(For people who don’t know, BestBuy is an electronics store that is common in the USA)
This would be in c/ActuallyInfuriating if the consumer protections weren’t as good, but for now, its just a chargeback away from fixing the problem. (I hope the bank doesn’t fucks me over. If they fuck with me, then this is gonna end up in Actually Infuriating). Anyways:
Two days ago, I bought a laptop on BestBuy, but they didn’t use UPS like they had in the past, instead they used Doordash 🤦♂️. When I saw that, I wanted to cancel because I didn’t trust fucking Doordash, but it didn’t let me cancel, so I just hoped nothing bad happens.
Oh wow, my gut feeling about Doordash actually predicted the future.
So, today it was supppsed to be delivered, I saw the guy park in front of my house for a few minutes (I know that’s him because I saw him on the map on the Doordash tracking link), dude walked out, looked my house, went back into his car, drove to the back alleyway (its a neighborhood of single family row-houses), I saw him on my CCTV cameras, he place down the package at a neighbor’s back door, take a pickture, then grabbed it place it back in his car, then quickly drove away.
Bruh.
Now I have to make some phonecalls. Thanks, corporate, great fucking job. I hope the CEO of bestbuy can choke on his pay increase.
And if you are wonder why I didn’t just go to BestBuy, I live in a car-centric city and I don’t have easy access to a car, and carrying big electronics in public transit is just asking for someone to mug you.
At this point, corporations are just in a race to see who gets to be crowned the worst corporation. I mean I hate Amazon and Bezos too, but at least they have a PIN verification system now, so drivers can’t just steal stuff, wtf is BestBuy doing? Fuck these shitty corporation.
I wish I could show you the camera footage, but don’t wanna get doxed.
Probably not using ~~best~WorstBuy again, not with this bullshit “Doordash” delivery. What an actual disaster.
Btw I tried calling bestbuy, they had a fucking voice-bot thing that refused to let me talk to a human until 48 hours has passed. So I just go straight for the dispute, right? I don’t wanna wait 48 hours.
Update: So I got through the bot thing by spamming 0 (or perhaps some other key, I can’t be sure), I got to a rep and explained the situation, they said they send a request to BestBuy and BestBuy will do an “investigation” with Doordash, whatever that means, and then refund. They said it’s supposed to take 3 bussiness days. Well, today is Thursday, Tomorrow is Friday, so I’m guessing by Tuesday end of the day it’s supposed to be resolved?
I mean, I’m giving them 1 week. I’m definitely filing that dispute the Friday next week. Technically I have 60 days to dispute, but I’m gonna stay on the safe side and 1 week is all I’m giving. I’m really wanting to just file right now, but I’m don’t want to get banned from BestBuy for life just yet, but if they don’t refund within a week, I’m just gonna have to be banned from bestbuy, I guess… 🤷♂️
Gonna update later if y’all are still curious in a few days.
I remember like 6 years ago chatting on Reddit to some American about how the system of just leaving packages at the door is unsafe as fuck and I would never trust it with anything more expensive than a pizza.
Here there’s delivery points and automats in pretty much every grocery store. So you can have shit delivered, but unless it’s something massive (or delivered food), people rarely do. You just get a notification on your phone and pick up your package from the point you chose to prioritise. Sometimes it can be full and you have to pickup a package from the next point over, but they’re all over the place so.
The American went on a huge rant about how porch pirates are rare as can be and how it would be beyond frustrating and a waste of time to pick up packages from your nearest grocery store.
Would it matter in this case though? If the person delivering it was going to steal it, they would just tell you it was in the locker anyways right?
The lockers usually have surveillance around them.
So you’d go there, open up an empty box and it would be incredibly easy to show who stole it. Plus even if there wasn’t surveillance, you could film yourself opening the slot, which would then show an empty slot.
So yeah, it does make a difference. The package is never left unattended, it’s never “up for grabs” by anyone.
That being said thieving and whatnot is comparatively rare in Finland anyway. We’re #1 in the wallet drop test. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/least-honest-cities
I agree with you to an extent, but the other American was right, they’re really not as common as you might think based on internet posts. I’ve never once had a package stolen, and I get deliveries multiple times a week. For me, going out to pickup a delivery would be inconvenient because I work from home and don’t want to have to make a 10 min trip by car just for that.
This situation is a whole other story though. That’s the delivery driver straight up stealing the package. Absolutely bonkers.
He most certainly wasn’t.
He was practically denying that it ever happened, when it’s common as pickpocketing. Meaning more common in some places, less so in others, but definitely a known and existing issue.
There is an entire industry of companies that make “drop off boxes” that allow the deliverer to put a package in it, but doesn’t allow anyone without the pin number to open it. We live in the dumbest timeline.
Oh yeah, they’re exceedingly common here.
Usually placed inside commercial buildings like stores etc, there are a few just outside as well. They’re quite thin metal so I assume in some places in the US someone would just take a crowbar to a whole station, but if it’s inside a building that’s gonna be much harder.
You used to be able to require a signature which would force a direct hand-off, but people got annoyed with it. Then drivers started skipping those deliveries to get through their shift faster. So now only expensive courier services and the postal service still really do it.
Here you’ll need to have an ID or at least a driving licence (which isn’t technically an official ID, but is accepted as such in most places outside banks and whatnot) to go and pick up your shit.
Well, not anymore, as lots of them go to the automats and then you just require the PIN.
And depending on what sort of package you’re getting in the mail, you can sometimes give your package id to a friend who can pick it up, but they’ll need an ID of their own as well so it’ll get registered who picked up the parcel.
The US is a lot vaster but one still imagines people wouldn’t mind picking up packages from the nearest grocery store they use, if it meant that their shit can’t be stolen?
This will be super regional. A lot of the US a trip the the grocery store is a 30 minute drive one way. They make that trip once a month and load up their SUV with all their groceries.
Some people work 3 Jobs and their schedule is super tight, so even a 10 minute trip is a burden they would rather risk porch pirates than deal with.
I believe there are lots of places that porch pirates make delivery to door or mailbox just unrealistic. Personally I have never been a victim of theft to my knowledge. My knee jerk response to mitigation strategies is “why? It’s not a problem for me” and I suspect most of my neighborhood this would be true.
So I suspect Americans reaction will vary dramatically by region. I see the Amazon dropoff locations and the boxes in stores near me and I don’t see anyone use them.
I sometimes wonder if I am ever broke and hungry if I could just grab some food off the pickup shelf in a restraint near me. I won’t, because I am not broke and have never needed to skip meals, because I am fortunate to have friends and family support even when I was broke. But it must not be a huge problem where I am or those shelves would not have food on them.
There is a scale I think, for a laptop? Yeah I would go to a locker, for 90% of my packages? Nah, drop it at my door and we will deal with it if someone steals it on the super rare occasion.
The problem is so ubiquitous , they’re commonly known as “porch pirates”.
“~Two million packages go missing every day, 90 000 in New York alone”
And the video is five years old.
https://youtu.be/v90BhbW5_pM
It’s low as a percentage of total packages, but some areas are worse than others. For instance, in San Francisco it’s necessary to leave the trunk of your car open overnight so professional thieves don’t break your window to check it.
Compared to other systems, seems like it’s pretty high.
Universal basic income would discourage crimes like that.
If I had to get a car in SF, I think I’d go for a small hatchback so you can see into the trunk, if it’s that bad.
out of all packages I would trust a pizza the least
I mean I only need it to be there.
I genuinely don’t even know which part of a pizza you wouldn’t trust. Is it like the restaurant or the driver or your neighbours? What are they gonna do aside from swiping your pizza?