Tool Deliveries Left on State Highway near Mailboxes

[RichRiddle]

My local deliveries have been leaving packages including expensive items such as tools on the state highway near the mail boxes for the three neighbor houses. The farmhouse is at least 100 yards away via an unobstructed driveway. The delivery company even shows the option to "report a missing package." Here's a hint; drop packages off in front of the house.

 

[P0234]

My mail box is about 1/3 of a mile away from my house on a fairly busy road. You have to have a good tracking app that pings you when the delivery is made. It ***** but living in the country is awesome and worth it.

 

[toolmiser]

I wish they would ring my doorbell when they deliver. I don't expect them to wait, but it would be nice to know when something is delivered. We had an Amazon notification this morning that they were three drops away, (in town), so I thought I would wait outside and save the dog from barking, it took 30 minutes.

 

[mreisner]

FedEx freight left a Snap-On toolbox at the end of my dealer's driveway once

 

[djbmw]

UPS did this **** to me twice. I complained to customer service but that didnt fix the problem. As long as your driveway isnt 1,000 feet long (i believe thats the limit, if I recall my discussion with customer service), they are supposed to bring it to the door. HOWEVER,.. UPS gives their drivers "discression" on this policy, and allows them to leave it anywhere they please if they assume it will be "safe".

Easiest fix, ensure your shipping service that you chose requires a signature for delivery (though, they will likely just leave a card in your mailbox without attempting delivery then)

 

[rancherbill]

My local deliveries have been leaving packages including expensive items such as tools on the state highway near the mail boxes for the three neighbor houses. The farmhouse is at least 100 yards away via an unobstructed driveway. The delivery company even shows the option to "report a missing package." Here's a hint; drop packages off in front of the house.

I am 100% on your side.

You cannot expect top flight service if you want free delivery - it costs money

IF it is a real problem get it delivered to the UPS Store or whoever has mail boxes. They will accept parcels for a small charge.

What pisses me off, is if there's a hint of snow they will not come to the house and they leave it on the street. Two years ago, I found several packages where the county had plowed snow and covered them.

 

[mepstein]

I get everything delivered to my work. Otherwise, it's left by the side of the road like above. If they do come up my drive, they back up on the grass so the work address works best.

 

[Levaughn]

I get someone else's packages delivered to me.

 

[finn]

Both UPS and FedEx either drive down my Michigan drive and back out, or back down and drive out.

The drive is maybe 400’ long.

USPS packages get placed in the (large) mailbox, or if they don’t fit, walked to the door.

Same in Az., but the drive is short and steep, so the truck stays at the curb.

Never had anything left by the street at either place.

 

[BTL-A4]

Would it be possible to get a really large mailbox of some sort that larger packages could go in?

EDIT: just looked. Not cheap, but available. Google search link

 

[mattstevens]

Most of the major delivery services provide a way to create an account and get automatic notifications for any package coming to your address. I usually get an email within a couple minutes of something being delivered. Some will also let you specify instructions for all your incoming packages. No guarantee the driver will respect them, but they would at least see your note.

Also, cameras with person/package detection are great. Instant video clip to my phone when someone shows up.

 

[djbmw]

Most of the major delivery services provide a way to create an account and get automatic notifications for any package coming to your address. I usually get an email within a couple minutes of something being delivered. Some will also let you specify instructions for all your incoming packages. No guarantee the driver will respect them, but they would at least see your note.

Also, cameras with person/package detection are great. Instant video clip to my phone when someone shows up.

But what does that have to do with a carrier dumping the box at the roadside because they didnt feel like going to the door?

 

[mattstevens]

It's a way to put a note in the system asking the driver to please bring packages to the house, and it's a way to get notified as soon as your stuff shows up so you can go get it before someone else does if they don't.

 

[King Chrome]

Would it be possible to get a really large mailbox of some sort that larger packages could go in?

EDIT: just looked. Not cheap, but available. Google search link

It's called a (locking) parcel box or a parcel drop box. You'd need an absolutely enormous one for tools. Maybe with some manner of absorption for the shock of dropping the parcel into the bottom. While the ones you can buy are already certified for both u.s. mail and parcels, It's fathomable that one could build their own from material as simple as wood.

You could combine the mailbox and parcel box into a single unit but the function of the parcel drop part probably needs to be completely separate from the "mailbox" area in order for Fedex/UPS to drop it inside. Square it away with your postmaster.

 

[johnre]

Sometimes multiple neighbors have lost packages from their porches shortly after delivery, so one would assume the local delivery trucks are being followed by porch pirates. Since Amazon allows shipping to their Hub Counter locations, and there are several near me, at some point I may have to consider using them. But the point of online shopping is supposed to be value and convenience, and if I have to drive somewhere with limited hours of operation, park, and go into a storefront to get my item, then that picture is starting to look a lot like using a local retailer.

I already use their Hub Counters for returns, but in that case, it can be done at my convenience - I just bundle the dropoff into my other errands.

Odd, I guess we're regressing back to the delivery model that Sears and Montgomery Ward had evolved over 100 years ago!

 

[Sumboodie]

USPS doesnt deliver packages here. Have to make a ~45 min round trip to go get them.

Amazon started delvering a Dewalt months ago. Feze. And ups do.as well.

 

[lardy1]

I'm 500' off the road and all of my deliveries have been brought to the house.

 

[kbuhagiar]

For us, it seems to be luck of the draw...over the last five years we've lived full time at three different residences (one suburban, one rural, and one semi-rural).

Far and away the best and most conscientious delivery folks at all three locations have been USPS, with their personnel consistently bring packages as close to our front door as possible.

UPS comes in at a solid number two, although deliveries from them is definitely character-driven, and by that I mean most UPS drivers are great, but a couple are just lazy dickheads who seem bound and determined to make a delivery as difficult as possible (on the side of the road, outside our open gate).

FedEx is the wild card here - our FedEx deliveries at the urban location were outstanding, always delivered to our doorstep. Same with the rural location, drop-offs no farther than at the garage door. At our current semi-rural location, completely unpredictable. One day the delivery will be in a neat pile a few steps from our front door, other days it will be tossed to the side of the road next to our open gate (and I do mean tossed; I have it on video).

Honorable mention to Amazon drivers - out of the hundreds of deliveries we have received I can only recall two mis-deliveries, and those were rectified by them almost immediately.

Dis-honorable mention to On-Trac - They mostly delivered to our rural residence, and they were horrible. Always a challenge when they delivered to see just how far from or house they would leave our stuff.

 

[MOS3522]

Get a box at your local UPS store, problem solved.

 

[kbuhagiar]

Get a box at your local UPS store, problem solved.

Not really.
That's an alternative, but sort of defeats the whole 'delivery' part of 'delivery service'

 

[MOS3522]

Not really.
That's an alternative, but sort of defeats the whole 'delivery' part of 'delivery service'

If that doesn't work then can you pay extra for signature required service?

 

[niget2002]

My issue is everyone of them has recently started leaving stuff in front of the garage instead of on the porch lately.

The most recent was 10 big boxes that they put right in front of where my wife needs to drive in order to enter our garage. What was worse is that the 10 big boxes weren't even mine. They were for my neighbor. I texted the guy to come get his boxes, but I had to go move all of them so my wife could park when she got home.

 

[Wolley]

Is that your house in the picture? The driver prob doesn't want to or can't back down that steep hill.

 

[Cruzan80]

It's called a (locking) parcel box or a parcel drop box. You'd need an absolutely enormous one for tools. Maybe with some manner of absorption for the shock of dropping the parcel into the bottom. While the ones you can buy are already certified for both u.s. mail and parcels, It's fathomable that one could build their own from material as simple as wood.

You could combine the mailbox and parcel box into a single unit but the function of the parcel drop part probably needs to be completely separate from the "mailbox" area in order for Fedex/UPS to drop it inside. Square it away with your postmaster.

Also consider if you need the locking function. We live fairly back in a section of houses, and the entrance to all the houses dead-end s (no pass-thru). We have had a ton of success with just a large contico box (still not super cheap, but less expensive than some options). Mostly we just wanted something for keeping the weather off it, and to stop our dogs from tearing into packages, or them blowing away.

For Amazon, it didn't work to add "Delivery Notes". Found out it only shows up half the time (if that). So on the second line of the address, it says "PUT IN BLACK BOX OUTSIDE GATE". Still didnt have 100% success until I started leaving bad delivery reviews, and asking for pictures.

UPS/FedEx will usually see the box, and put it in there if it is too big for the mailbox. USPS just leaves it outside the box.

 

[King Chrome]

Also consider if you need the locking function.

Yeah, I read into it wrong, I thought the topic was about theft. In a some areas you can likely get away simply concealing the fact that a package has been delivered to avoid theft

 

[RichRiddle]

Is that your house in the picture? The driver prob doesn't want to or can't back down that steep hill.

No. That is the neighboring house. My house is not down a steep embankment.

 

[dscheidt]

No. That is the neighboring house. My house is not down a steep embankment.

you have good clear numbers where they can see it? from the mail box?

 

[SteveCh]

I had a very expensive musical instrument shipped to me via UPS with "signature required," this to my rural home. I was contacted via text the day prior to arrival to remind me someone had to be home to sign. The gate on the driveway is 500 ft from the house and that is where I found the item after checking before I went to bed after I gave up on the item arriving. UPS driver just left it down there and lucky me no one driving by grabbed it. USPS delivers nothing to homes in our county, even first class mail, so we go to the post office five miles away to pick up their shipments.

 

[kbuhagiar]

I had a very expensive musical instrument shipped to me via UPS with "signature required," this to my rural home. I was contacted via text the day prior to arrival to remind me someone had to be home to sign. The gate on the driveway is 500 ft from the house and that is where I found the item after checking before I went to bed after I gave up on the item arriving. UPS driver just left it down there and lucky me no one driving by grabbed it. USPS delivers nothing to homes in our county, even first class mail, so we go to the post office five miles away to pick up their shipments.

Yeah, guess what, I've learned the hard way that 'signature required' is a bunch of ********.
I've had a brand new laptop delivered 'signature required' left at my door, not to mention a case of wine and some expensive digital automotive instrumentation without any signature.

I guess they figure you'll be so happy to receive your new toy/PC/whatever that you won't bother making a complaint. And to a certain extent, they're right.

 

[dscheidt]

If you want a signature gathered at delivery, you need to either send it registered mail or a parcel service's 'adult signature required' (usually used for shipping alcohol and controlled substances). anything else, the person doing the delivery can decide not to collect a signature, if they think the package is safe.

 

[RichRiddle]

Do you have good clear numbers where they can see it from the mail box?

The fist picture below was taken from the front of the mailboxes.

To answer your question, at the driveway entrance there is a pillar (solar light attached to top of it) with the address in reflective numbers visible when traveling either direction on the road. The pillar also has the address on the front when looking directly up the driveway. There is a 2 x 3 foot double-sided sign, like a realtor sign, hanging from a post (with a light attached) with both the address and name of the farm. That sign is visible when traveling either direction. The telephone pole has the address attached to it.

Additionally when you drive up the driveway 50 feet there is another address sign (you can see it in the first picture to the right of the 2 x 3 foot sign) with the address, and yet one last sign another 100 feet more into the driveway. Oh, and the address is on two points on the house in six inch numbers.

 

[mark-NJ]

I guess I'm lucky: We have a place in Maine that's got a 300 foot driveway through the woods, off of a 1/2 mile dirt fire road. FedEx delivers to our door.

 

[Dagny]

Looks like a nice area.

 

[ybnormal]

For us, it seems to be luck of the draw...over the last five years we've lived full time at three different residences (one suburban, one rural, and one semi-rural).

Far and away the best and most conscientious delivery folks at all three locations have been USPS, with their personnel consistently bring packages as close to our front door as possible.

UPS comes in at a solid number two, although deliveries from them is definitely character-driven, and by that I mean most UPS drivers are great, but a couple are just lazy dickheads who seem bound and determined to make a delivery as difficult as possible (on the side of the road, outside our open gate).

FedEx is the wild card here - our FedEx deliveries at the urban location were outstanding, always delivered to our doorstep. Same with the rural location, drop-offs no farther than at the garage door. At our current semi-rural location, completely unpredictable. One day the delivery will be in a neat pile a few steps from our front door, other days it will be tossed to the side of the road next to our open gate (and I do mean tossed; I have it on video).

Honorable mention to Amazon drivers - out of the hundreds of deliveries we have received I can only recall two mis-deliveries, and those were rectified by them almost immediately.

Dis-honorable mention to On-Trac - They mostly delivered to our rural residence, and they were horrible. Always a challenge when they delivered to see just how far from or house they would leave our stuff.

abut the same here. Amazon and UPS to front door, FedEx is half-assed and only walk it up 30' to the top of our steep driveway. one time they even left it on the planter box at the driveway entrance on the street. lazy ess bstiches!

 

[RichRiddle]

Looks like a nice area.

It's a nice quiet historic neighborhood that sits on a state highway. The neighbors are very tight knit, and most are related and families have lived there for five generations or more. However, many people still drive the state highway because it provides faster travel into the nearby city, and the nearby Interstate frequently backs up.

Last year, a neighbor ordered a set of Dewalt cordless tools that the carrier simply placed below the mailboxes with the Dewalt packaging easily visible. I arrived home and noticed a car pulled over in front of our mailboxes and went to retrieve the mail for the day. I confronted the driver of the car who was attempting to abscond with the tools. He claimed he thought someone, "put them on the curb to give them away for free." I pointed to the dash cam in the truck and said, "Now we know you and your vehicle." He sped off. I carried the tools down to the house in the first picture.

 

[KYToolz]

I live up a “holler” in rural South East Kentucky. Mine is the last house and the road dead-ends into it. In order for delivery trucks to turn around, they must come to within about 50’ of the house, so I’ve never had an issue with packages not reaching the house. This works out great for us, because we order almost everything except for food and receive packages almost daily.