New I-hate-my-neighbour stickers to protect Brits' packages From Monday the Post Office will deliver letters and parcels to the house next door if you're out - and hand out new "don't trust the people next door" stickers that will tell you at a glance what type of neighbourhood you're living in. The Post Office asked for permission for surrogate deliveries back in July, and following a …
Oh for heaven's sake! Why can't these whinging people just employ house staff like the rest of us, so that there's always someone to answer the door and accept parcels?
Obviously I'm not suggesting everyone can afford a full compliment of staff (cook, valet, cleaning maids, waiters, page boys, gardener, etc), especially in the middle of a recession. But surely you can afford a basic butler or house porter?
House porter? My modest abode is far too heavy and valuable to be toted around by the working classes, which is why it is fitted with the latest in hoverskirts. One can often spot Duncodin as she traverses various bodies of water on the way to one of her seasonal estates. She's easily recognizable by the Solarium at what is during transit her stern but upon docking at, say, St Moritz is the East Wing.
Of course, one is always faced with the problem of where to have one's parcels sent when one is a-travelling the high seas or soaking up the sun in Johnny Foreigner Land. I just have them sent to the appropriate groundskeepers lodge.
"I'm not suggesting everyone can afford a full compliment of staff (cook, valet, cleaning maids, waiters, page boys, gardener, etc), especially in the middle of a recession. But surely you can afford a basic butler or house porter?"
Add a complimentary proofreader to that complement please.
What about those of us who live next to elderly people? I have no problem trusting my elderly neighbours but I don't want them being harassed every time I miss a delivery. I once missed a delivery of a 25kg micro lathe which ended up going to my neighbours (both in their 70s). The courier didn't bother leaving a card saying what they had done with the package, so two days later, my wife opens the front door to find the lady from next door struggling with the damn thing. I can't tell you how immensely guilty I felt about that.
Now I have to put a sticker on my door implying that I hate my neighbours when I don't? I can't even put up a sign of my own explaining that they are elderly because I don't want to be responsible for them being targeted by some charlatan salesman (like that prick selling alarms shown on Watchdog this week) because I have advertised that they are potentially vulnerable.
Yeah.
Having a load of Open university stuff delivered including the returnable experiment kit , the w***er put a card through the door saying he'd put it in the recyling bin for me out of the rain.
The time read 9.30am, I got home at 5pm and you can guess what happened between those 2 times....
Had a v. expensive book bought for me for a present (so I wasn't expecting it) - sent from Amazon - RM put it by the back door on a windy autumn day and thus it got covered in leaves! I found it 2 months later (ok - i should have dealt with the leaves sooner). Wasn't in the best of nick by then...
"They could pay their staff a ... a bonus based on successful first deliveries and still save money overall."
Possibly the worst idea in the history of the world.
But evening deliveries? Yeah, it's not hard to work out. Royal Mail should have been doing it since the invention of the light bulb let people stay up in the evening after work. Amazon already do, I often get a little random guy pull up in a car at 7pm who's been paid to bring me my Amazon parcels at a sensible time. Work for him, convenient for me, better for Amazon, only people who lose out are the Royal Mail because they're too daft to do it themselves.
No unaddressed mail - This means you too Royal Mail.
Actually you can harass the RM management and EVENTUALLY (after they've whinged on about the mailing preference opt-out scheme - which bit do they not understand! That's addressed mail Duh!) they put a note on the sorting rack and the postie gets to know.
Except of course the Electoral roll is unaddressed so it doesn't get delivered, along with planning notices and other such things.
RM used to make most of their money from junk mail. don't believe they do anymore.
the Pizza and estate agents stuff is normally delivered by other people who are paid directly by the advertisers or their agents.
> other delivery companies, with whom it is required to compete these days, already have the right to leave stuff with the house next door, while it has been bound to wait for the householder or keep the parcel at the post office for collection
I must say, round here this has been normal practice since the post orifice was invented. Posties always seem to leave anything larger than a letter either with a random neighbour (with or without a card through the door, depending on how hard it's raining) or at an undisclosed location around the property - including inside the wheelie-bin/recycling container of their choice. In that respect, they're no different from any of the couriers - except they tend not to toss it at the house from yards out, or from parcelfarce who play the same games of hide-and-seek.
Personally, I'm very pleased they do this, as the local PO office is only open from 9 - 1pm, which makes it impossible for Mon-Fri workers to pick up anything, until Saturday.
they don't paint a picture of happy people. I'm bored, so I've got through random 50 so far. 49 have been "no", with 1 "yes - but only if it's an opt-in service".
Best comment so far :
"Question 1:Do you agree that Ofcom should grant approval to Royal Mail for the Delivery to Neighbour service? If not please explain your answer. :
No. Our next door neighbours (number 3) are dishonest.
Question 2:Are there other consequences following the roll out of the service across the UK that we have not included in our assessment? If so, please explain.:
Yes. Our next door neighbours (number 3) are dishonest.
Question 3:Do you have any comments on the scope and wording of the proposed Notification and approval:
Our next door neighbours (number 3) are dishonest"
I think their next door neighbours (number 3) might be a little dishonest.
So, what happens if your new, shiny, very expensive electronic gadget is delivered to, and signed for, by your neighbour (maybe even signed as 'Daffy Duck') and they decide to keep it, claiming it was never delivered to them?
Could you argue with the goods supplier that it was not your signature on the delivery receipt and you are therefore not liable for payment? What;'s the score here? I'm sure it'll happen quite a bit.
The key point is going to be whether leaving with a neighbour (after getting their signature) constitutes completion of delivery. In the past when things like this have happened I've read advice that the person who has not got the goods still has a claim against the supplier for non-receipt of goods and the supplier in turn would have a claim against the courier for not performing the delivery they were contracted to do. If the rules now allow the PostOffice to deem the delivery complete when it is signed fo by a neighbour then you could have the situation where the person waiting for the goods is told that as it has been delivered to the neighbour then they only have a claim against their neighbour.
"If the rules now allow the PostOffice to deem the delivery complete when it is signed fo by a neighbour then you could have the situation where the person waiting for the goods is told that as it has been delivered to the neighbour then they only have a claim against their neighbour."
Nope. This would only affect the contract between the supplier and RM, the person who ordered the item still has a contract with the supplier for delivery to the address given at the time of ordering. Which rarely is the address of the neighbor. So it's the supplier who will have a claim against the neigbor.
Short of a two-door lockbox bolted to the house I don't see how the Post Office can deal with the issue other than warehousing people's tat (and charging for the privilege).
Here in the US there's a concerted movement to scrap the Post Office, but those doing the pushing are shills for the private couriers. The people listening hardest seem to be smartphone internet-age fans who haven't thought things through.
After all, if you get rid of the Post office, who will deliver all your Amazon crap for a song (and it *is* a song compared to UPS - who it turns out rubbed salt in the wound by double-dipping customs charges for years on parcels I sent to my mum and dad, dunning me at this end and them at the other for the same fees - and FedEx who have always given me reasonable service but it don't come cheap).
It just doesn't work. I needed to rent a camera recently (a phase one 645df+ with the iq180 back and 3 cs lenses) and had them rushed via courier. The total value was around 60k usd give or take. Needless to say they didn't arrive and the tracking said they had. I called the courier who informed me it had been delivered. I asked the the signature / name etc and they said they couldn't read it (fair game, they're usually unreadable). They called the driver and he said I was out (utter horlicks, I was sat outside with the kids waiting and playing) so he delivered it to a neighbour but couldn't remember which? Turns out he delivered it 3/4 of a mile away. Nothing to do with my place being his furthest delivery on a Friday afternoon at all, no not at all.
The concept of delivering to a neighbour is fine when the postie knows his route and the people on it, its fine when you live with nice people who can be trusted and its fine when the postie isn't a workshy berkshire hunt. The problem is you can't guarantee all that. The sender should be able to put a sticker or notice on the parcel or letter stating 'address only', that way no nutters get offended, no my neighbours are twats stickers are needed etc. Some couriers allow this, I thought the one the rental company used did also but obviously not or it was ignored.
I've had parcels delivered with that wording on it. (Delivery to posted address only, in big bold letters) Both times the parcels were delivered to neighbours anyway. All well and good on if you can trust the neighbours, but not if you're living on a university campus. (I've had a case where it turned out they delivered a pricey bit of kit 2 flats down on a different floor. The person receiving it had signed for it, put it in his room and then gone on vacation. And I only found that out because I actually caught him red-handed throwing it into a dumpster when I happened to walk by)
Stickers on the parcel would always be the best option IMHO. That way, you can even decide certain packages CAN and others CAN'T be delivered to the neighbours.
I see your lazy postman story and raise you a very lazy postman story: I remember paying for express delivery on an audio interface delivered from the US to UK a few years ago. I got it delivered to my parents' as I knew they'd be in and the Post Office is three doors down from their house, but still their post turned up with a 'We Tried to Deliver and You Were Out' card. My Dad went to collect it and was told 'we left the card because you weren't in', at which point he was forced to point out that they are a Newsagents, they open at 4:30 in a morning and close at 19:00 at night and that the postman had left the letters (and card) on the shop counter. The guy delivering was too lazy to walk to the end of the terrace with a parcel. I always tried to support my local Post Office, but that was the point when I stopped.
Our temp postman delivered my post, and all my neighbour's post to me for a week.
Noone was impressed by that.
My regular postman will sign for me.
A few years back, one handed me a "Missed you" card, after I waited in for hours for him. "You're never in, so I usually leave your stuff at the sorting office and card you". I see the logic there, but it sucks when I am not running to plan.
My next-door neighbour is fine and we accept stuff for each other all the time. A quick pop next door around 7pm and job done.
But my neighbour across the street accepted a camera on our behalf four days before Xmas, never told us, I was running around the streets Xmas Eve trying to find it, finally their kid heard about it and said "oh we've got it, mum & dad were going to send it back". Like, WTF?
Kind of looking forward to putting one up that says don't trust them across the street, if I'm honest.
It all seems a bit inflexible. I live in a terrace. The people in the house next door but one up the road are nice enough and the immediate neighbours over the wall are nice but the most likely guy to get our mail, the immediate neighbour whose house we need to walk passed to get to ours is a bunt (Monty Python letter C sketch). On this basis my sticker is on its way...
Why not have this opt-in? , i.e. only people who want their neighbour`s to get their post have a sticker, or better yet have an entry in a database that indicates this, thus eliminating stickers altogether.
Avoids all the `chap in house on left is ok, but people on the right are cnuts, i do hope postie doesnt choose them` scenarios.
Although everywhere I have lived the postie gives things to neighbour`s if Im not in anyway, which is dodgy as hell if the item isnt signed for, thus theres no proof it was ever delivered.
I must confess, a few years ago a neighbour`s post was delivered to mine and I subsequently forgot all about it.
3 years later I found it, but they had already moved house by then. Wonder how often this happens?
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