Courier decides to leave delivery in the bin

Delivery firms have been overwhelmed this year. The surge of online shopping to coincide with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Mega Monday and every other day in between, has left many companies and drivers struggling under the weight of extra parcels. When you're under pressure it's easy to make mistakes, but it's hard to imagine what kind of pressure left one delivery driver thinking it was a good idea to leave deliveries in the bin.

The Daily Mail reported that Phil Norris, a 43-year-old from Up Hatherley in Cheltenham, returned home to find a note saying someone had tried to deliver an Amazon parcel. On closer inspection he read that instead of leaving it in a safe place, with a neighbour, or back at the depot, he had chosen to leave it in the bin.

Fortunately for Norris, bin collection day was the following day, so he was able to retrieve his delivery. Unfortunately the parcel had been left on top of bags of rubbish - which isn't ideal storage for any of your Christmas presents.

A spokesman for Amazon told the Metro: 'We are sorry to learn about this experience and take complaints of this nature very seriously. We will, of course, replace the item at no charge.'
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Odd parcel deliveries

This isn't the first time that a delivery has been left in the bin. The acting editor of the Scunthorpe Telegraph revealed today that she had been waiting for a parcel that had been due ten days earlier. She searched through her kitchen bin to check she hadn't thrown away a delivery card, and found that a note had been scribbled on another piece of mail saying that her parcel had been left in the wheelie bin. It had been there for over a week, and several bags of smelly rubbish had been put in on top of it.

There have been plenty of other bizarre deliveries in recent months. When Radio 5 Live ran Norris' story it asked people about their terrible deliveries. Their stories included a rug that had been left outside the front door - while the homeowner was on holiday for two weeks. There was also a parcel left behind the front wheel of one listener's car. She pointed out she was lucky to have spotted it before reversing over it.

In August we reported on the internet shopper from Hove who returned to find a card saying his MyHermes delivery was 'stuck on roof'. It was wedged in a gutter 20 feet off the ground. The firm eventually sent the courier back to the house with a ladder in order to get it down.

When Which? ran the story, it asked readers to list the weird places delivery companies had left their parcels. One reader said she'd had a delivery left in a wheelie bin, and only returned home the day after bin day: a kind neighbour had put her bins out for her while she was away.

Another reader said the note had said that the parcel containing a suit for her son had been left in the garden. She eventually tracked it down when she saw a piece of plastic sticking out of the rabbit hutch: it had been left in with the pets.

Back in February, another delivery went viral, after a driver left a card saying that the parcel has been left under a bucket by the car. The fact that the bucket in question was far smaller than the parcel meant it was actually left in plain sight, with a tiny bucket balanced on it.

But what do you think? Have you ever had a parcel left somewhere bizarre? Let us know in the comments.

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