Amazon has yet to respond to our questions about its delivery methods, and what it’ll do to prevent this from happening again
Amazon will sometimes use special carriers to drop off packages to customers and sometimes they’ll put those packages in your mailbox, but a local post office says that’s not allowed.
And if it happens, they’ll take it.
Linda McSweeney spent weeks hoping to find the perfect gift for her daughter’s 13th birthday.
“I was pretty excited about it,” she said.
Like many teenage girls, her daughter has a new-found passion for nail care. When mom found a kit online, she knew it’d be a big hit.
“It wasn’t available in stores, so I had been looking for a while and the ratings were good,” McSweeney said. “So I purchased it from Amazon.”
Just in time for the big day, McSweeney says she received an email indicating the package had been delivered. When she checked her mailbox, though, it was empty.
“I really thought it was a theft to be honest with you,” she said.
Someone had taken the package, but it wasn’t anyone McSweeney would have suspected. A note left on her doorstep revealed the package was confiscated by the U.S. Postal Service. Read more
the box is solely for postal use …not fed ex , not ups, not amazon ! and not your newspaper boy !
Amazon drivers speeding through residential areas doing a half-ass job.
This is totally within the USPS’ rights. Our mailboxes are for USPS mail only, and we as carriers will remove packages ourselves if they’re not ours. Other businesses want to use our boxes when they are our competitors, and that’s not right. Customers get mad if we don’t take their refused package that is clearly a FedEx or UPS parcel. What are we supposed to do with them? The delivery businesses do work with each other to an extent, but nobody is allowed to use mailboxes but the USPS period.
Amazon ought to know better, and it’s their tough shit. We are kissing their asses with their demands for Sunday deliveries and no tolerance for not delivering every package of theirs every day, even an honest oversight. They can damn well stay out of our boxes.
In my 32 years this has always been the case. The boxes technically are U.S. Government property and it says so on some mailboxes. Think of it this way – if we allowed everybody else to use our boxes where would we put your mail? Have you thought of that? No sympathy here.
Absolutely NOT the customer’s fault! Fee should have been charged to Amazon as the SENDER!!! Just another black eye the postal service doesn’t need by sticking to the letter, not the spirit of the law/rule, and another customer who will be more likely to use FedEx and UPS in the future.
Nowhere here:
http://pe.usps.gov/text/dmm300/508.htm?q=receptacle&t=H&s=R&p=1&c=DMM
is it mentioned that the receptacle is U.S. Government property, which would be patently ridiculous. Even NDCBU’s, excluding the locks, are not postal property. What it does say is this, “Any mailable matter not bearing postage and found as described above is subject to the same postage as would be paid if it were carried by mail.”
How that gives the carrier ANY authority to remove a mail piece which is the paid property of the customer and then charge THEM, and not the sender, postage is clearly up for debate as the DMM does not specifically state that right ANYWHERE!
I maintain mail processing machines and am always needed. When your job goes away due to your poor attitude and customers defecting from the USPS over stupidity like this, I doubt you’ll be able to find any sympathy either…
@ E T -10 Simmons, It’s called protecting the revenue, and every employee takes an oath on hire to do so.
ET10 Simmons, you’re better off go sucking dust and pick up trash around your machines. Leave the policy for people like me. OK?
http://pe.usps.com/Archive/HTML/DMMArchive20030810/D041.htm
“1.3Use for Mail
Except under 2.11, the receptacles described in 1.1 may be used only for matter bearing postage. Other than as permitted by 2.10 or 2.11, no part of a mail receptacle may be used to deliver any matter not bearing postage, including items or matter placed upon, supported by, attached to, hung from, or inserted into a mail receptacle. Any mailable matter not bearing postage and found as described above is subject to the same postage as would be paid if it were carried by mail”
actually it is federal law that USPS mailboxes are government property, and not USPS policy. Under no circumstances is anyone allowed to use a mailbox for any other purpose. Amazon, Fedex, and USPS have NO RIGHT whatsoever to utilize USPS property for their own gains on top of that.
3.1.3 of the cite you listed states, as does the article above, that postage has to be paid for mail in mail boxes. Since postage was not paid to the USPS, it can be charged. The question of who the box belongs to was not addressed…it belongs to the customer. But that customer can only receive mail with postage paid to the USPS.
Customer told me that it’s their mailbox that they paid with there own money. They didn’t care that Amazon using their mailbox, but told them not responsible if they have missing checks or mail. If Amazon uses their mailbox.