Test kit bought, not received. Who owns the company?

[ajw22]

I shop locally when I can. If the price is significantly higher then Amazon I may mention it and usually they will give me a discount that comes close to splitting the difference.

There are many items now that can’t be found locally. Maybe drone delivery someday will be more reliable.

 

[wogster]

I'm going to toss out that the USPS is still an amazing service for all that it does. They are *overwhelmed* with Amazon packages, to say the least. Folks feel entitled to get things in one or two days, as Bezos has promised, but is that really necessary? After reading quite a few articles about high injury rates to employees at Amazon being forced to rush-rush-rush I'm rethinking what I expect from mail order companies.

The USPS is in charge of that last, most important mile of delivery. Your mailman now is hauling 40 pound bags of dog food down long drives, up stairs and to people in quantities that they *never* had to do before. And still meet the time limits the post office sets for a route. Each package -climb in and out of the truck.... I feel for them! Really I do.

I'll settle for slow delivery when I can now. With local stores and malls closing, people losing jobs, I'm trying to shop locally when I can.

The porch thieves are a problem, but not one you can blame UPS/FedEx/USPS for. I'm not sure what the solution to that is.

I'm glad you rec'd your original package... if it went to the wrong house some honest folks turned it back in. Well done them, then.
But on the scale of parcels moved- the USPS move more parcels successfully time and again for less money then they don't. But its always the exceptions that one hears about.

Maddie

The solution to porch thieves is to have all parcels signed for, which is up to the sender. In many cases it's cheaper to simply send another package, for the few that thieves make off with. As the receiver, you can do more to prevent it. First, always ask the sender for a tracking number, then watch the carrier's website, to see when it shipped and the estimated date of arrival, look for an on delivery scan: Now you have 4 options:
1) Have someone home that day
2) Leave a note for somewhere to leave the package, for example in the garage, or at the back door.
3) Leave a note to leave it with a neighbour who is home.
4) Leave a note for the courier to"hold for pickup", they will leave a delivery notice, and turn your package over to a hold location.

 

[cfherrman]

Video doorbell helps

I've seen some people put a locked trunk on the porch with it open and unlocked with s note for iOS to put it in and lock it

 

[BowserB]

There are so many "solutions" to package thievery, it is almost bewildering. Amazon will sell you a door lock that they can open to put your package inside. Of course, if you have an alarm system, that won't work. If you leave a car parked outside, Amazon will put your package in the trunk (As if car break-ins weren't common enough already. Our neighbor is a police sergeant. His family's cars are NEVER left outside. Neither are ours.) If you have certain web-enabled garage door openers, you can arrange for Amazon to put your package in the garage. Of course they can also deliver to a designated Amazon lock box at a convenience store or gas station. Or you can pick up your package at a UPS store. For a while, we tried having deliveries to my wife's office, but the building is locked after 6pm and on weekends--and the "no weekend delivery" option, if it is still offered, doesn't work anyway. Amazon uses FedEx, UPS, USPS, and a UPS-USPS combo service. They also use their own trucks when they have warehouses in your area, as well as contract delivery trucks and even a package delivery equivalent of Uber. The Amazon and local delivery people usually take a picture of the package next to your door and text it to you as proof of delivery.

Having your packages signed for, is not always available and not always a good idea. If you're not there to sign twice, then you have to go to the UPS warehouse (in a scary part of town and with limited hours) to get it. With Amazon, you can specify "Please ring doorbell" and most of the time that will tell you your package is there, if you are there when it's delivered. Not always, though, as it takes one or two seconds to push a doorbell button. Often, I find out a package is at my front door when I get a text message on my phone. Yes, the delivery guy had time to take a picture with his phone but not press the doorbell.

Door bell cameras like Ring (owned by Amazon) or Blink (also owned by Amazon) are of fairly little real value in catching a thief, although they might be useful as proof, if the thief happens to be caught. Here in the greater Houston area, you can take your video to the police and learn that there are 60 others from today ahead of you, just in your area. You can get a big ugly box with a bar code scanner for UPS to have your package scanned to open the box which will not open again except with your key. You can also get a box and have an open padlock with a note for UPS to lock after putting your package inside. Of course these depend on the delivery guy paying attention to your note and that your package will fit in the box and that the box itself cannot be easily taken.

I remember a youtube video of a guy who booby trapped a box with some kind of firecracker after repeated thefts by the same guy (he had a Ring camera so he knew it was the same guy.) That's generally not a good idea. Booby traps almost always end up with the trapper getting arrested, sued, or both. If you don't have Amazon local delivery where you can see where the truck is, the only sure way is to, on delivery days, sit in a rocking chair on your front porch and wait. Be sure to put the chair(s) away afterward (the chairs on our front porch were stolen!)

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Amazon now has a delivery option called “Biometric Assured” - if you grab the box and your biometric id does not match the DNA/retinal image on file, you get tazer’ed. A second attempt results in tranquilizer darts being shot into you. Third attempt .... well, as the old saying goes, three strikes and you’re out ☠

I remember a time as a kid when Christmas catalogues arrived in mid-September and we had to submit our Santa’s List to mom before the end of October so she could call up JC Penny’s and Sears to make sure everything arrived before mid-December. The mailman, “Chester the molester” as we kids kindly referred to him, knew every parent on the block, smoked a cigar while driving his USPS truck and had no problem walking packages up to the front door and leaving them behind the bushes with a hand written note in the mailbox....a simpler time for sure ....

Nowadays, this is what we can expect -

Defendants in UPS drug case make first court appearances

Eleven men charged with shipping money and drugs, and in some cases using their status as UPS employees to do it made their initial appearances in court Wednesday afternoon.

www.kgun9.com

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Thanks for the warm memory. I’d get Atari or later on Nintendo Games from the Sears Catalog with any chore/birthday money I had. 3-5 weeks later I usually forgot all about it by the time it came. Now I’m p*ssed if it’s more than 48 hours.

I remember walking back to my campus apartment on a cool autumn afternoon in Boston in 1996 when I was in graduate school and a colleague of mine mentioned ordering textbooks from this random service she found online. She said the textbooks were about half the price of what the campus book store charged and you could even request lightly-used ones for less. She wrote the name and phone number on a piece of paper for me and told me to dial in with my modem and I could see a list of all the books they offered. They even sold school supplies and regular books too.....I was like, “Hmmm, no thanks, I like to thumb through my books first and make sure they’re what I need...and they’ll probably go out of business by year’s end if they keep charging prices that low!”

...the name on the slip of paper was, wait for it......Amazon (which I thought was a dumb name)....

If only I had bought stocks back then

 

[carnivalday]

Theres a pretty funny youtube video of a guy who set up a fake UPS box that would spew glitter and fart spray over anyone who opened the box. Pretty funny stuff. That glitter made quite a mess. Fortunately Ive got a 100 foot driveway, and they leave the packages on my back porch. I confess that I order so much stuff that Im on first name basis with UPS and FED EX. I dont have a mailbox on the road, I have a PO box, so I go to the PO to get those packages. I keep a pretty close eye on tracking so I know when somethings there.

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

Amazon now has a delivery option called “Biometric Assured” - if you grab the box and your biometric id does not match the DNA/retinal image on file, you get tazer’ed. A second attempt results in tranquilizer darts being shot into you. Third attempt .... well, as the old saying goes, three strikes and you’re out ☠

I remember a time as a kid when Christmas catalogues arrived in mid-September and we had to submit our Santa’s List to mom before the end of October so she could call up JC Penny’s and Sears to make sure everything arrived before mid-December. The mailman, “Chester the molester” as we kids kindly referred to him, knew every parent on the block, smoked a cigar while driving his USPS truck and had no problem walking packages up to the front door and leaving them behind the bushes with a hand written note in the mailbox....a simpler time for sure ....

Nowadays, this is what we can expect -

Defendants in UPS drug case make first court appearances

Eleven men charged with shipping money and drugs, and in some cases using their status as UPS employees to do it made their initial appearances in court Wednesday afternoon.

www.kgun9.com

In Tucson? I find that difficult to believe even back then. Except for the molester part! The petty crime here is borderline ridiculous.

You know what is really funny though? "FedEx lapping Amazon by 2021". 0 for 5 this year. They are more like DHL than "TBA" who will be delivering for more than just Amazon in 2021...

 

[JoyfulNoise]

In Tucson?

I come from more noble, old world bloodlines east of the Mississippi .... I’m a Nuuu Yaaawkah by birth .... then the whole WITSEC thing happened and ... BOOM! .... stuck cooling my heels in the desert.

 

[wogster]

There are so many "solutions" to package thievery, it is almost bewildering. Amazon will sell you a door lock that they can open to put your package inside. Of course, if you have an alarm system, that won't work. If you leave a car parked outside, Amazon will put your package in the trunk (As if car break-ins weren't common enough already. Our neighbor is a police sergeant. His family's cars are NEVER left outside. Neither are ours.) If you have certain web-enabled garage door openers, you can arrange for Amazon to put your package in the garage. Of course they can also deliver to a designated Amazon lock box at a convenience store or gas station. Or you can pick up your package at a UPS store. For a while, we tried having deliveries to my wife's office, but the building is locked after 6pm and on weekends--and the "no weekend delivery" option, if it is still offered, doesn't work anyway. Amazon uses FedEx, UPS, USPS, and a UPS-USPS combo service. They also use their own trucks when they have warehouses in your area, as well as contract delivery trucks and even a package delivery equivalent of Uber. The Amazon and local delivery people usually take a picture of the package next to your door and text it to you as proof of delivery.

Having your packages signed for, is not always available and not always a good idea. If you're not there to sign twice, then you have to go to the UPS warehouse (in a scary part of town and with limited hours) to get it. With Amazon, you can specify "Please ring doorbell" and most of the time that will tell you your package is there, if you are there when it's delivered. Not always, though, as it takes one or two seconds to push a doorbell button. Often, I find out a package is at my front door when I get a text message on my phone. Yes, the delivery guy had time to take a picture with his phone but not press the doorbell.

Door bell cameras like Ring (owned by Amazon) or Blink (also owned by Amazon) are of fairly little real value in catching a thief, although they might be useful as proof, if the thief happens to be caught. Here in the greater Houston area, you can take your video to the police and learn that there are 60 others from today ahead of you, just in your area. You can get a big ugly box with a bar code scanner for UPS to have your package scanned to open the box which will not open again except with your key. You can also get a box and have an open padlock with a note for UPS to lock after putting your package inside. Of course these depend on the delivery guy paying attention to your note and that your package will fit in the box and that the box itself cannot be easily taken.

I remember a youtube video of a guy who booby trapped a box with some kind of firecracker after repeated thefts by the same guy (he had a Ring camera so he knew it was the same guy.) That's generally not a good idea. Booby traps almost always end up with the trapper getting arrested, sued, or both. If you don't have Amazon local delivery where you can see where the truck is, the only sure way is to, on delivery days, sit in a rocking chair on your front porch and wait. Be sure to put the chair(s) away afterward (the chairs on our front porch were stolen!)

Yeah, there are other options, however it depends on the value of an item, if the sender fills in a value, and that value is more then $100, it's likely to require a signature, as a condition of the insurance carrier. What the driver does upon delivery depends on how crammed they are, this time of year, they are likely as not, completely full as sorters are told to clear the floor in the warehouse.

 

[Arizonarob]

I remember a time as a kid when Christmas catalogues arrived in mid-September and we had to submit our Santa’s List to mom before the end of October so she could call up JC Penny’s and Sears to make sure everything arrived before mid-December.

Man that brings back memories. I’d spend weeks drooling over the minibikes & go karts in the sears catalog, and telling my parents that’s what I want for Christmas, only to end up with yet another pair of sears toughskins pants in “husky” size!!!

I confess that I order so much stuff that Im on first name basis with UPS and FED EX.

Im the same. I make it a point to get to know my UPS, Fed Ex and mailman on a first name bases. Every year I give them a Christmas card with a Tip for their hard work, and I never have a problem with package deliveries.

I’m a Nuuu Yaaawkah by birth .... then the whole WITSEC thing happened and ... BOOM! .... stuck cooling my heels in the desert.

I freakin knew it!

 

[Pv2]

love my fedex driver - he texts me as he gets on the interstate 20 minutes from my gate. the UPS guy used to call, and now randomly will text but this week left animal vaccines that were supposed to be one-day delivery without notice. I checked tracking in the morning and it said still in Phx, and then assumed it was stuck until after the first. turns out it was up by the gate after all. over night in freezing temps. grrrrrr

most of my stuff goes to the Post Office where I get mail, or to gate via fedex. don't get much via ups anymore. haven't had DHS in ages, are they still around? they really sucked out here.

 

[thefloatqueen]

I wanted to just go to the local pool store to buy a Test Kit and supplies as recommended here. ...so I ordered the TFTestKits.net site
Got message that package was delivered today but no package was delivered.
Anyone ever have a problem with this company?
I have sent an email and will call them in the AM.

That’s weird. My stuff always ships same or next day. Definitely contact them. Great company!

EDIT: Didn’t read the comments, sorry! Glad it all worked out!

 

[jseyfert3]

The Amazon and local delivery people usually take a picture of the package next to your door and text it to you as proof of delivery.

That works until it's the Amazon driver stealing your package. I saw a security camera video of an Amazon driver delivering a package, taking a picture, then picking it right up and taking it back to their delivery van.

Theres a pretty funny youtube video of a guy who set up a fake UPS box that would spew glitter and fart spray over anyone who opened the box. Pretty funny stuff.

A link to that was actually posted in this thread already, back on post #10. Good stuff. Be sure to watch the sequel that just came out if you haven't yet. Best part is what he does when someone he recruits to put out more fake packages steals the fake package...

 

[Dirk]

Self-locking big porch box, bolted to deck, to receive packages? (Well, the first one of the day, anyway.) Did anyone else watch the video in post #10. Awesome!