The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday at noon.
Today’s question:
QUESTION: Do you think UPS, USPS, FedEx, Amazon etc. should be required to knock on your door or ring your doorbell when they deliver a package to your doorstep?
Talk about it….
yes – but more importantly don’t just throw it on the lawn, or next to the sidewalk where anybody could walk away with it.. common sense 🙁
My dogs make my doorbell pretty much irrelevant.
Me too Cowellian…
If you own a dog it ceases to be the doorbell and it becomes
“The Dog Bell”
“Somewhere out there” there is a meme showing a sign posted by a doorbell and showing the profile of a dog’s head tilted backward. The wording is, “Ring the Bell and hear the Song of My People”!
Yes. So a package will not unnecessarily sit on the porch for a long time.
Please, no. Our mailman does this already and it’s terribly annoying. Deliver the mail and leave. When you ring the doorbell, the dog freaks out, I often have to make my way down the stairs and across the house just to find that the mail was delivered and nobody is there.
It would be nice to at least ring or knock.
UPS and FedEx will ring the doorbell, Amazon doesn’t. I wish Amazon would ring the doorbell so that I am alerted to the delivery. Our UPS delivery driver is great – he will put the package out of the line of site from the street, FedEx will leave against the door and Amazon is all over the place – next to the door, on the walkway up to the door, at the garage door – everyplace possible that the package can be visible to those walking by.
Judging from the responses everyone should put a ring or no ring by their doorbell.
Exactly! Having used a behaviorist for one of our Jindo rescues from a Korean meat farm, they recommended putting a note on the door to NOT ring the bell. Friends and family too. Call or text…
Our dog was a watch dog. But then we learned that the dog is responding to danger, and learns when she barks at them, they go away. Just closing the blinds calmed her way down!
Yes. There are too many porch pirates. Some just follow the delivery truck.
Back in the “70’s” when I worked for UPS we had to knock on the door and have the customer sign for the package. If the customer wasn’t home we’d try to get the neighbors to take the package and then sign for it. We’d leave a card with the customer saying the neighbor had the package. As a driver I wanted to deliver all my packages so they wouldn’t be on my truck the next day, especially during Christmas. You also didn’t here about porch pirates back in those days.
How in the heck are you going to require them to knock or ring the doorbell and who is going to monitor this? Is this to be more government regulation and interference? Less government is better, not more…
YES
It’s common to get an item requiring a signature left on the porch and the driver notes someone signed for it. Fraud.
UPS and our Mailman are pretty good about a short knock when delivering packages. All of them having tracking so we always get a ping on our phones when a delivery has occurred.
Please, NO!!!
All the above drivers very kindly send me an email showing the package at whichever of the three possible delivery doors they have used. It is an enormous help, and I write a glowing report to their companies by way of thanks.
You can make an agreement with Fed Ex that “no signature is required” and get their sticker to put near the doorbell. That said, none of our doors is visible from the street, and I understand why YOU might want them to ring the doorbell, so make your own arrangements…. just don’t push it off on everyone else, please.
So, a requirement to knock/ring bell/etc.? What happens if they do not ring the bell or knock? What if they do not knock hard enough? Is a dingle knock sufficient, or do they have to do “Shave and Haircut?”
How about suggesting they knock, should they feel it appropriate. If a door is knocked on, and nobody is home, was it really knocked?
I believe they have a time limit to deliver X number of packages in X amount of time. Stopping long enough to ring all the doorbells might cut into their pay. If you are expecting a delivery they have an online site for tracking deliveries and you can request that they knock or ring at the time of delivery. They also have a gizmo that they scan the package at the time of delivery so that same online tracking will say when it was delivered.
I set up my Ring to say “you are being recorded” when they come into view. They know I see them, they don’t knock or ring the doorbell. Everyone wins.
My UPS guy knocks and leaves, and it doesn’t bother me. UPS is good at notifying me by e-mail when the package is out for delivery, so I know when to expect it.
I actually had an Amazon delivery guy open my front door and set the package down on my floor. He probably thought he was doing me a favor, so a porch pirate wouldn’t steal it. I went outside and told him it’s a good thing I saw his Amazon van, and he’s lucky he didn’t get shot.
went into the Dawg House, eh? that does seem a step to far, to me. What was his reaction/response?.
I don’t use USPS for any delivery but the balance of the shipping companies can send a text or email which is sufficient.
Besides, the dog lets no one pass unnoticed.
USPS will do the same thing if you sign up for it.
usps has a service called Informed delivery. it is free btw
Required? No.
I prefer they don’t. Once in a while, they actually deliver a package without the dogs noticing and going ballistic. If they were required to ring the doorbell, I’d have to listen to it every time. Like (I assume) most people, I get an alert on my phone within seconds of a delivery, so it’s not like my stuff is sitting on the porch unnoticed all day.
I use DHL … the others have poor leadership and low standards imho … DHL has always done me solid.
Not a bad idea and most do knock.
Had engraved sign made,
Porch Pirates
Please carry ID
so next of kin can be notified
Interesting question: Short Answer
1. Private company – no (but I would prefer that they did)
2. USPS – yes
Why? We don’t need more regulation around private businesses. USPS – should since they are a government agency, so lets see how that goes and how good their drivers do.
YES
Common Sense
The excuse given to me by USPS and Amazon was Covid. Wha?
It’s just laziness and lousy customer service and helping porch pirates.
I also delivered for USPS back in the day (70s) and got signatures.
More government regulations? No, thanks. Get a Ring camera. It will video anyone at your door and send an alert to your phone. If no one is home during the day, get your package sent to a storefront office or make other delivery arrangements with the shipping company. Send your Amazon delivery to a delivery locker. Sing up for Informed Delivery with USPS.