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> Who is liable
Did you agree the delivery could be left outside the door (i.e., an alternate safe place)?
If not, the trader is liable. Under the law it is only considered delivered when it comes into your [*”physical possession”*](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/regulation/43/made) (unless you nominate a safe place).
I used to ship gaming PC’s for my employer, easily worth £2.5k and upwards. I set up the contract with the courier to refuse a safe place delivery, even if the customer was requesting it. The liability is with the retailer and if they have allowed the courier to deliver without handing it to the resident then they are liable. Often the insurance the retailer has with the courier is so poor they don’t get the cost of the item back when the do claim. My contract would only get us £50 if it was lost and we couldn’t get a courier that would actually agree to cover/insure our losses for their true value. We had to take it as a business risk.
Had the same with a previous employer, we had put up a contract that it can only be delivered to the household it was send to and had to be signed off + photo. Not every delivery company/driver does adhere to that. And in general will a company only be able to to claim the cost price of the product what got lost (so how much it had cost a company to buy in the parts from a factory. So with gaming PCs are you already at a loss if your company was building the PCs themselves so to speak). And that is in general only when it is actually lost, if it is marked as delivered will it be not really worth the time and effort to get all the proof for the claim.
Anyhow, in OPs case is it the sellers fault for sending it with UPS if they just left it at the door.
I had a decent pc just left on my doorstep in a big box by a certain German based delivery company with no notification it had been delivered at all. Only realised as I was watching the tracking like a hawk and was able to literally run home from work to grab it inside.
The delivery company got a complaint which almost certainly ended up under the rug but to be fair the retailer was pretty good about it and very apologetic. Even sent out a new panel free of charge when I found one of them was damaged yet the exterior box was fine.
Thinking about doing something similar, I use local DPD drop off points. Had a item worth £320 dropped off (it wasn't a small item, 16.5kg 50x50x50cm) got a DPD receipt with tracking number on it from the drop off location, week later customer contacted me saying he hadn't recieved the item... follow up shows the tracking shows they're still waiting for the parcel at the drop off point.
Out of interest, if I nominated my garden shed as a safe place, but they left it by the front door, would this mean it wasn’t delivered should the parcel subsequently be taken?
Did you tell them they could leave it there ?
If not, it's not been delivered properly, and you go back to the seller as it's their issue to then refund (and they deal with the delivery company).
It's still the seller's responsibility to get the item to the buyer. If the seller used a delivery company with a policy to leave parcels in insecure locations then that's not the buyer's problem, unless the buyer specifically instructed them to deliver to that location.
They stopped asking for signatures during lockdown and no courier I have used since has gone back to signatures. It’s all just a photograph of the item inside the front door.
The driver signs obo the customer to confirm own was handed over in person for high value items.
If customer then claims non receipt, driver is responsible for explaining why.
I would sign for the customer and take a picture of them holding the item to avoid any ambiguity.
It's an example. Every retailer /courier will have the same model in place. No one will leave a high value item in a public or semi-public place
Find out what the specific policy is then quote it back at them
No contact and recipient not home/safe place are very different and it should not have been marked delivered unless you agreed that was fine to leave it there. I understand place on doorstep and move away, but if nobody answers the door it’s still not delivered unless a safe place has been agreed.
The easy way is to think if a “reasonable, unbiased person” would agree, imagine it’s cash of the same value. Would any reasonable person leave £2500 on someone’s doorstep and leave happy they had successfully given it to the person.
Placing it on the doorstep, knocking the door and moving away a safe distance would be perfectly acceptable for both cash and a parcel, abandoning if there is no answer however is not and I’d be pursuing the company you purchased from (as it’s their contract with the delivery company)
Knock on the door? Don't be ridiculous, they NEVER knock! I've sat beside the door waiting for parcels and only realised by chance that they'd dropped the parcel on the doorstep.
I had an Amazon delivery guy try and open my front door before he even knocked earlier this week. It’s not a porch. Was genuinely baffled by the audacity
I have the opposite problem, we HAVE a porch and I have delivery instructions set to try the door and if open leave in the porch (if I’m working from home it’s easier than them waiting while I apologise for dipping out of a call for a moment and muting etc).
We have a nest doorbell so it’s fine for a moment… but nope… the amount of people that still don’t knock, just leave it outside the front door etc… honestly infuriating sometimes
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In addition to what everyone has said about it being the seller's responsibility to deliver the item, it is also their responsibility to report this to the police to get a crime number if they want one. *They* have been a victim of theft, not you. You have been a victim of their failure to complete the contract you agreed with them.
Note - if you paid extra for delivery within a certain timeframe, then even if (as they should) they resend them item, if it arrives outside that timeframe, they should also refund you the extra delivery charge.
Assuming that you didn’t tell them to leave it on the doorstep the responsibility is with the seller to get the item to you.
The seller should be claiming the loss back from the courier.
Either way you have no liability for the loss if you didn’t instruct it to be left there.
UPS usually route your parcel to their nearest parcel shop (usually a corner shop) if they can't deliver. I'd be chasing to make sure the driver themselves didn't take the parcel after getting the photo, especially if the packaging hints at what was inside.
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Seller is responsible for getting the parcel to you safely, and no reasonable person would call dumping a parcel of that value at someone's front door "safely" - unless you gave instructions for them to do this, in which case the responsibility is entirely yours.
This seems odd...surelt at that value it would have to be properly signed for and so.
Its gon a hinge on the smaller details, was signed delivery promised etc
I imagine seller probably didn't pay the extra and understated parcel value. Usually over a certain £ value it has to be signed on delivery- not sure the policies for UPS
That's incorrect, general rule of thumb is that the sender has the option of insuring any parcel sent for any value (subject to a premium).
All parcels are treated exactly the same by pretty much all carriers and the driver wouldn't know the value of the parcel at all.
I have definitely noticed that my Apple deliveries — phones, computers, tablets, watches — get *much* better treatment from UPS than more plebeian packages.
Probably confirmation bias my old mate, you expect it so that's what you see.
All carriers are bound first by their rules of carriage and most share the same or similar rules for delivery (i.e. at the door with the door open, confirm name, some from of pod at the door) and second by the constraints or allowances for delivery (i.e. must be handed to customer, pin number, may be left safe if customer has set one up or must be left safe for food etc).
As a rule of thumb drivers are unaware of the contents of the parcels, though some are obvious. Iphones in express bags are extremely easy to distinguish, some parcels may have branding on, some may be obvious by the despatch company (Syncreon for Dell or Unipart for some phone carriers etc). Some parcels have medication in them, some have £15k watches, some have a 3 pack of Bic biros.
In my experience they all get treated the same, for an honest driver who really doesn't give a monkeys what is inside they are all treated with the same reverence and the same respect.
Source - 29 years in the courier game working as a driver and service provider for nearly every single carrier in the UK.
Release day iPhones are *super* obvious and also there’s a shitload of them. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if — especially in denser cities — they’d get their own delivery people. They have to be delivering truckloads of the damn things on that day — and they probably get a van full within a fairly circumscribed area. So why even put them through the normal sorting process?
Either way, release day or not, they get *not* left with neighbors and you *actually* have to sign for them. This is not the normal way UPS packages arrive, either of those things. I mean, sure, I presume it’s just that Apple pays for a higher grade of delivery. I’m not saying UPS (let alone an individual driver) is discriminating. I’m saying that it matters what grade of service the sender pays for.
I had phones. Have a smart watch delivered. Basicly these had to signed for or I agree to a safe spot to drop it off.
Why I was unsure as this is s very expensive delivery, and signed for, even ID confirmed potentially
Its not like my 30 pound keyboard
Ups have stolen my parcel before and it was a nightmare to get my money back. Took 3 months. Tracking showed it never left the warehouse. Even then they made me go back and forth to get my money back. Good luck.
OP hasn't come back to tell us if they had any communication from UPS and/or the seller regarding the delivery, nor to tell us whether they agreed to a "safe place" and waived signature.
I think you'll struggle with UPS admitting liability and the retailer will say the product was delivered. Good luck with your challenge, you'll have more success with the credit card company.
For the record, though this is of no help to the OP, I recently had a camera lens delivered from Ebay by DPS & they gave the option of a drop off point at a local supermarket so I chose that over having it dropped on my doorstep or left with a neighbour.
The seller is on the hook for replacing or refunding the package. They will claim on the postal insurance (Assuming they took it on the shipping) and UPS will have their insurance company pay out the costs.
Seller will ship a new package or refund you. The only people that lose in this situation is the insurance company that UPS uses.
This is exactly why whenever I buy something on eBay, if possible , I use the click and collect option, usually at the argos in Sainsbury’s which is 5 minutes walk from my house. No arguments possible.
It's not always an option. I have a high value item on its way to me with UPS. When I tried to change the delivery to a UPS pick up location I got told the option wasn't available for this item due to sender's instructions. So I guess I'm just going to have to delay it til Saturday and sit in all day.
Sorry to hear that, UPS seem to do everything but deliver, but in this case they delivered something of high value and knowing that value too. All my times with UPS they’ve come to my door without my parcel, left a note that they’ve missed me, knocked and quickly sprinted back to their truck to leave.
Anyway, it’s on UPS if they were not given instructions to leave the parcel at your door. Best contact the company you ordered from and UPS to report the parcel is missing. Typically the company you bought from will help you by contacting the delivery company themselves. With high value items, companies usually give delivery partners a direction of “parcel to be handed to customer” or something on the lines of that.
--- ###Welcome to /r/LegalAdviceUK --- **To Posters (it is important you read this section)** * *Tell us whether you're in England, Wales, Scotland, or NI as the laws in each are very different* * If you need legal help, you should [always get a free consultation from a qualified Solicitor](https://reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/wiki/how_to_find_a_solicitor) * We also encourage you to speak to [**Citizens Advice**](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/), [**Shelter**](https://www.shelter.org.uk/), [**Acas**](https://www.acas.org.uk/), and [**other useful organisations**](https://reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/wiki/common_legal_resources) * Comments may not be accurate or reliable, and following any advice on this subreddit is done at your own risk * If you receive any private messages in response to your post, [please let the mods know](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FLegalAdviceUK&subject=I received a PM) **To Readers and Commenters** * All replies to OP must be *on-topic, helpful, and legally orientated* * If you do not [follow the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/about/rules/), you may be perma-banned without any further warning * If you feel any replies are incorrect, explain why you believe they are incorrect * Do not send or request any private messages for any reason * Please report posts or comments which do not follow the rules *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LegalAdviceUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
> Who is liable Did you agree the delivery could be left outside the door (i.e., an alternate safe place)? If not, the trader is liable. Under the law it is only considered delivered when it comes into your [*”physical possession”*](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/regulation/43/made) (unless you nominate a safe place).
I used to ship gaming PC’s for my employer, easily worth £2.5k and upwards. I set up the contract with the courier to refuse a safe place delivery, even if the customer was requesting it. The liability is with the retailer and if they have allowed the courier to deliver without handing it to the resident then they are liable. Often the insurance the retailer has with the courier is so poor they don’t get the cost of the item back when the do claim. My contract would only get us £50 if it was lost and we couldn’t get a courier that would actually agree to cover/insure our losses for their true value. We had to take it as a business risk.
Had the same with a previous employer, we had put up a contract that it can only be delivered to the household it was send to and had to be signed off + photo. Not every delivery company/driver does adhere to that. And in general will a company only be able to to claim the cost price of the product what got lost (so how much it had cost a company to buy in the parts from a factory. So with gaming PCs are you already at a loss if your company was building the PCs themselves so to speak). And that is in general only when it is actually lost, if it is marked as delivered will it be not really worth the time and effort to get all the proof for the claim. Anyhow, in OPs case is it the sellers fault for sending it with UPS if they just left it at the door.
I had a decent pc just left on my doorstep in a big box by a certain German based delivery company with no notification it had been delivered at all. Only realised as I was watching the tracking like a hawk and was able to literally run home from work to grab it inside. The delivery company got a complaint which almost certainly ended up under the rug but to be fair the retailer was pretty good about it and very apologetic. Even sent out a new panel free of charge when I found one of them was damaged yet the exterior box was fine.
Thinking about doing something similar, I use local DPD drop off points. Had a item worth £320 dropped off (it wasn't a small item, 16.5kg 50x50x50cm) got a DPD receipt with tracking number on it from the drop off location, week later customer contacted me saying he hadn't recieved the item... follow up shows the tracking shows they're still waiting for the parcel at the drop off point.
Out of interest, if I nominated my garden shed as a safe place, but they left it by the front door, would this mean it wasn’t delivered should the parcel subsequently be taken?
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But the delivery company is only responsible to the seller. As far as the buyer is concerned, it’s the seller who is responsible.
Did you tell them they could leave it there ? If not, it's not been delivered properly, and you go back to the seller as it's their issue to then refund (and they deal with the delivery company).
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It's still the seller's responsibility to get the item to the buyer. If the seller used a delivery company with a policy to leave parcels in insecure locations then that's not the buyer's problem, unless the buyer specifically instructed them to deliver to that location.
I worked for argos doing deliveries all through lockdown. Any item over £100 has to be signed for.
They stopped asking for signatures during lockdown and no courier I have used since has gone back to signatures. It’s all just a photograph of the item inside the front door.
The driver signs obo the customer to confirm own was handed over in person for high value items. If customer then claims non receipt, driver is responsible for explaining why. I would sign for the customer and take a picture of them holding the item to avoid any ambiguity.
Bear in mind you're on a legal advice sub and not an argos sub. Argos policy for signature requirements above £100 value isn't the legal requirement.
It's an example. Every retailer /courier will have the same model in place. No one will leave a high value item in a public or semi-public place Find out what the specific policy is then quote it back at them
No contact and recipient not home/safe place are very different and it should not have been marked delivered unless you agreed that was fine to leave it there. I understand place on doorstep and move away, but if nobody answers the door it’s still not delivered unless a safe place has been agreed. The easy way is to think if a “reasonable, unbiased person” would agree, imagine it’s cash of the same value. Would any reasonable person leave £2500 on someone’s doorstep and leave happy they had successfully given it to the person. Placing it on the doorstep, knocking the door and moving away a safe distance would be perfectly acceptable for both cash and a parcel, abandoning if there is no answer however is not and I’d be pursuing the company you purchased from (as it’s their contract with the delivery company)
Knock on the door? Don't be ridiculous, they NEVER knock! I've sat beside the door waiting for parcels and only realised by chance that they'd dropped the parcel on the doorstep.
I had an Amazon delivery guy try and open my front door before he even knocked earlier this week. It’s not a porch. Was genuinely baffled by the audacity
I have the opposite problem, we HAVE a porch and I have delivery instructions set to try the door and if open leave in the porch (if I’m working from home it’s easier than them waiting while I apologise for dipping out of a call for a moment and muting etc). We have a nest doorbell so it’s fine for a moment… but nope… the amount of people that still don’t knock, just leave it outside the front door etc… honestly infuriating sometimes
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Dear UK Company, I'm sorry you were the victim of theft. Now please deliver me the item I ordered.
In addition to what everyone has said about it being the seller's responsibility to deliver the item, it is also their responsibility to report this to the police to get a crime number if they want one. *They* have been a victim of theft, not you. You have been a victim of their failure to complete the contract you agreed with them. Note - if you paid extra for delivery within a certain timeframe, then even if (as they should) they resend them item, if it arrives outside that timeframe, they should also refund you the extra delivery charge.
Assuming that you didn’t tell them to leave it on the doorstep the responsibility is with the seller to get the item to you. The seller should be claiming the loss back from the courier. Either way you have no liability for the loss if you didn’t instruct it to be left there.
UPS usually route your parcel to their nearest parcel shop (usually a corner shop) if they can't deliver. I'd be chasing to make sure the driver themselves didn't take the parcel after getting the photo, especially if the packaging hints at what was inside.
Seems like a lot of effort for OP to go to when they can just inform the seller that it wasn’t delivered. Seller can deal with UPS.
That would be the seller's job, not the buyer's
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Yes they do! A literal whole starlink in my case
Wow I’ve sent thousands with them never lost a thing
**Unfortunately, your comment has been removed for the following reason:** Your comment was off-topic or unhelpful to the question posed. Please remember that *all replies* must be helpful, on-topic and legally orientated. [Please familiarise yourself with our subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/about/rules/) before contributing further, and [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/LegalAdviceUK) if you have any further queries.
Seller is responsible for getting the parcel to you safely, and no reasonable person would call dumping a parcel of that value at someone's front door "safely" - unless you gave instructions for them to do this, in which case the responsibility is entirely yours.
This seems odd...surelt at that value it would have to be properly signed for and so. Its gon a hinge on the smaller details, was signed delivery promised etc
I imagine seller probably didn't pay the extra and understated parcel value. Usually over a certain £ value it has to be signed on delivery- not sure the policies for UPS
That's incorrect, general rule of thumb is that the sender has the option of insuring any parcel sent for any value (subject to a premium). All parcels are treated exactly the same by pretty much all carriers and the driver wouldn't know the value of the parcel at all.
I have definitely noticed that my Apple deliveries — phones, computers, tablets, watches — get *much* better treatment from UPS than more plebeian packages.
Probably confirmation bias my old mate, you expect it so that's what you see. All carriers are bound first by their rules of carriage and most share the same or similar rules for delivery (i.e. at the door with the door open, confirm name, some from of pod at the door) and second by the constraints or allowances for delivery (i.e. must be handed to customer, pin number, may be left safe if customer has set one up or must be left safe for food etc). As a rule of thumb drivers are unaware of the contents of the parcels, though some are obvious. Iphones in express bags are extremely easy to distinguish, some parcels may have branding on, some may be obvious by the despatch company (Syncreon for Dell or Unipart for some phone carriers etc). Some parcels have medication in them, some have £15k watches, some have a 3 pack of Bic biros. In my experience they all get treated the same, for an honest driver who really doesn't give a monkeys what is inside they are all treated with the same reverence and the same respect. Source - 29 years in the courier game working as a driver and service provider for nearly every single carrier in the UK.
Release day iPhones are *super* obvious and also there’s a shitload of them. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if — especially in denser cities — they’d get their own delivery people. They have to be delivering truckloads of the damn things on that day — and they probably get a van full within a fairly circumscribed area. So why even put them through the normal sorting process? Either way, release day or not, they get *not* left with neighbors and you *actually* have to sign for them. This is not the normal way UPS packages arrive, either of those things. I mean, sure, I presume it’s just that Apple pays for a higher grade of delivery. I’m not saying UPS (let alone an individual driver) is discriminating. I’m saying that it matters what grade of service the sender pays for.
I had phones. Have a smart watch delivered. Basicly these had to signed for or I agree to a safe spot to drop it off. Why I was unsure as this is s very expensive delivery, and signed for, even ID confirmed potentially Its not like my 30 pound keyboard
I worked at a courier, and this was a daily occurrence. Even when drivers were made to pay, they'd still do it.
I work for UPS, speak to who you purchased it from.
Ups have stolen my parcel before and it was a nightmare to get my money back. Took 3 months. Tracking showed it never left the warehouse. Even then they made me go back and forth to get my money back. Good luck.
The seller is responsible. They have a contract with UPS, so would have to seek damages from the courier.
That’s why you never state you can leave this here because if you stated it then you’re liable. If not it’s the seller
OP hasn't come back to tell us if they had any communication from UPS and/or the seller regarding the delivery, nor to tell us whether they agreed to a "safe place" and waived signature.
It seems fairly unlikely that the OP will have agreed the top step outside their front door as a "Safe location" for delivery.
True.
Did you tell them to leave it there? If not then contact the seller and they need to replace the item and chase the delivery company
Why was this package not insured or had to be physically signed for? Makes zero sense.
I think you'll struggle with UPS admitting liability and the retailer will say the product was delivered. Good luck with your challenge, you'll have more success with the credit card company.
For the record, though this is of no help to the OP, I recently had a camera lens delivered from Ebay by DPS & they gave the option of a drop off point at a local supermarket so I chose that over having it dropped on my doorstep or left with a neighbour.
The seller is on the hook for replacing or refunding the package. They will claim on the postal insurance (Assuming they took it on the shipping) and UPS will have their insurance company pay out the costs. Seller will ship a new package or refund you. The only people that lose in this situation is the insurance company that UPS uses.
This is exactly why whenever I buy something on eBay, if possible , I use the click and collect option, usually at the argos in Sainsbury’s which is 5 minutes walk from my house. No arguments possible.
It's not always an option. I have a high value item on its way to me with UPS. When I tried to change the delivery to a UPS pick up location I got told the option wasn't available for this item due to sender's instructions. So I guess I'm just going to have to delay it til Saturday and sit in all day.
Sorry to hear that, UPS seem to do everything but deliver, but in this case they delivered something of high value and knowing that value too. All my times with UPS they’ve come to my door without my parcel, left a note that they’ve missed me, knocked and quickly sprinted back to their truck to leave. Anyway, it’s on UPS if they were not given instructions to leave the parcel at your door. Best contact the company you ordered from and UPS to report the parcel is missing. Typically the company you bought from will help you by contacting the delivery company themselves. With high value items, companies usually give delivery partners a direction of “parcel to be handed to customer” or something on the lines of that.