Delivery hell this Christmas: your stories

Yesterday, Phil Norris from Up Hatherley near Cheltenham hit the headlines when he revealed that an Amazon courier had decided that the safest place to leave a parcel was in his wheelie bin - the day before bin day. We asked for your parcel delivery experiences, and have been overwhelmed by your tales of delivery hell. Here are ten of the most shocking.

1. Bin and gone
Norris wasn't the only person to have a parcel left in the bin. One reader sent a Dunhill raincoat to her mother in Scotland. It was left in the bin, and the bin was emptied later that day with the parcel still inside.

2. Beside themselves
Another reader received a note saying that their parcel had been left 'beside the bin'. However, they checked beside their bin and there was nothing there. Eventually the parcel was discovered behind their neighbour's bin a few houses away.
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3. Bin there
One wrote: "I found a parcel in my wheelie bin. The thing is that it wasn't my parcel: it wasn't even for anyone on my street. It took me two hours to track down the owner, as I couldn't contact the delivery company to get any help. I ended up delivering it to an elderly gentleman."

4. Smashing experience
One reader had a glass kettle delivered. She wasn't in, so the courier threw it over the fence into the back garden. They didn't leave a note, so she only found the smashed kettle when she went into the garden after weeks of rain.

5. Hedging their bets
Another wrote: "One courier left my parcel jammed in a bush in the pouring rain." They didn't deliver a note saying where the parcel was, so he only stumbled across it three weeks later.

6. Blinding decision
One said he was waiting for a 6-foot roller blind to be delivered, and after nothing arrived he ordered a replacement. It was only three months later when the leaves fell off the bushes that he spotted that it had been thrown into the back garden under a bush.

7. In a flap
A reader wrote: "I once had a parcel rammed through the cat flap into the conservatory at the back of the house. It broke the cat flap as the flap only opened with a magnet on my cat's collar." She complained to the Royal Mail, who paid for a replacement. However, she added that "the cat was in the conservatory at the time and he nearly had a nervous breakdown... He didn't use the cat flap for weeks."

8. Potty decision
One woman bought a £100 dress online, and returned home to find it had been stuffed into a plant pot on the doorstep. It was jammed in so tightly that she had to smash the pot to take it out.

9. Drive by?
One reader had an iPod delivered, which was left on the ground, outside the gate, by the side of a busy road - despite the fact they were waiting inside the house for the parcel. They speculated that the driver might have simply thrown the parcel out of the van as they drove past.

10. Honest mistake?
And finally, there was the reader who joked that his parcel had been left with a man in a striped top and a mask, with a large sack over his shoulder.

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