Australia Post Left a $1,000 Package at My Door When I Wasn't Home, despite Requiring a Signature. The Package Is Missing

Recently in the Afterpay Day sales i purchased a graphics card, specifically an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Ti. The cost of the item was $976.65 with free postage via eBay. The mode of postage was Express Post + Signature.

As I left to run some errands this morning, I received a text message which read "Your parcel from GG Tech is coming today. If nobody's home to sign, we'll take it to a local Post Office. Tracking: hyperlink to tracking". I was comfortable in leaving the house as I assumed that if I wasn't home to sign for the delivery, it would be taken to my LPO, as the text message stated.

Whilst I was out, I checked the tracking and noted that it had been updated to reflect that the package had been delivered. This seemed fine and I expected to return home to one of those "sorry we missed you" cards, which I was happy to take to my LPO after 4pm once the driver had had a chance to drop it off, considering I wasn't home to sign for the delivery. When I returned home, however, there was no card that I could find, not in my letter box, not in my screen door, nowhere on my front porch, not under my mat. I checked everywhere.

It's 2:43PM as I'm writing this. I've called my LPO to check if it had been dropped off, however they haven't received anything, but there is a chance they will receive a drop off prior to 4pm. I'll be calling at 4:15pm, as hopefully the driver is finishing their rounds and still has my package onboard.

However, I can't help worrying that the package was left at my doorstep, despite requiring a signature, and someone has taken it. At no point did I provide my permission for the package to be left without a signature, and the delivery method is "Australia Post Parcel Express + Signature" as per my invoice. The text message even stated that it'd be taken to a post office if no one was home.If this turns out to be the case, do I have any recourse for compensation here? The post office told me that if it doesn't show up, I'll need to contact the seller, which I will obviously be doing if it hasn't shown up by 5pm. Just wanted to see if anyone had any experience with this and could offer their opinion and/or advice.

Thanks in advance!

Update:

The driver has confirmed that it was indeed left at my door. So I guess I begin the process of contacting the seller so that they can lodge a dispute.

I'm sure this is going to be a painless process… /s

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Comments

    • Try asking your postie next time if you manage to catch them. I've left a note saying to just leave my parcels as I've got 2 kids and I don't want the bell to wake them up/ can't get to the front door quickly. I've also left her some snacks/drinks when I know she's coming so she's been pretty awesome for us.

  • I've felt your pain OP. Once a 2k package was getting delivered and an incompetent delivery driver left it at the house next door. Luckily I managed to catch him in the act, and according to my neigbours, it turns out the delivery driver had been doing the same thing on purpose for the last few months. It shows that sometimes the culprit isn't a thief but the delivery driver themselves.

  • +1

    I am one of the victims that suffered what OP is going through at the moment…hopeless AP couriers and not performing what we are paying for…

    Sorry for my ignorance, what is the chance to win a class-action against Australia Post like this and is it worth to do so?

    This can be good to everyone who uses them…

    Or is it an idiotic thought?

  • My s5 max ($600) was left at the door. It was suppose to be left at the post office if no one was home… (I got an sms saying that as well). The box has a huge ass logo so literally was asking to be stolen. I was lucky!

  • -3

    It could be another story. I took it but I reported it lost since it requires signature so i took advantage of it lol

  • I regularly freak out when I get package delivered messages hours before delivery. Harvey Norman or whoever delivers for them holds the record - 24 hours early

  • +1

    on the bright side someone woke up to a brand new GPU

    • Or even brighter, someone probably just scored a 3070Ti for $30

  • +4

    I always use Parcel Locker or Parcel Collect (which will take it to a local post office of your choice), unless I am unable to use Australia Post as a delivery option, if the parcel doesn't fit in the parcel locker or there are no free spaces big enough, it will get taken to the nearest post office.

    Both Parcel Locker and Parcel Collect are a free service, you just have to sign up for an account.

  • +4

    I know people that follow behind parcel delivery drivers and after they have left a parcel at the front door they steal the parcel.

    • +3

      Why do you know people like that? Are your friends bikies?

  • Surely if they leave it at your door when you haven't signed for it then some people will just claim it wasn't there in order to get another one sent out or a refund or some scam like that.

  • Thankfully something like this hasn't happened to me and hopefully never does because it seems painful. Pre COVID, i would get parcels delivered to the post office and pick them up from there. Since COVID, i have been working from home most days and my work space is near the front door with a window out the front so between visuals and texts i'm pretty quick to collect parcels.

    In this situation, the sender paid Australia Post $2.95 or whatever it is for signature on delivery and Australia Post didn't provide the service they charged a fee for resulting in the parcel to go missing. The seller should be refunding the purchaser and then getting that same amount from Australia Post for their absolute incompetence.

    I'm sure it isn't that simple. Purchaser could also raise with department of fair trading or whatever it is called.

  • +6

    Driver currently playing Postman Simulator 2022 in 4k at 240 fps

  • +1

    Amazon just dropped of a parcel to my home and just left it outside my gate. Options available to them were: Ring the intercom bell and/or place the item in my secure enormous parcel locker that is also labelled as a parcel locker/ pull handle to open!…. But no, just placed it on floor outside my property and made a runner! Luckily within a few minutes I received a pop up on my phone that item was delivered… so I walked out, opened gate and collected it. Serious stupidity with some delivery people….. Very frustrating indeed.

    • +7

      They're subbies of subbies, amazon flex mostly. They are literally KPId to death. If the driver doesn't finish his deliveries, his family dies.

      This is a joke for legal reasons.

    • Really depends on the Amazon delivery person. They're like Sendle nowadays.

    • I order often with Amazon and if the item won't fit on the letterbox they leave it by the door. They don't knock either but get the notification on the app.

      However, they will always give you accurate delivery date and always deliver to the correct address unlike Australia Post. I've received several times post for my neighbours. Both bad but prefer Amazon.

  • +1

    Had this happen to me last year during lockdown. When we chased it up with auspost, postie had taken a picture of the parcel left on top of the apartment letterbox, obviously not a safe place. When we had a closer Iook at the letterboxes it looked like our apartment's but the numbering was wrong, so postie not only left it in an unsafe place, he left it at the wrong apartment. Seller resent the parcel and must have claimed it with auspost.

  • +1

    Lol I had Auspost go to a completely wrong address before and grab some (profanity) rando's signature and left it with them.

    Then they swore it was delivered to the right address and tried to tell me that I signed it. HAHAH

    Got refunded after 2 weeks from retailer.

  • I wish more sellers would accept PO Box as a delivery address. As some like eBay sellers will only deliver to a street address which is a pain. As there has also been plenty of times where they either just leave the package on the doorstep or in the letterbox. Or it ends up back at the PO where you have to go and pickup anyway because most delivers for some reason didn't bother to ring the door bell at our place. Even though someone is usually always home to accept and correctly deliver it.

    There has also been a few times where we get packages delivered that are obviously for someone else at a completely different address. Not just from AP but also stupid incompetent couriers.

  • +2

    Contact seller, have them lodge investigation with Australia Post as to why item "requiring signature" was left without signature.
    COVID or not, if that's a delivery requirement because the item is of high value, if they haven't ensured secure delivery of the item they are liable.

    Hopefully seller took out insurance, but this isn't your problem… it's seller and Auspost problem.

  • +8

    WTF is with retailers who won’t deliver to parcel lockers? You have my name, address, phone number, email address, credit card number…but sorry, can’t deliver to a secure, tracked, logged facility that can be tied to an individual. Best we can do is leave it on your front f’n lawn. Sorry, did we say your lawn? We meant -a- lawn.

    Should be the opposite. Delivering to a parcel locker? Thanks for reducing our risk and meeting us halfway, here’s a discount on your shipping.

    • +4

      It depends on what courier they use. Parcel Locker is Aust Post, why would they accept competitors parcel?

      • +1

        Aramex & Star Track are also AU Post: They buy other companies so that they can give terrible service under many names.

    • +1

      Scam central is why a lot of merchants don't accept them .
      Pro Scammers with no fixed address have picnics with them .
      They can never be found .

      • I am pretty sure I had to show ID when I initially set my parcel locker up

    • Can a parcel locker fit a TV?

      • +1

        Things that don't fit in a locker will be held at the post office.

      • No will be held at po as said

  • +2

    without reading the thread I've recently ordered some shoes from MatchesFashion in the UK which apparently use DHL for delivery in Australia

    and have since received several sms messages prompting me to click here to approve no contact, no signature delivery - in other words so they could just drop in outside the door and go

    for me that's a definite yeah nah.

    as in 'what could possibly go wrong?' - I guess could possibly fit OP's story here.

  • This happened to me once and the item appeared undelivered. Fortunately their idea of delivering the item was hiding it at the side of my house so it did turn up. Hopefully your postie did this.

  • It's up to the seller to provide you with the item you paid for or a full refund. They need to deal with Australia Post themselves in order to get their compensation from them, but that really shouldn't impact you getting a refund from the seller.

  • I just realised that I had "safe drop" enabled in my auspost account. So they can leave signature parcels at the door, even if a signature is required..

    I wonder if the OP maybe had a similar setup?

    Any updates?

  • +1

    What ended up happening?

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