You are waiting for an important order and you have verified that it was in delivery, but hours pass and no one calls. You go to see the tracking of the package once again and you find the dreaded “package not delivered due to absentee recipient” even though you have not left home nor have you received any calls. What is happening?
A common problem. It has happened to all of us at some point and it is very annoying. Not delivering a package on time is understandable to a certain extent, but lying and saying you weren’t home really turns us on. Just do a search on social networks like reddit either x to find users very angry about this situation.
Consumer organizations have also detected it: “It is a problem that worries us. It is quite common for them to not deliver a package and say that you have not picked up the phone or have not opened the door for them,” Manuel Vivas, OCU press officer, tells us. In the last two months they have received 14 complaints about this issue and Correos Express is the company that users most often mention in their complaints, but it is not the only one. A search on their website returns similar results in the case of Mail, SEUR, M.R.W., GLS and many more.
Online commerce. It is the main cause of the increase in package deliveries. There was a boom during the pandemic, but since then the numbers have not stopped growing. According to CNMC dataIn the first quarter of the year alone, the online commerce business has grown by 18.2% compared to the previous year, exceeding a turnover of 25.7 billion euros and more than 474 million transactions.
Packages. Many of these purchases translate into home deliveries that have caused the volume of parcel shipments to reach record figures. According to the CNMC Annual Report of the Postal Sector 2024in 2024, 1,216.6 million packages were sent, most of them less than 2kg. Almost half of the packages managed by large online platforms were delivered within 24 hours. According to the DBK observatory reportthe billing of the courier and parcel sector grew by 5% in 2024, exceeding 10,000 million in revenue.
The delivery men. The growth of the sector has caused a boom in delivery job offers. However, conditions are not always good. According to the ETT Synergiethe average salary of a delivery driver ranges between 1,200 and 1,750 euros gross per month. This is if they have a contract and work for a large company, many other delivery drivers They are forced to become autonomous and use your own vehicle.
In April of this year, El Confidencial published a report where several delivery people claimed to charge between 0.75 and 1.50 euros per package delivered. Other delivery drivers denounce endless days and more than 100 daily deliveries to get a decent salary. There is a lot of pressure to deliver the maximum number of packages per day and there are penalties if they fail.
The trap. In a report from El Faro De Vigo Several delivery drivers talk about the “trap” of saying that you were absent. Many times delivery drivers resort to marking an incident to save travel, especially those who receive commission per delivery. “If you have an urgent delivery, but due to the area you are in, you can take away several deliveriesyou put “incidence”, for example, and deliver it later,” confesses a delivery man.
Courier companies that receive a complaint about this issue have an easy time knowing whether or not the delivery person passed through the area, since the apps they use have a geolocator. The penalties for mismanagement of a delivery can be up to 40 euros, which for many of these delivery drivers means losing half or more of what they earn in a day.
Claim. If we are marked as absent, in most cases we have to go to the branch of the delivery company to pick up the package. It is possible to claim the costs involved in going to the warehouse where the package was left, especially if we live far away and do not have a vehicle. The OCU receives many of these complaints. “We collect the complaint and transfer it to the company, we do mediation work (…) The client has the right to complain, but for most people it is not worth claiming the 10 euros for the taxi because it involves more effort than going to pick up the package,” Manuel Vivas tells us.
In addition, it must be taken into account that many times the person making the delivery simply acts as an intermediary. According to Manuel, “The customer does not have a contractual relationship with the delivery company (…) the claim must be addressed to the company where the purchase was made.” That is, if we have made the purchase on Amazon, even if it was Seur who made the “non-delivery”, we must complain to Amazon.
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