(For people who don’t know, BestBuy is an electronics store that is common in the USA)
This would be in c/ActuallyInfuriating if the consumer protections weren’t as good, but for now, its just a chargeback away from fixing the problem. (I hope the bank doesn’t fucks me over. If they fuck with me, then this is gonna end up in Actually Infuriating). Anyways:
Two days ago, I bought a laptop on BestBuy, but they didn’t use UPS like they had in the past, instead they used Doordash 🤦♂️. When I saw that, I wanted to cancel because I didn’t trust fucking Doordash, but it didn’t let me cancel, so I just hoped nothing bad happens.
Oh wow, my gut feeling about Doordash actually predicted the future.
So, today it was supppsed to be delivered, I saw the guy park in front of my house for a few minutes (I know that’s him because I saw him on the map on the Doordash tracking link), dude walked out, looked my house, went back into his car, drove to the back alleyway (its a neighborhood of single family row-houses), I saw him on my CCTV cameras, he place down the package at a neighbor’s back door, take a pickture, then grabbed it place it back in his car, then quickly drove away.
Bruh.
Now I have to make some phonecalls. Thanks, corporate, great fucking job. I hope the CEO of bestbuy can choke on his pay increase.
And if you are wonder why I didn’t just go to BestBuy, I live in a car-centric city and I don’t have easy access to a car, and carrying big electronics in public transit is just asking for someone to mug you.
At this point, corporations are just in a race to see who gets to be crowned the worst corporation. I mean I hate Amazon and Bezos too, but at least they have a PIN verification system now, so drivers can’t just steal stuff, wtf is BestBuy doing? Fuck these shitty corporation.
I wish I could show you the camera footage, but don’t wanna get doxed.
Probably not using ~~best~WorstBuy again, not with this bullshit “Doordash” delivery. What an actual disaster.
Btw I tried calling bestbuy, they had a fucking voice-bot thing that refused to let me talk to a human until 48 hours has passed. So I just go straight for the dispute, right? I don’t wanna wait 48 hours.
Update: So I got through the bot thing by spamming 0 (or perhaps some other key, I can’t be sure), I got to a rep and explained the situation, they said they send a request to BestBuy and BestBuy will do an “investigation” with Doordash, whatever that means, and then refund. They said it’s supposed to take 3 bussiness days. Well, today is Thursday, Tomorrow is Friday, so I’m guessing by Tuesday end of the day it’s supposed to be resolved?
I mean, I’m giving them 1 week. I’m definitely filing that dispute the Friday next week. Technically I have 60 days to dispute, but I’m gonna stay on the safe side and 1 week is all I’m giving. I’m really wanting to just file right now, but I’m don’t want to get banned from BestBuy for life just yet, but if they don’t refund within a week, I’m just gonna have to be banned from bestbuy, I guess… 🤷♂️
Gonna update later if y’all are still curious in a few days.
Just a little PSA for anyone who’s wondering, any retailer that offers you same day delivery of goods is using DoorDash or one of its clones. Apple does same day delivery and I think they use UberEats.
Wtf
I remember like 6 years ago chatting on Reddit to some American about how the system of just leaving packages at the door is unsafe as fuck and I would never trust it with anything more expensive than a pizza.
Here there’s delivery points and automats in pretty much every grocery store. So you can have shit delivered, but unless it’s something massive (or delivered food), people rarely do. You just get a notification on your phone and pick up your package from the point you chose to prioritise. Sometimes it can be full and you have to pickup a package from the next point over, but they’re all over the place so.
The American went on a huge rant about how porch pirates are rare as can be and how it would be beyond frustrating and a waste of time to pick up packages from your nearest grocery store.
Would it matter in this case though? If the person delivering it was going to steal it, they would just tell you it was in the locker anyways right?
They stole it explicitly because they thought they could get away with pretending someone else stole it from the door by photographing it by the door… Nobody can steal it from inside a locker. It follows that they wouldn’t have done it in that scenario. Also doordash basically hires everyone on planet earth. It hires some folks it doesn’t even know its hired because they are obviously working on someone else’s account.
Except there are cameras on porches too, so it isn’t like they got away with it, but it doesn’t seem to matter right? In a locker situation who is going to review thefootage, how would you go about that? Couldn’t they put an empty package in there and claim someone else did it anyways?
Never heard of this happening to anyone whereas porch pirates are literally everywhere doesn’t seem reasonable
The lockers usually have surveillance around them.
So you’d go there, open up an empty box and it would be incredibly easy to show who stole it. Plus even if there wasn’t surveillance, you could film yourself opening the slot, which would then show an empty slot.
So yeah, it does make a difference. The package is never left unattended, it’s never “up for grabs” by anyone.
That being said thieving and whatnot is comparatively rare in Finland anyway. We’re #1 in the wallet drop test. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/least-honest-cities
I agree with you to an extent, but the other American was right, they’re really not as common as you might think based on internet posts. I’ve never once had a package stolen, and I get deliveries multiple times a week. For me, going out to pickup a delivery would be inconvenient because I work from home and don’t want to have to make a 10 min trip by car just for that.
This situation is a whole other story though. That’s the delivery driver straight up stealing the package. Absolutely bonkers.
other American was right, they’re really not as common a
He most certainly wasn’t.
He was practically denying that it ever happened, when it’s common as pickpocketing. Meaning more common in some places, less so in others, but definitely a known and existing issue.
There is an entire industry of companies that make “drop off boxes” that allow the deliverer to put a package in it, but doesn’t allow anyone without the pin number to open it. We live in the dumbest timeline.
Oh yeah, they’re exceedingly common here.
Usually placed inside commercial buildings like stores etc, there are a few just outside as well. They’re quite thin metal so I assume in some places in the US someone would just take a crowbar to a whole station, but if it’s inside a building that’s gonna be much harder.
out of all packages I would trust a pizza the least
I mean I only need it to be there.
I genuinely don’t even know which part of a pizza you wouldn’t trust. Is it like the restaurant or the driver or your neighbours? What are they gonna do aside from swiping your pizza?
You used to be able to require a signature which would force a direct hand-off, but people got annoyed with it. Then drivers started skipping those deliveries to get through their shift faster. So now only expensive courier services and the postal service still really do it.
Here you’ll need to have an ID or at least a driving licence (which isn’t technically an official ID, but is accepted as such in most places outside banks and whatnot) to go and pick up your shit.
Well, not anymore, as lots of them go to the automats and then you just require the PIN.
And depending on what sort of package you’re getting in the mail, you can sometimes give your package id to a friend who can pick it up, but they’ll need an ID of their own as well so it’ll get registered who picked up the parcel.
The US is a lot vaster but one still imagines people wouldn’t mind picking up packages from the nearest grocery store they use, if it meant that their shit can’t be stolen?
This will be super regional. A lot of the US a trip the the grocery store is a 30 minute drive one way. They make that trip once a month and load up their SUV with all their groceries.
Some people work 3 Jobs and their schedule is super tight, so even a 10 minute trip is a burden they would rather risk porch pirates than deal with.
I believe there are lots of places that porch pirates make delivery to door or mailbox just unrealistic. Personally I have never been a victim of theft to my knowledge. My knee jerk response to mitigation strategies is “why? It’s not a problem for me” and I suspect most of my neighborhood this would be true.
So I suspect Americans reaction will vary dramatically by region. I see the Amazon dropoff locations and the boxes in stores near me and I don’t see anyone use them.
I sometimes wonder if I am ever broke and hungry if I could just grab some food off the pickup shelf in a restraint near me. I won’t, because I am not broke and have never needed to skip meals, because I am fortunate to have friends and family support even when I was broke. But it must not be a huge problem where I am or those shelves would not have food on them.
There is a scale I think, for a laptop? Yeah I would go to a locker, for 90% of my packages? Nah, drop it at my door and we will deal with it if someone steals it on the super rare occasion.
super rare occasion
The problem is so ubiquitous , they’re commonly known as “porch pirates”.
“~Two million packages go missing every day, 90 000 in New York alone”
And the video is five years old.
It’s low as a percentage of total packages, but some areas are worse than others. For instance, in San Francisco it’s necessary to leave the trunk of your car open overnight so professional thieves don’t break your window to check it.
Compared to other systems, seems like it’s pretty high.
Universal basic income would discourage crimes like that.
If I had to get a car in SF, I think I’d go for a small hatchback so you can see into the trunk, if it’s that bad.
This is why I pick up from the store instead.
Don’t worry about getting banned. They’ll just backlist the card you used and close your account. Easy enough to get around. Send them your video and demand they refund you while you’re on the phone with them. Use the word chargeback liberally. You’ll either get refunded quickly or fuck them, make them get dinged with a chargeback.
Ya, do this! Dont wait a week. Call or March in and demand a refund or you’ll be placing a chrageback. Speak to a manger
Having worked at best buy, I’d say there’s a very small chance the manager can even do anything at this point. They already have such a small level of power. Maybe the store manager, like the manager of the other managers at the store, usually the store locator can do that. They have authority to actually just give away a laptop and eat the cost, maybe they can disable the cheap ass shipping options
Thanks for the heads up. I have ordered things online from best buy in the past but not again if they’re going to do this shit. I know they’re not reading Lemmy for customer experiences but this is ridiculous and nobody should have to go through that. I think a week of “investigation” is more than generous especially if you have video of the guy stealing your shit. I would also file a police report to really add to the evidence but that’s even more time out of your day and then you have to talk to the cops and explain why the felony theft (at least in my state) that you were the victim of is worth the time it takes for them to get off their asses and stop eating doughnuts for 5 minutes to collect the report. A lot of companies won’t do shit without a police report. The driver is also probably going to be pissed if he gets fired over this and also knows exactly where you live, so having a police report is a good idea if he tries some shit. Not that the police will actually do anything about it, again it just adds to the paper trail.
I live in Sacramento, but I drive to San Jose for Central Computers or now MicroCenter to buy gear… I buy nothing mail order, porch pirates are bad enough, but when the driver himself is the thief, that is just it.
Ironically, I never had a “porch pirate”, my neighborhood is pretty chill with that, its not even a rich neighborhood, everyone here is working class. The driver, however, picked up the order from a warehouse like 2 hours away, so I’m assuming he’s not from my city. I had more drivers themselves stealing shit than just random people walking. My neighbor leaves like 5 packages on their doorsteps and didn’t come home til like 2 days later (idk where they went tbh, I don’t really talk to them), the packages were still there. They have packages on their doorsteps like few hours at a time every week, never seen anyone steal it. Maybe because its within sight of my cameras? But like, that didn’t deter that guy that stole my stuff earlier, and judging from the news, thiefs don’t seem to care if there’s a camera, they steal it anyways I guess my neighbood is just that good with not touching other people’s stuff?
Call the
bobbiespolice and file a report, using your footage as evidence. If it’s like here, they won’t actually do anything, but you’ll need that report to file a dispute with your bank. Best buy will likely try to write you off, but they can’t really do that with a proper report backed by evidence.Edit: sorry. Police.
Sooooooooo…did doordash prompt you to tip your driver?
There was no option at all. Besides, this isn’t a food delivery (where the pay is shit). You can check on youtube, the payout for package delivery averages from $20-$25 per hour (well other than the fact that they don’t get health benefits like with traditional employment), total payout is shown before they accept, they could’ve just declined.
I ordered a laptop from BB for an executive at work, they tried delivering it on a Saturday and texted me about it, offered to deliver elsewhere instead, so I’m like, sure bring it to my house. Then when they get there, it’s a third party delivery service (not Doordash but like it) - woman and her boyfriend - hat out looking for a tip. Umm I didn’t ASK for some weird tip-based delivery service, I thought they were UPSing that shit. I can’t put tips on my corporate card, for laptop delivery fees?! So I looked like the asshole after they booked it across town. Haven’t ordered from Best Buy again, what a terrible customer experience.
Its not a food delivery, you shouldn’t need to tip, they had too high of an expectation. I searched up some youtube videos, they get an average of $20-$25 an hour if completed within the estimated time. Its similar to Amazon Flex, they get paid real money (the only dowside is, they are considered “independent contractors” therefore no healthcare and other benefits, but otherwise, it pays pretty much like a normal job). In contrast, for food delivery, base pay is $2.5 and you should tip like $5 minimum + $1 per mile distance because otherwise they wouldn’t have even minimum wage (or just don’t use the service). When they accept an offer, they can already see the estimated total payout, if they don’t like the amount (eg: if someone didn’t tip for food deliver), they should have just declined it, there is no penalty for rejecting an offer (there is a penalty for accepting, then not completing the order). They saw the whole payout for X number of packages, they shouldn’t have accepted if they didn’t like it. (Not blaming the drivers btw, just saying they should stand up for themselves and not let Doordash bully them)
there is no penalty for rejecting an offer
acceptance rate will get lowered and lower acceptance rate leads to less offers meaning less pay
What I mean is, declining a lot of offers will not (if they obey their own rules, that is) lead to a deactivation. Getting less offers is the equialent of your boss (at a traditional employment) randomly say “hey btw, your pay for tomorrow will be halved”, would you still go to work tomorrow? If you are desparate, maybe, but my point is, at some point, you have to stand up for your self. If you get paid $10/hour, for example, and your just barely have enough to survive, are you gonna work your usual 9-5 shit when you get paid $5/hour for a day?
I’m not blaming drivers, not blaming customers either. Doordash should just outright charge a delivery fee that goes to the driver, instead of this “tipping” BS that confuses both the customer and the drivers, because the vast majority of customers just assumes the drivers get paid like in traditional employment, therefore, believes they don’t need to (customarily) tip. The result is, drivers lashing out at customers, when its really Doordash’s fault for misleading everyone.
meanwhile if my US friends come to australia and try to tip i will angrily tell them where to shove it
tipping is a fucking scourge
Tipping used to be discouraged in the US since it promoted class divisions. Then the civil war happened and there weren’t any slaves anymore and all of a sudden tipping is the greatest thing ever.
I did door dash for a couple months. One of my deliveries was from a parts store to a service center, lmao. At least they left me a tip?
Napa auto parts wanted a parts deal with our company but mentioned they will deliver with doordash, so our supervisor just ignored them.
A lot of companies have moved towards using Uber or Doordash for same day deliveries.
I don’t like buying stuff from Amazon, but they’re the only company I’d trust for same-day at the moment. They directly employ the delivery drivers (via Amazon Flex) so you don’t end up with issues where Doordash and Best Buy blame each other and neither takes full responsibility.
They directly employ the delivery drivers
Amazon’s legal department would definitely disagree with this gross mischaracterization of the independent contractor relationship they have with their flex “partners”
amazon’s legal department can be wrong about the definition of independent contractor, especially as they have a significant conflict of interest in getting it right. they’ve been wrong before.
That’s for the courts to decide and with some minor victories for team slaves in a few locations, US courts mostly enabled this “classification”
Either way, even if it finally gets fixed, all of these tech companies were able to use this “grey” period to achieve market dominance.
The current framework will never provide peasant favourable outcomes since system is set up to do the opposite.
They’re independent contractors but they’re still working for Amazon, and Amazon does the job of recruiting and training them. My point was just that they have to take responsibility rather than saying “that’s Doordash’s fault and you need to speak to them”
If you order from Best Buy then presumably your contract is with them and not Door Dash. Though I guess you need to check the T’s and C’s to know what you agreed to…
I think he’s just taking the opportunity to point out that Amazon is committing tax evasion by fraudulently misclassifying those employees as contractors.
A lot of companies have moved towards using Uber or Doordash for same day deliveries.
Pizza places, especially the chain pizzas places, all use Doordash now 😓. I think Dominos is the only one left near me that still has in-store drivers.
I don’t like buying stuff from Amazon, but they’re the only company I’d trust for same-day at the moment. They directly employ the delivery drivers (via Amazon Flex) so you don’t end up with issues where Doordash and Best Buy blame each other and neither takes full responsibility.
I don’t exactly “trust” amazon either, they deliver to the wrong addess all the time. But for expensive stuff, there’s an option to require a PIN, so no “deliver to the wrong address” or “place at the door and then steal it” shenanigans. That’s why they are slightly less shitty.
Also, my order for Bestbuy wasn’t even “same day”. Order was placed on June 17 for “tomorrow” (aka: June 18), then it got delayed to today, then promptly stolen.
How does Walmart do it? I ordered my Switch 2 and a couple other accessories on separate occasions from them over the last few weeks, and they are clearly not using any of the traditional delivery services.
Walmart has Spark which is a delivery network they control that’s similar to door dash but AFAIK doesn’t require any logos on the vehicles.
Not sure how common this is, but we ordered some clothing dyes from Walmart since they were the only place that had it, anyway they delivered it with Uber for some reason. It was fast but we didn’t know and also we hate Uber, so that sucked. Maritime Canada btw, not sure about the states. I assume for something big and in demand like that it’ll be normal box shipping. Good luck!
As someone who does uber and doordash for extra money, they do and it’s annoying for us too. I had to deliver 8 bags of mulch from Lowes the other day in my tiny car, took ages to get the employees to help, etc.
Not that you should be expected to, but any reason you didn’t go out to meet him?
Also, worstbuy is good.
I usually get right after they leave. But this person was clever, he went to the back so nobody would expect him.
Since he didn’t even approach my front door, and drove away, I was confused. I thought it was either (a) it required a signature and they want to skip over it and claim “resident was not there to sign” and then it would be returned and refunded, or (b) he got lost or something.
So, then I was busy checking all the front and back cameras, that’s when I saw him walking away with what appears to be a package.
I thought: Maybe that’s for a different addess because I see Amazon drivers frequently fumbling with packages, I once saw the Amazon guy placed two packages on my doorsteps, then realize one was meant for someone else, then took the extra one back to the van. At first glance at the camera footage, it looks like they stole a package, but really it was someone elses since nothing was missing or stolen from us.
So I assumed that was what was going on, mistaking a different package. There was obstructions so I couldn’t see the neighbors backdoor properly to realize that he left no packages there. I went to get it and it wasn’t there, then it clicked for me, the driver took it.
But since I had to go down a flight of stairs to get to the back door (front door is on floor 1, back door is in basement or I guess floor “-1”), even if I had known at the moment I saw him walking away I wouldn’t be fast enough to catch the guy.
Dude was clever. Since nobody usually leave their house from the back door.
Edit: As for BestBuy, I don’t think in-store is bad, its just the online store I can’t trust anymore, not with these Doordash or other similar Gig Apps they are now using.
Not that anyone should have to, but open the front door and wave at him, he probably wouldn’t try anything. But who knows.
I’m pretty sure something similar happened to me three weeks ago, because I saw it was delivered and went down to the floor of my building to grab my items literally five minutes after and they were nowhere to be seen.
Then, inexplicably, they showed up (open but re-taped) two weeks later.
I’m sure these big companies are well aware these scams are happening.
