Very Big Delivery Stupidity

I ordered some items from [Very Big Online Store]. Delivery day came and went, but no items were received. The [Very Big Online Store] web page stated the items were “handed to a resident”.

Since I was home for the entire day and nobody handed me anything, I checked with my neighbors to see if they received my items. They did not, so I called [Very Big Online Store] to complain. The customer service representative believed my complaint and reordered all the missing items, to be delivered in a few days.

Delivery day arrived, and I watched the delivery vehicle via the [Very Big Online Store]’s GPS page. I saw that it was on my street, so I watched out the window… as it drove past my house, without stopping.

I checked [Very Big Online Store]’s site and the items were supposedly “left on front porch”. I again called them and worked up a couple of levels of representatives. The last one tracked the delivery via their GPS system and saw that the delivery was made to a location several miles from my house. The representative confirmed that the directions to my house were accurate and again reordered the items.

The third time was the charm: the items were delivered correctly and on time.

Months later, my doorbell rang. It was a couple of workers who were employed at the location several miles away. They found some boxes that were pretty badly weather-damaged but had my address still visible. They gave me the damaged boxes.

Guess what? The boxes were those from both missing shipments! They were left near a telephone pole, by an empty lot, where access was only by a dirt road.

I never found out if the two “bad” deliveries were made by the same driver or what happened to that driver, but all subsequent deliveries from [Very Big Online Store] have been on time and complete.