iPhones were being stolen off porches right after delivery, and now we know how

And even when you are asked to sign, it usually goes like this:

"Sign here"

"What is it? Who is the recipient?"

"Just sign"

Like, you don't know what you've signed for until after signing for it.

> Drivers are overworked and have too many deliveries on their plate. They're not going to bother to get signatures.

Yeah, I don’t hold this against them at all. My USPS delivery driver asked me the other day if he could just leave packages requiring a signature on my porch going forward and I told him that was fine.

I have cameras, I work from home, we don’t have porch pirates in this area (or at least in it’s never happened in the last 5 years I’ve been here).

On the other hand, I don’t trust FedEx/UPS at all. I had a Steam Deck stolen in-transit (an empty box was delivered to my porch) and then I had another Steam Deck stolen from a pickup box (I assume stolen by a driver, not from the box directly). The first one I was able to prove and get a free replacement. The second one was something I couldn’t prove and I ate the loss (~$600 IIRC, I keep trying to forget it). I’ll never trust a dropbox again with anything expensive. Arguably I should have been smarter but up till that point I’d returned 10+ $1000+ iPhones the same way without issue.

And this is the situation in the UK - until it is in the hands of the buyer, the seller is wholly responsible for the item and delivering it to you.

Consequently, you only ever really see this kind of blase delivery from Amazon, who I guess are rich enough to absorb the cost.

Legal liability might not apply in the US. But card network rules still apply, and as far as I know even in the US those still very much require the merchant to ensure the goods are delivered as a condition of keeping their money.

Disputes/chargebacks is the very last remnant of "consumer protection" in the US that actually works - which is why nobody with money is actually incentivized to spread good words about it, and as a result it's not common knowledge even on HN.

Weird? That's WILD that it's not even the courier's responsibility. Like the law just pretends the courier is the customer's agent or something (isn't it the seller with the contract with the courier?)

Really it goes back on to the seller. Because if I don't get my item, I'm going to dispute the charge on my credit card. Eventually, someone pays, but not me.

Even worse, you often have zero say in what courier a merchant uses!

I bought a ~$500 item from amazon the other day. They sent me a code to give to the driver to recieve the package. They told me not to give it over the phone/intercom, and to only give it in person. He tapped it into his phone before giving me the package. I suppose he needed to do so to mark the package as delivered. That seemed a reliable enough system.

Similarly living in an apartment complex with a package locker doesn’t necessarily help. At both of the places I lived with one of those, deliveries were routinely dumped on the floor in front of the lockers, and so you’d have to watch delivery status like a hawk, hope you noticed that it was delivered quickly enough, and then awkwardly dig through a bunch of other peoples’ deliveries to retrieve yours. Had a couple of packages disappear that way.

In some countries, delivery items require a 2FA code. I still don’t think it solves the problem as delivery drivers are stressed and this would lead to dropping stuff at alternatives like a post office or something. There’s no full solution until delivery drivers are paid a fair minimum amount.

I had a brand new laptop disappear this way. The delivery log shows a failed delivery attempt, followed by a “signed delivery” in my name 5 minutes later. Meanwhile I wasn’t even in the same state.

Never did find out what happened to it, fortunately the seller was willing to send a replacement to make it right.

I feel grateful I live in a large condo with concierge service that always receives my packages. I've never had a package stolen since moving in.

> The delivery people just ignore it.

When the compensation for stolen items starts being taken out of their pay, they will stop ignoring it.

That's a good point. I think most people go into Costco to get the gold though. I'd need some good shipping insurance on a $3000+ purchase

The gold costco sells is serialized. It is traceable and if you report it stolen, if it's found in a pawn shop or the pocket of a thief, you will get it back.

this will soon be most news articles outside of a couple of places, like AP or Reuters

It would be even more trivial for Apple to block the phones the same way they do when an Apple Store is broken into. You can’t use an iPhone without an activation via login.

Carriers have this ability. They'll do it under certain circumstances. This isn't really one of them.

It's extra work for the carrier and can result in innocent people being denied service so they lean towards not banning IMEIs.

Also it can be spoofed so it isn't a surefire way to ban these devices.

They used to get broken down for parts, as the screens etc were still worth hundreds on their own. But since the parts are now encoded, that can't be done as easily.

In Asia it's common to record yourself opening the package. Ultimately social trust can't be fixed with technology.

Insurance companies don't really turn your problems into their problems.

It's easier to think of them turning _risks_ of occasional large losses into a steady constant flow of losses.

Whatever level of verification you pick, an insurance company can give you a quote. If you want to implement a very lax policy (without even a photo of the package on the doorstep), the insurance company will charge you an arm and a leg for coverage.

If you pick a more robust system, the insurance will become cheaper.

I bought a knife on Amazon. Every step of the process says “you must be over 18 and show ID to the delivery driver”. The ordering page, follow up email, tracking page, even the parcel had in huge letters “over 18 ID required”.

I found the parcel outside my front door like all the other parcels.

Ultimately if the drivers are strongly incentivised to be fast, and not strongly incentivised to follow process, they won’t follow process.