very unfair question  

Personally I don't see it as a case of business having big pockets, I see it as distance selling allows a business to access far more customers which increases their volume allowing them to benefit from economies of scale which not only drives down prices resulting in more sales cycling through to greater economies of scale but equally lower prices hinder competition who don't have such economies of scale.

That is a massive benefit to any business off set by a tiny problem of losing cost price on the odd sale where something happens to a parcel left in a safe place (of course there are other costs from obligations such as the right to cancel and other problems exclusive to distance selling that need overcoming). 

But yes I agree with all of what you said, similar situation of previously running a business and spending years dealing with INR claims which disappeared once Royal Mail tracking for Large Letters began and fully appreciate the problem of dishonesty is far greater than parcels being stolen from safe places with the balance being very hard to get right. 

To be honest, I've pretty much agreed with every word you've said in this thread (which isn't always the case, but that's a symptom of you being far more appropriate for the consumer rights board than me!).

Exodi

Alderbank said:

I now regularly collect my Amazon stuff from my local Next store, eBay items from Argos and John Lewis from my local Shell garage. My local Post Office does Click&Collect as do convenience stores open until 10pm. Those digital lockers are handy too especially for returning stuff.
I feel emancipated from the thralldom of sitting in all day waiting for deliveries.

I realise this is not for everyone and doesn't work for very large items but it works fine for me.

What do others think about these alternatives to 'leave it round the back'?

The postal lockers are probably one of my favorite innovations of the last decade. I regularly get stuff delivered by Amazon to their lockers (as I'm not a Prime member they'd charge me to deliver to my house for orders under £25, but it's free to a locker).

Regarding postage, the convenience of being able to stick a label on a parcel and drop it in a locker without any face-to-face interaction is A+. My (introverted) wife absolutely swears by them.

Undervalued

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Undervalued said:

There is a house, in a nice neighbourhood I walk past quite regularly, that has a strong steel box (presumably bolted down) near the front door. It has a clear printed notice asking any parcel delivery to put the item in the box then snap the padlock closed. No idea what happens if they have more than one delivery on the same day! I suspect the box is in view of their door bell camera.

I don't know how many couriers actually do as the sign asks or what happens if they come home to find the box locked with no parcel inside!

It may be that something like that, particularly for people who are out a lot, would be a sensible compromise?

If my A4 picture frame is delivered first and then another courier delivers my 5 kilos of nuts and bolts who is responsible for the broken picture frame? 

Passing of risk suggests the retailer, every option seems to have a can of worms.

I'm sure there was some ideas floating about where couriers could leave parcels in the boot of a car.  

If the first courier delivering the picture frame followed the instructions he would snap the padlock closed, so the second courier wouldn't be able to put the 5 kilos of bolts on top of it in the steel box!

Doesn't solve the problem of a secure place for the second delivery, as I mentioned in my post, but it has stopped the picture frame from getting broken (or stolen)!!

tightauldgit

Exodi said:

tightauldgit said:

Its all a bit of a mess at the minute especially after all the rules seemed to change with COVID but I don't accept that simply leaving a parcel in the vicinity of the address of the recipient should be considered delivery and I think it's a practice that really should stop. 

While I sympathise with your past experiences, as someone who lives in a good neighborhood, cameras on the front, side and back of the house, and a side gate (left unlocked for couriers) I can not state enough how happy I am that couriers take the initiative to leave parcels round the side of the house when we're not in (as much as that may infuriate some in this thread would prefer regression to physical/signed (and more costlier) deliveries).

My wife and I both work 9-5 weekdays, so it is effectively impossible for us to receive a parcel on weekdays if it has to be received in person. I expect this is the same for a significant amount of people. On weekends the last thing we want to do is sit in the house and wait for deliveries.

We actively use merchants/couriers who tend to leave goods outside (like Evri or Amazon) instead of couriers who take it back to a sorting office for collection (Royal Mail). It doesn't matter where I live, every sorting office I've ever been to is usually in an awkward place and doesn't have parking within a million miles.

So please, I beg the couriers to carry on leaving goods outside to the dissatisfaction of a few people (which can continue to be dealt with on a case by case basis). If putting up cameras is a possibility, I'd encourage all to do so. Having a video doorbell is invaluable, and while I've only ever needed to 'use' it once, it was a quick conversation of 'your item shows as delivered at 13:42' 'my video doorbell footage shows no delivery was attempted'. It's not just to prove that an item was/wasn't delivered. It also makes it less likely to be stolen off your doorstep with a camera pointing at it.

People like yourself could still be accommodated within the 'safe place' opt in system though. My point is that it shouldn't be assumed that it's OK to simply leave things on doorsteps etc as a default. 

At the very least there should be someway of saying to a courier I don't want this left outside.

 

tightauldgit

Okell said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Exodi said:

tightauldgit said:

Its all a bit of a mess at the minute especially after all the rules seemed to change with COVID but I don't accept that simply leaving a parcel in the vicinity of the address of the recipient should be considered delivery and I think it's a practice that really should stop. 

While I sympathise with your past experiences, as someone who lives in a good neighborhood, cameras on the front, side and back of the house, and a side gate (left unlocked for couriers) I can not state enough how happy I am that couriers take the initiative to leave parcels round the side of the house when we're not in (as much as that may infuriate some in this thread would prefer regression to physical/signed (and more costlier) deliveries).

My wife and I both work 9-5 weekdays, so it is effectively impossible for us to receive a parcel on weekdays if it has to be received in person. I expect this is the same for a significant amount of people. On weekends the last thing we want to do is sit in the house and wait for deliveries.

We actively use merchants/couriers who tend to leave goods outside (like Evri or Amazon) instead of couriers who take it back to a sorting office for collection (Royal Mail). It doesn't matter where I live, every sorting office I've ever been to is usually in an awkward place and doesn't have parking within a million miles.

So please, I beg the couriers to carry on leaving goods outside to the dissatisfaction of a few people (which can continue to be dealt with on a case by case basis). If putting up cameras is a possibility, I'd encourage all to do so. Having a video doorbell is invaluable, and while I've only ever needed to 'use' it once, it was a quick conversation of 'your item shows as delivered at 13:42' 'my video doorbell footage shows no delivery was attempted'. It's not just to prove that an item was/wasn't delivered. It also makes it less likely to be stolen off your doorstep with a camera pointing at it.

Purely out of interest if your parcel was pinched by some toerag, despite the cameras, etc, would you expect the retailer to refund/replace? 

That is the $64000 question!

Those who seem to favour the view that the retailer should not be liable appear to be arguing along the following lines:

1.  Couriers not fulfilling the retailer's legal obligations by cutting corners provide a more convenient and cheaper online retail experience

2.  This is to everybody's benefit

3.  Therefore, because it's to everybody's benefit, when it goes wrong the consumer alone should bear the loss and not the retailer.

Whereas the correct argument is:

1.  Couriers not fulfilling the retailer's legal obligations by cutting corners provide a more convenient and cheaper online retail experience

2.  This is to everybody's benefit

3.  Therefore everybody should bear the cost of failed deliveries by the retailer adjusting their prices accordingly so they can compensate those who suffer failed deliveries.

This makes economic sense and adheres to the principle that the true cost of providing a service should be borne by all service users and should not just be subsidised by unfairly loading the cost of losses onto those individuals who suffered the loss.

If you want a real economic argument then if couriers dumping stuff on doorsteps instead of delivering things properly was REALLY to everyone's benefit then they should be charging a premium for that better dump and run service over the bad old way of actually making the effort to deliver things. Then the extra cost would be borne by the people who reap the benefits of having your stuff strewn wherever courier companies decide to eject it from their vans and the people like me who are willing to suffer actually receiving what we order won't pay extra for a service we don't use or benefit from.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Undervalued said:

If the first courier delivering the picture frame followed the instructions he would snap the padlock closed, so the second courier wouldn't be able to put the 5 kilos of bolts on top of it in the steel box!

Doesn't solve the problem of a secure place for the second delivery, as I mentioned in my post, but it has stopped the picture frame from getting broken (or stolen)!!

I see, it's a one time deal kind of thing, I've considered such for us in the past, something with a one way door for multiple parcels to drop through and a locked door for retrieving them, was running the business at the time and sometimes would end up with 4 different couriers every day but the problem of things getting squashed crossed my mind so I didn't bother. The shed is perfectly safe really I just wanted to be able to lock our gates and still receive parcels. 

Exodi said:
The problem is it's not. If you really want to argue that the legislation around 'physical possession' = received in person by the customer, then by the same logic, anything posted through a letterbox could also be argued as non-compliant/INR. Anything handed to anyone other than the purchaser could also be argued as non-compliant.

It's an interesting point , if there's a courier I don't know I usually wander out, they say "number 3", I nod and they hand the parcel over when I could have come from 1 2 or 3 or been anyone really, we've even had Jehovah Witness people wander through the gardens dragging a suitcase along, I thought they were visitors to our neighbours until they handed me a leaflet. 

There was a video online of a burglar letting the dog back in before walking off with the stuff they'd looted (I'm very sceptical of everything being staged these days for content, it's impossible to tell what is real and what isn't) but anyone could appear to live at an address. 

I think if the couriers cut less corners and didn't do things "silly" like leave parcels on door steps in full view of busy streets, and not to mention actually being at the correct address, these topics, and the debate about where the line is drawn, would very rarely, if ever, come up and those corners seem to be cut by the couriers who are overworked for little pay or are new to the job on a round with a high turnover of staff because the pay and conditions are unacceptable. 

If you took away the "silly" situations and the previously mentioned dishonesty then perhaps the extremely rare cases of a parcel being given to the wrong person or stolen from a letter box would face less resistance from the retailer. 

RefluentBeans

Okell said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Exodi said:

tightauldgit said:

Its all a bit of a mess at the minute especially after all the rules seemed to change with COVID but I don't accept that simply leaving a parcel in the vicinity of the address of the recipient should be considered delivery and I think it's a practice that really should stop. 

While I sympathise with your past experiences, as someone who lives in a good neighborhood, cameras on the front, side and back of the house, and a side gate (left unlocked for couriers) I can not state enough how happy I am that couriers take the initiative to leave parcels round the side of the house when we're not in (as much as that may infuriate some in this thread would prefer regression to physical/signed (and more costlier) deliveries).

My wife and I both work 9-5 weekdays, so it is effectively impossible for us to receive a parcel on weekdays if it has to be received in person. I expect this is the same for a significant amount of people. On weekends the last thing we want to do is sit in the house and wait for deliveries.

We actively use merchants/couriers who tend to leave goods outside (like Evri or Amazon) instead of couriers who take it back to a sorting office for collection (Royal Mail). It doesn't matter where I live, every sorting office I've ever been to is usually in an awkward place and doesn't have parking within a million miles.

So please, I beg the couriers to carry on leaving goods outside to the dissatisfaction of a few people (which can continue to be dealt with on a case by case basis). If putting up cameras is a possibility, I'd encourage all to do so. Having a video doorbell is invaluable, and while I've only ever needed to 'use' it once, it was a quick conversation of 'your item shows as delivered at 13:42' 'my video doorbell footage shows no delivery was attempted'. It's not just to prove that an item was/wasn't delivered. It also makes it less likely to be stolen off your doorstep with a camera pointing at it.

Purely out of interest if your parcel was pinched by some toerag, despite the cameras, etc, would you expect the retailer to refund/replace? 

That is the $64000 question!

Those who seem to favour the view that the retailer should not be liable appear to be arguing along the following lines:

1.  Couriers not fulfilling the retailer's legal obligations by cutting corners provide a more convenient and cheaper online retail experience

2.  This is to everybody's benefit

3.  Therefore, because it's to everybody's benefit, when it goes wrong the consumer alone should bear the loss and not the retailer.

Whereas the correct argument is:

1.  Couriers not fulfilling the retailer's legal obligations by cutting corners provide a more convenient and cheaper online retail experience

2.  This is to everybody's benefit

3.  Therefore everybody should bear the cost of failed deliveries by the retailer adjusting their prices accordingly so they can compensate those who suffer failed deliveries.

This makes economic sense and adheres to the principle that the true cost of providing a service should be borne by all service users and should not just be subsidised by unfairly loading the cost of losses onto those individuals who suffered the loss.

But everybody doesn’t bear the cost of failed delivery. Royal Mail states they deliver to an address not a name. If they put it gently over a closed (but unlocked) half-height gate, they have fulfilled their contract. If a person comes along and opens the gate and steals the parcel, they don’t pay up - they did their job apparently so don’t shoulder any of the burden. 

By increasing the prices of the product to cover losses, it’s not the retailer paying for it, it’s the consumer still. Just spread out over hundreds of customers. 

My argument is, and always has been, that the delivery company should shoulder some responsibility. If they are then liable then they are incentivised to get the parcel there, to the recipient. 

The current laws place the burden between the retailer and the customer. The retailer can say, as has happened multiple times on this board, that the parcel has been delivered to your address. They can turn round and say their reading of the law is physical possession is met by the safe space, and if you don’t agree then take me to court and let’s fight it out (less confrontationally than that, hopefully!), and there’s no real answer to who is right or wrong. That’s why I said the law isn’t fit for purpose in modern society. The law was written nearly 10 years ago - the world has changed a fair bit since then. I think that aspect of the law needs padding out. 

bris

user1977 said:

Okell said:

(Personally I would never nominate a safe place for delivery, I would only identify a named individual).

Does anyone offer that as an option? (given that even a delivery to your own address is generally just "handed to whoever answers the door", not an identified individual)

Yodel certainly wont, they deliver to the address. They take a picture with door open and the parcel in the recipients hand, they never takes photos of faces.

If a safe place is an option the app tells the courier where it is and they leave it there with a photo as proof.

If no safe place is on the couriers app then its a failed delivery, they get 3 chances to deliver then the recipient has to go to the depot to collect it.

If its fresh food which Yodel now does in a big way if there is no one there to accept it its left on the doorstep with a photo taken, if its stolen its tough luck, There is no second or third chances with fresh food.