Amazon’s Prime Delivery “Ain’t” What It Used to Be

By Debra Tash

Amazon is developing its own delivery system.  The company launched their Last Mile Shipping program last year.  Drivers pick up packages from what Amazon calls “outposts” and takes them to their final destination. 

However, as with ancient Rome, even this mega of all mega corporations can’t build an infrastructure in a day.  It’s hiring a cadre of full time drivers. If you need a job here you go, Amazon Logistics. Yet in some areas, where they don’t have the staging for trucks or trained personnel to drive company vehicles, Amazon has part timers using their own transportation.  So if you see that Honda Accord pulling into your driveway, don’t be suspicious.  It’s probably someone you will never see again delivering a package with that juice squeezer you ordered online. There is the rub, which has rubbed me the wrong way.

Amazon is bringing a whole new level of delivery personnel into the lives of their customers.  Are these individuals properly trained and be vetted to be roaming around residential/rural neighborhoods delivering packages?

I live in a rural area behind an automatic gate. I’ve used Amazon for years, and Prime was one heck of a perk.  I not only got my packages on time, I had access to lots of free video content that I most likely would never watch unless it was free (Of course, that is before Amazon started producing its own original shows). How could I lose?  Well, let’s consider how that package gets to my house.  Like I wrote, I live in a rural area behind a security gate. 

Omar, the UPS driver, who I got to know over the years, had the code to get past that barrier. I trusted him and UPS.  Now I don’t know who has my gate code, everyone it would seem who can legally drive.  In addition to a perfect stranger having access to my property, they also have been leaving my packages all over the place. I have to go online to find the photo of the bush or the barn where they left my order of meal worms for the chickens. That really doesn’t bother me. It’s the fact that Amazon has so cavalierly given my private information out to who knows who.

Today I actually got to speak with one of their drivers.  Nice. Really.  He’s an actor who is working part-time between gigs, so that means he’s most likely got a lot of part-time jobs.  He told me that he’s on a three hour shift with Amazon to deliver packages in our area.  Great.  Except who the heck was he?  I mean, look I have nothing against actors.  They need to eat, too.  But, again, who is vetting these people?  Who is supervising them and insuring against the damage they may cause with their Hondas on my property? Worst case scenario – is delivering packages in my remote neighborhood a scouting mission for later burglaries?.

So after scrambling around the Amazon website I finally not only got one live person on the line but two of them, even if they were located in overseas call centers.  I was able to switch my shipping preferences to remove my gate code from their system.  Hallelujah!  The customer service rep, “Ann” was very helpful.  She wished me a good night and I wished her a good day wherever she was in the world. 

I hope this works.  Maybe, one day, I will get to see Omar again.

If you want to stop those Hondas from coming to your home call Amazon Logistics, About Deliveries Shipped with Amazon –  or better yet call 1-877-252-2701 . If Ann answers tell her I said, Hi.

BTW I’m not the only one complaining.  Check out Blogheads.org where anyone can whine: Amazon Prime Goring Sideways/Weird Shipment Problems

Debra Tash is Editor-in-Chief of Citizensjournal.us, past president for Citizens Alliance for Property Rights, business executive and award-winning author, residing in Somis.

Columnist Rich Eber contributed to this rant.

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