Mail-order ammo stolen by delivery co?

Not exactly the same situation but I have had issues with FedEx with signature required deliveries. They will leave it on my front pouch without even ringing the doorbell and fake that it was signed for. This is actually illegal where I live when it comes to things like ammo.


for anyone wondering where I live and why it’s illegal:

I live in Washington D.C and there are laws about ammo sales, so ammo shipments are supposed to be signed for by someone 21 or older with the appropriate firearms permit. Since in DC you are only allowed to be in possession of ammo in a caliber for a firearm you have lawfully registered with MPDC.

(This is not really enforced strictly and yes is probably unconstitutional but until someone is willing to take them to court over a law that is basically never enforced it is the law in DC.)

I did have UPS deliver a $500 patio set of table, umbrella and chairs to a wrong address. The driver swore up and down that it was delivered to the correct address and sent me a photo via text of the delivery site with the boxes all piled neatly in a carport of a white house with blue trim. I sent him a photo back of our house. Light yellow with a dark brown trim and a dark brown garage door.
Never heard from UPS about it again, but my credit card credited my account.
Somebody got a nice patio set for free.

I haven't ordered any ammunition, but have had constant problems with all the shipping companies in the last 1.5-2yrs.

Fed-Ex delivered some quite expensive (in the 4 figures) Refrigeration Required medication to me at one point EXCEPT they delivered it to the house two doors down the street. I found the Styrofoam cooler still sitting on that neighbors porch the next morning. Thank god it was April and not July. Confronting Fed-Ex about it the response was basically: "We talked to the driver and he said he delivered it to the house with the white truck in the driveway" (we both have white trucks). Try checking the address next time.
Continuing with Fed-Ex, for work, I routinely send and receive packages sent Priority Overnight. In the last 6 months Priority Overnight means it takes 2 days.

The Coveralls I ordered from Academy Sports on Dec 31 of last year are still out for delivery according to the USPS. Based on Tracking, they made it within 45miles of the house and then disappeared, sent out for delivery from the local distribution center. I waited out the required time, and put in lost item request. I received an e-mail back the next day that simply repeated what the tracking information said. I was like "Gee Thanks, I knew all that 2 weeks ago". Academy did refund the purchase.
Also, I sent a package to a friend last Christmas via USPS, they said it was delivered to her lockbox....well not exactly, they just set it outside her apartment. Fortunately her neighbor picked it up before it disappeared and gave it to her.

Amazon delivered empty packaging. It was a padded envelope and the flap had become unsealed. The item, (4 blades for sickle mower) are probably still sliding around in one of their vans somewhere, but the envelope did make it to my door.

I prefer UPS, despite the fact that they will drop off signature required items, without getting a signature and that for some reason have a tendency to deliver a day early. At least if they screw up, their distribution center is 5 min from the house and I can drive down and yell at them in person and/or physically pick up my package, which is something I've had to do twice.

At this point I basically hold my breath whenever I have to order anything and hope it actually arrives.

Aren't some "Fedex" residential delivery trucks these days Not actually owned by the "real Fedex"? One of the "real Fedex" drivers in our area told me so a few months ago as I enquired whether he was soon headed to our street. I didn't want the ammo to be on the front porch later with rain in the forecast (we were going out to eat that night).

As for the ---- long-haul trucks ---- used by Fedex Ground, I knew a guy late last year who owns a small company and his long-haul (Memphis-Birm., Dallas, Chicago etc) trucks are contracted Solely to Fedex.
His huge trucks have Fedex wording on them, iirc. He was a fellow student in my Krav self-defense class in Arlington TN.

Many Fedx drivers/trucks are independent contractors and in fact "buy" the rights to certain areas or routes. Seems if I paid for the rights I would be very motivated to do a good job. A company driver would be worried about losing their job, an IC would worry about losing their investment.

I have problems when delivery drivers simply use GPS for locating. The home here are not numbered odd-even like everywhere else, but by when they were built (Senior development). Most GPS maps show my location at the wrong end of the street, and some mindless drivers rely on the "at destination" notice as accurate, drop off packages at a place completely numbered differently. FedEx and Amazon are the worst, since no regular driver works the route. Great tools, GPS, too many use them for a crutch or replacement for common sense. Map reading no longer taught in schools, I guess gender identification is a more important skill.

I put out cold drinks in a ice chest for our delivery drivers - so far, nothing has been taken or even damaged. Bribery works, I guess.

Have had a few problems with deliveries in the past year or two - none involving weapons or ammo, fortunately. A really big problem in my opinion is simple incompetence... To give you a view of today's world my letter carrier a few years back pointed out that for folks wanting to get a job with the post office now... there's even a verbal entrance exam -for those that can't do written English (not making this up...). Years before that we actually got a college graduate as a rookie cop - that literally could not write a single simple sentence... To his credit, he went back to school to learn those basic skills that someone, somewhere should have made sure he possessed - before going off to college. I can't imagine how a sharp young man (and he was in every other way a good candidate...) could make it through college without simple writing skills....

I ordered .32 S&WL ammo and it was shipped via FedEx, delivery time came and went showing that it had been delivered(but not at my house).
I was actually able to call FedEx and they do take firearms and ammo seriously.
And yet they couldn’t determine where exactly it had been delivered to, FedEx called the store and told them it had been lost, I received a refund.
3 days later, the person it had been delivered to returned it to me, I called the store to send them the refund back and was told to hang onto the money(they charged FedEx for loosing the shipment).
I make it a point to make a note as I’m ordering anything NOT to ship thru FedEx.

The UPS driver that delivers to my town is pretty good, it is his supervisors that make up the route each day that are screwed up. Since I live half way between two FEDEX hubs, I never know what driver I will get. Drivers from one hub are usually good to go but the ones from the other hub are not. I won't even get started on USPS since that would be a long read.

What I don't like is when FEDEX or UPS drops packages off to USPS for final delivery. Especially from Midway USA. I live 60 miles east of Midway. But when packages go from FEDEX or UPS to USPS, my orders go west to Kansas City then to St Louis before coming to my local post office. I have learned to make sure any Midway orders include ammo, primers, powder or anything els that USPS won't deliver.

And you can't go by GPS or most map apps since they all show my house being a block down from its actual location.

re: 2 separate, 1-month-apart USPS handgun deliveries to my (rural) house a few years ago ...

Both were vintage S&W Model 1905 (4th change) Hand Ejector .38spc 6"revolvers. (Nice!)

For the first delivery, to make it easier on the Mail Carrier (s/he wouldn't even have exit their vehicle) I opened the double-wide garage door, setup a table and started sorting .38 cases. I would be clearly visible to the Mail Carrier as they rounded the bend and topped the rise ~200yds away and as they approached the bottom of my driveway, only losing sight of me as they neared my mailbox.

I heard the distinctive sound of the USPS scooter engine and saw the fellow coming up the road. He paused at Donnie's mailbox then continued on to mine. I heard him stop at the mailbox and waited for him to pull back 15' to turn up the driveway ... and waited ... and waited ... and then he drove off.


I walked down and found one of the "Sorry We Missed You!" brown notes in my mailbox. According to that message, no one had responded to his ringing my doorbell and/or knocking on my door so I was going to have to contact the local Post Office to arrange delivery or pickup. Oh, really?

Bad news for him was that this particular route terminated a couple of miles up and he would then turn around and drive back down attending to mail on the other side of the street. I stayed at the road and waited. He had no explanation or much anything to say as I signed for and took the package and thanked him.

When I contacted USPS about this, his supervisor called me, expressed his regrets & apology and assured me he would speak with the mail carrier. He also mentioned that he felt a bit blindsided by this because this was his best Mail Carrier. If that is true, I find it incredibly sad.

Anyway ... almost exactly one month later I had won another "surprise" GunBroker auction for another of the same type of revolver (this one was chromed, though ).

So, again ... I setup at the front of the garage, sorting more cases, and waited ... and I saw the guy approaching ... and, once again, he stopped down at the mailbox ... and I waited & waited ... and then realized that he was pausing to write out another of those "Sorry We Missed You!" notes ... so I walked out into the driveway, HOLLERED down to him and started walking down driveway. He backed up and entered the mouth of the driveway and waited. Not too many words were exchanged as I signed and took possession and thanked him.

I filed no complaint. Why bother? In addition, I have long believed (known) that USPS Mail Carrier is one of the truly horrible & under-/un-appreciated jobs to have. One reason that when I know of a SigReq package being delivered, I like to meet them in front of the garage so they don't even have to exit their vehicles.

And, yes, I sincerely thanked him for the delivery on both occasions. 'Just the way I was reared.

I live out in the country my driveway is over 880 feet long. I have had them put the package in a plastic bag and tie it to my mail box, there are a couple T-posts around it and a few other things to discourage mailbox baseball. My trash can sits down there in some trees, I have had them leave boxes right next to the trashcan. This was all UPS.

The UPS that covers our area comes out of Higgnsville MO. It is a "smaller" farm type community. If I get a gun in from UPS, back when they did guns. I would just have them hold it there and run up after work and get it. Not there often but once and a while. The little girl that "ran" the place, (and I chose the phrase little girl for a reason) was so on the ball, and ran a tight ship. She had to be mid 20's I guess, short 5' nothing, and you could tell a farm girl. Cute as hell, but the same age as my kid. In picking up that last gun I said I want to talk to you about something....ok what, I showed her the photos I took of the last two drop off's. You could see her face get red, THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. And guess what it has not.

The OP being on the front porch waitinng, I can see his frustration. But in the country with the houses not numbered real well, I have had stuff show up even the next "street" over. I got four HUGE 4 wheel drive tires at my house one day. These suckers are HUGE. It happens, Amazon showed a photo of the package delivered to my house....only thing was it was a photo of the package sitting at my neighbors house.

With all the recent events in the world it will be real easy for us to get cynical in a hurry. All it takes is a few antis in the correct spots and we could have some fairly wide spread ammo theft. Then we have fairly wide spread fear of ordering online and VOILA, look at how effectively the antis restricted online ammo sales!

The one thing I have personally noticed is one of the major online ammo retailers has stopped using boxes with their name printed across the side.

IMO, track and document everything and when you tell customer service you have security cameras with no delivery at said time, problems get solved pretty quick.

Hartkopf said:

With all the recent events in the world it will be real easy for us to get cynical in a hurry. All it takes is a few antis in the correct spots and we could have some fairly wide spread ammo theft. Then we have fairly wide spread fear of ordering online and VOILA, look at how effectively the antis restricted online ammo sales!

The one thing I have personally noticed is one of the major online ammo retailers has stopped using boxes with their name printed across the side.

IMO, track and document everything and when you tell customer service you have security cameras with no delivery at said time, problems get solved pretty quick.

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Even in the boonies I have cameras around the house. I will go to my grave thinking I have got on tape a Cougar in my back yard....the furry four legged cat type animal, not the middle aged female looking for young men. That just has to be a cougar.....look at that tail. About all my cameras have ever gotten, but they are there.

Do this, they are inexpensive enough.

I just recently bought a bottle of green dot and a box of .45 ACP and had them shipped Fed ex. Supposed to be adult signed for by someone with ID. I get a text while in at work says it's been dropped off and signed for. I get home and there is a hazmat marked box on the front porch. The box is suspiciously light. They brought my powder but not my ammo. I start chatting with the company I made the purchase from. They took some info and say they will turn it over to the claims department I contact Fed ex and someone in a call center in south Asia (based on the lady's accent) tells me their records show it was all delivered. I'm dissatisfied by both responses. Two days later a Fed Ex guy pulls in right as my wife is leaving and hands her a small box asking for her last name, the ammo arrived two days apart in a box that was falling apart but whatever. I never heard from Brownells. Reading the other posts makes me nervous about ordering ammo online now

ExtremeSquared said:

Tracking showed date and time of expected delivery, so I opened the front door and watched for it, with the tracking page pulled up. No fedex truck passed down my residential street, and the status changed to "delivered at front door".

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I had an upper, being delivered by Fed Ex a couple years ago that they did the same thing. I had sent them surveillance photos of every Fed Ex truck that had been down my drive in the last 3 months as well as the one that drove by looking out at the road that day (time stamped). 5 days later they were still jacking around, not wanting to admit there was any problem, “we did deliver it.”

On day 7, I answered the door to find a farmer holding a long skinny cardboard box. He apologized (not his problem but nice he did what fed ex couldn’t) said he thought it was a PTO shaft until he opened the box. Closer inspection of the box gave him my address.

I thanked him for taking the time to bring it to me. I also relayed the story to the people at Fed Ex but they didn’t seem to care either way…

Not sure how much of a fight that would have been had it not turned out that way.

Reading this thread I realize that I’ve experienced all these delivery issues. Another variation is ordering something with delivery guaranteed within X number of days. The big day comes, truck never shows but tracking says delivered. See, they delivered on time! Gotta keep those stats looking good…Then the package shows up the next day…

One time I was away from home for work for four days. When I got home there was a package from the CMP on my porch with my new Garand. Thanks UPS! I think…..

Moved recently and now have Private Mail Box at a local business. Works great, no way to get the address wrong and screw up the delivery.

Ok I just remembered the magic words for problems everyone here has been having;

Report a driver.

Use those word because that is the actual problem most people have. The driver marked as delivered. Report a driver and you will eventually get moved up the chain to a manager that cares (a little. maybe).

I had a major issue with a driver making 3 attempts to deliver when I watched him drive by 3 times! He never attempted anything but tracking showed he tried to deliver 3 times. I was furious because it was for medication being shipped overnight for a family member. Anyway I went round and round with CS and never got anywhere until I reported the driver and also had cameras proving he never entered the property.

jmorris said:

I had an upper, being delivered by Fed Ex a couple years ago that they did the same thing. I had sent them surveillance photos of every Fed Ex truck that had been down my drive in the last 3 months as well as the one that drove by looking out at the road that day (time stamped). 5 days later they were still jacking around, not wanting to admit there was any problem, “we did deliver it.”

On day 7, I answered the door to find a farmer holding a long skinny cardboard box. He apologized (not his problem but nice he did what fed ex couldn’t) said he thought it was a PTO shaft until he opened the box. Closer inspection of the box gave him my address.

I thanked him for taking the time to bring it to me. I also relayed the story to the people at Fed Ex but they didn’t seem to care either way…

Not sure how much of a fight that would have been had it not turned out that way.

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I can't tell you how many times I have opened a box and gone....what the hell.....then look at the address and said oops. Not a PTO shaft but a replacement pump for a power washer, came monday, did not open the box, forgot about it till I needed the power washer, open the box and it was not the pump. Look at the address, oh crap. I had the box about a month. Took it to the neighbor said sorry I thought it was my pump. He got another one as his got lost. My pump was lost and I had to go down the road of a box I was thinking I had did not have what I thought was in it.

I open everything right away now.

I sent a gp100 to Ruger to have rear sight replaced. They said 4 to 6 weeks. so 3 weeks later when I came home from work my neighbor yelled at me that he had a fedx box they dropped off. Said he didn't think I wanted it getting wet so he picked it up off my lawn. the driver just drove by and tossed it out on the front lawn. Called fedxx they said I signed for it.

I live in the sticks, miles from the nearest asphalt. My UPS driver always gets a cold soda when he makes a delivery. At Christmas, a nice restaurant gift card. When roads are too muddy, he texts me and I drive out to meet him.

He has educated his buddies for the days when he's not working.

When I have a choice, I always ship via UPS.

I have had a P.O. Box for over 45 years, try to use USPS wherever possible, when my package arrives they put a yellow card in my box, I go around to the
counter to get my package. A little while ago found a package on my front step, since I do not shop online I was puzzled. Looked at the address, my apartment number but a totally different row.

Poper said:

Somebody got a nice patio set for free.

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Which used to be a legal issue. A condition applied to common carriers as an additional assurance that they would deliver to the actual addressee, or have to pay to replace the item.

Shipping insurance appears to have insulated the carriers from the errors of their employees.

It's not a business I'd want to get into now--near a perfect combination of all the worst aspects of "modern life." High demand, low labor supply, maintenance issues with vehicles, and cash heavy for all the insurance burdens.

And, in "our" community, a large number of sensitive issues. Like products that are Federally and State regulated. Potential political implications. I have no simple answers. It used to be a "dodge" of sorts to have things delivered to a business address, as it was harder to claim "no one was home." But WFH has put a crimp in that.

I know I have taken to not relying on shipping so much, as shipped items have become less-reliable of late. That, and it's been a quandary of finding a case of ammo I was willing to pay the price shown and have it shipped. Firearms get sent to my LGS near universally just from how they are sourced.

The sheer volume of doorbell and driveway cameras will, I'm thinking, reverse some of this. But, it will take time, more time than most of us have the patience for, sadly.