FedEx

I've ordered a few things on Amazon in the past which have happened to come via FedEx. From what I can gather, what has happened to me is pretty much their standard mode of operation outside North America. For the record, this has happened to me several times in three different countries and two continents, so I don't think it's just one dodgy local delivery guy or anything. Maybe they just hate these three countries specifically. I'm sure they're great in the USA. But not here or anywhere else I've been unfortunate enough to live.
They'll come to drop off the package (usually a book in my case) during work hours, which means of course that I'm not home. They ring the doorbell, wait for a few seconds, then leave with my package. No note left (the local post always leaves a "you weren't hope to pick up your delivery but you can come to <address> to pick it up" thing) or indication they've been. This is despite the fact that they have both my email and phone number with the order. Nothing is left in the mailbox even though it is easily big enough to put the book into. They then take the package and promptly
ship it back to it's country of origin to wait there until the end of time. At no point do they ever tell me about this--if it weren't for the "track package" feature on Amazon, I'd never know what happened the first time this occurred.
It was shipped all the way back to the USA less than five hours after the guy knocked on the door. Which stupid idiot came up with this idea? And yes, they do have a local storage place for packages, but they told me on the phone that company policy dictates that they now have to send things back to wait in the storage facility in the country of origin instead. And they never ever contact the person waiting for the package, who thus has no indication that it is illogically sitting in another country and won't move until they make several dozen phone calls and grow just as many grey hairs.
We have a motion-sensitive camera outside our door, so we got to watch this today. The guy rang the doorbell and stood there for less than five seconds before walking off. The neighbour's door is right next to ours (a whole 2cm away). If it weren't for this or Amazon, we'd have no idea that my book had arrived and then been shipped back to the USA. They never tell us. It takes so freaking long to get it back again and even then there's a chance that the whole thing will just happen all over again.
