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Comment by Finnucane | Hacker News Reader

Here in the US, private services like UPS and FedEx can't deliver to the post office. You can ask for a package to be delivered with signature required, but what that means is that if you aren't home it will be held at a distribution center for you to go pick up.

Otherwise, yes, packages will just be left wherever in front of your door.

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FedEx has partnered with lots of pharmacies and bodegas around the city who can ostensibly receive your packages. The problem is that these locations are allowed to decide that they just don't want to deal with any given package even if it's within the allowed size and weight requirements, and/or FedEx is allowed to decide they aren't going to bother actually delivering it and instead of just routing it to another nearby location or holding it at the distribution center, FedEx will instead just send it back to the sender. It's basically a scam that FedEx is running to make senders pay multiple times for shipping the same thing across the country.

I recently had to stake out a Walgreens and wait for the driver to show up to actually get a package before it was returned to the sender.

Walgreens did this to me, too. My package legally contained alcohol, with the right label, and they refused to accept it.

I've had several packages delivered to a gas station not too far from where I live. I'm glad they're open until midnight because sometimes I've worked late.

I'm also fortunate that my nearest grocery store has an Amazon Locker, which I use as much as I can when purchasing from Amazon -- that grocery is also opened until midnight.

And the distribution center in NYC is often in a far out place with no public transportation access.

We have private services as well, they have contracts with small stores to keep those packages. And a distribution center (unless very far away) seems better than a stolen package.

The distribution center is usually a nightmare to travel to. I've lived in NYC and Berlin and both systems are disasters in their own way. Here in Berlin someone is always posting a note in the stairwell that a package was delivered and they aren't sure who in the building has it. And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for?

An abundance of packages disappear in both systems. Although if your package happens to be left at a local Spati/Bodega/corner store instead of with a neighbor the German system works out pretty well.

> Here in Berlin someone is always posting a note in the stairwell that a package was delivered and they aren't sure who in the building has it.

Well, they are supposed to tell you where they left the package. In that case I’d probably tell the sender it wasn’t delivered and leave the delivery service to bear the cost if they can’t remember where it ended up.

> And what if it was left with a neighbor who has a schedule opposite yours and you don't have a phone number for?

I find that improbable. But if after a few days there was no contact whatsoever I’d simply drop a note with my phone number in their mailbox reminding them that I have their package ;)

> An abundance of packages disappear in both systems.

Never had problems unless it was Hermes, and even that is somewhat rare (happened twice in 15 years), but then I live in a vastly smaller city (pop 200k) than Berlin.

I suspect a lot of this depends on the specific neighbor and delivery driver in question. I live on the ground floor and am frequently home when packages are delivered, so I end up handling a lot of packages. Most neighbors show up within a day whith a postcard the delivery driver put in their mailbox. The worst delay was when someone ordered a surfboard which didn't arrive until he'd left for vacation and then I left for vacation before he came back, so he got the package a couple of weeks later. But in that case it was basically the same as getting it a day late, since he didn't get to surf on it either way.

The weirdest part about seeing so many of my neighbors' packages is how much I learn about their consumption habits. There's the lady who orders two big boxes of cat food whenever there's a discount, the guy who uses his Amazon Prime account to its fullest, the guy who ordered a 50-inch TV without telling his wife (who came to collect the package), the guy who ordered a bunch of different hats (he didn't like the first few after trying them on), the guy who orders tools and parts for his motorcycle...

UPS and Fedex will also hold your package at one of their stores (or distribution center, but those tend to be a bit of a mess) and let you pick it up

In Poland we have parcelmats - machines where you can post a parcel and get it delivered to. Parcel is stored for 48 hours and you can pick it up at convenient time using QR code.

There is already 6 000 of them.

https://inpost.pl/

https://antyweb.pl/tego-jeszcze-nie-bylo-inpost-obniza-ceny-...

wait, can you use USPS and require a signature? here in france, UPS/Fedex etc will hold the items in their distribution center, or they have many partnerships with local "tabac" stores. but the official postal system (La Poste) will simply hold it in the post office for up to 15 days, where I can collect it against a signature.

That sounds largely like the system here in the US except the default is to leave packages unless the sender (or recipient if they've registered with the company) specifically requests signature confirmation, which doesn't happen on most packages. UPS even has the same kind of relationships, in my area I can have them divert packages to the local drug store/pharmacy or to any of their physical store locations.

wrong... I have a po box and they do deliver to it..in Indiana in the United States in fact UPS switch weekend delivery to use Us postal services

They deliver to a PO BOX, but you pay for that service, it's a distinct mailing address for your use.

They don't however fallback to the local post office when undeliverable, which is the point here.

I've lived in very rural small towns in California, and it required developing a personal relationship with the post office staff/postmaster and UPS driver to have undeliverable packages left at the local post office. The post office employees were technically bending the rules for me. But we had so few local residents it wasn't a significant problem.

  They deliver to a PO BOX, but you pay for that service

No charge. You just have to sign a rider agreement to authorize the USPS to accept on your behalf.

Can you provide a URL to anything describing this as a formally supported process? It's inconsistent with my experience.

I've had rural USPS staff become accepting of my non-USPS delivered packages as a personal favor, but never any sort of formalized process.

The formal path is the $78/yr PO BOX, otherwise they're oftentimes downright hostile towards accepting non-USPS deliveries freely for randoms.

Are you just referring to USPS-deliveries? That's different, since postage is being paid.

  Can you provide a URL to anything describing this

https://www.usps.com/pobox/customer-agreement-for-premium-po...

I've been using this for years. It totally solves the porch-piracy problem.

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