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from the ♪I've-been-caught-stealing-once-when-I-was-5♪ dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Amazon uses fake packages to catch delivery drivers who are stealing, according to sources with knowledge of the practice.
The company plants the packages — internally referred to as "dummy" packages — in the trucks of drivers at random. The dummy packages have fake labels and are often empty.
[...] During deliveries, drivers scan the labels of every package they deliver. When they scan a fake label on a dummy package, an error message will pop up.
When this happens, drivers might call their supervisors to address the problem, or keep the package in their truck and return it to an Amazon warehouse at the end of their shift.
Drivers, in theory, could also choose to steal the package. The error message means the package isn't detected in Amazon's system. As a result, it could go unnoticed if the package were to go missing.
"If you bring the package back, you are innocent. If you don't, you're a thug," said Sid Shah, a former manager for DeliverOL, a courier company that delivers packages for Amazon.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-sets-traps-for-drivers-2018-9
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @03:49PM (6 children)
Now if only a courier would allow me to select the day they first try to deliver, and heaven forbid a TIME, so they don't drop by on a random day at a random time when I am not home.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @04:15PM (2 children)
When they do drone delivery this will be possible.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 21 2018, @05:22PM
It will also be possible when Amazon does Star Trek transporter style delivery.
But will it be possible before then?
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 21 2018, @05:23PM
The problem with drone delivery is they already have warehouse employees dropping off boxes on their way home, and Ford/Toyota/GM and the medical industrial complex already did all the R+D at zero cost to Amazon, whereas drones are expensive to invent.
If you want your hello kitty tee shirt delivered at precisely 10:30am they just gotta send the warehouse guy out with it at 10am, no big deal, much cheaper than inventing shark robots with lasers on their heads or whatever.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 21 2018, @05:07PM (2 children)
I haven't tried locker delivery because I work at home, mostly, but its available every time I check out. I think from what I read, locker delivery is what you're asking for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @05:16PM (1 child)
Lockers are somewhat limited in size and number and location. But, yeah, that's what I usually do. In urban areas there's also sometimes a drop off point that you can visit where they transfer the packages from Amazon to those independent contractors that deliver the packages at weird times.
Amazon is also adding the ability to have things delivered directly to peoples' cars, but that kind of scares me personally.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 21 2018, @05:40PM
I'm waiting for them to deeply integrate with other companies logistics systems; Oh you're sending interoffice mail to VLM, well a package will arrive at your front desk in five minutes for him, toss it in the envelope with the interoffice mail and we'll send your company a millionth of a bitcoin microtransaction. I mean, if big brother is watching, may as well save a buck on shipping. "Hey did you get that prototype engineering wanted you to test the I2C interface on? Sure, right, you mean the dragon dildo, like I don't even have a datasheet? Naw thats your amazon order, have fun with that, I mean the microwave synthesizer. Oh, oh yeah, got that along with the new TPS report headers, K thx bye."
I'm intrigued by the idea of Amazon merging up with the logistics system of my local regional supermarket; "they" as in big brother track my every move and know I shop most mondays but can predict based on my register tape last time that I'm going to be there on Tuesday so here's some stuff to toss in the shipment of avocados that he can pick up on his Tuesday trip to the store. Because big brother is everywhere watching everything, Big Sister Alexa can page me when I walk in the door, or heck just text me to stop at the front desk for my shipment.
When Big Brother gets optimized things are going to get really weird . Electronic interstate sign flashes at me "Yo, VLM, stop your car and stand by the side of the overpass, a truck driver is going to toss a package out the window at you in 23 seconds, we'll tell you where to stand to catch it, then approximately 72 seconds later you drop it over the side of the overpass into the passing pickup truck when we say." Or I'll get a text from Alexa, "hey hey big boy, a box is about to land in your front yard right next to the wilting violets seven feet in from the sidewalk based on inertial measurement unit, meteorological predictions, and existing flight path data, for five cents of mechanical turk credit please pick that up and slingshot it as hard as you can in the general direction of north where someone else will pass it along K thanks" And people will see this kind of bullshit as business as usual.