While I was out of town during the long Thanksgiving Day Weekend, I apparently received a DVD from Netflix and returned it in good order. It would seem there are strangers living in my house watching and returning my movies while I’m away. Either that or the Postal Service mail carrier screwed up, again.
Thanks USPS. What other mail of mine are you returning for me?
How does a mail carrier error result in a disc being returned to netflix? I once got a disc two weeks after it was shipped, in an envelope too torn up to use for return, but outright mooching would be a new one.
Posted by Nat on 29 November 2005 @ 9am
My theory is that the DVD arrived on Friday and remained in my mailbox on Saturday when the mail carrier returned. The mail carrier probably assumed the DVD was meant to be returned–they will pick up stamped mail from your mailbox if you put the little mailbox flag up. Sometimes they ignore the flag and the stamped mail ready for shipment. And sometimes they deliver mail belonging to people on another block. And sometimes they deliver your mail to the neighbors or to no one at all. And sometimes they refuse to deliver a package to your house and make you pick it up at a little post office in a crowded neighborhood near downtown where there is no parking. But I digress.
Posted by Carrick on 29 November 2005 @ 9am
But if he picked up the same envelope he’d dropped off, it would still have had your address on the front, unless he helpfully tore off the front sheet. That’d be going a bit above and beyond the call.
Mail service in my neighborhood on the Cap Hill/Montlake border kicks ass. Testing a long-held theory, I returned a DVD on the Thursday before Veteran’s Day, which got to Tacoma and into Netflix’s PO box by that night.
Friday, the PO is closed, but Netflix is open; I got the received/sent confirmations in email on Friday. Netflix drops off their outgoing mail Friday afternoon, while the PO is still napping. On Saturday morning, I had it in my mailbox by about 11:30 AM — zero-day service. I’ve had interoffice mail, hell, email that didn’t work so fast.
This has happened consistently around federal holidays (usually mondays) for a couple of years, and baffled me for a long time. It must be a little unsettling for Netflix how much their perceived quality is out of their hands.
Posted by Nat on 29 November 2005 @ 12pm
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