Royal Mail- what does LATDMS mean?

[clibinarium]

This may be a long shot to ask for advice here, but I got an amazon delivery today- except I didn't.

I did order something, went to check the website this morning to see if it was on track for today (if it wasn't and didn't appear until Monday; no big deal), and I see its marked as delivered five minutes ago. Odd- doorbell didn't ring, I check outside; nothing.
Royal Mail are the carrier, and it's tracked. Their tracker shows a photo of the package, but nothing in the photo suggests any location. Back on amazon, it read
"Delivered
Delivery Address, LATDMS"

So my question is -what does LATDMS mean? I am guessing "left at the? door? something something? Anyone seen this before?
It looks like someone might have swiped my parcel off the doorstep, if it was indeed delivered.

[FreakyFenton]

My guess would be that the LATDMS refers to some sort of Google Maps reference. So I reckon there's a bug in the system that prevented that script from working. I would contact Royal Mail and see if they have any post office or news agent that it might have been delivered to for pick up.

No idea though, but that would be my best guess.

Then again, maybe it was delivered and there was a porch pirate. Unlikely, but if it is in open view from the street?

[zemjw]

Was it your door?

The reason I ask is that I was waiting for a package and got the "it's been delivered" message. The picture, however, was not of my door Fortunately the neighbour whose door they did leave it at was kind enough to bring it round. The courier company was stupid enough to ask me to rate the delivery. I obliged! Annoyingly, I never received an apology from them.

Left At The Door, Message Sent would be my guess

[Tactalvanic]

from what you suggest, royal mail took a picture of a box at some unknown location.

But if amazon specifically is "LATDMS" shown

I would agree its - location script -  cannot determine the Royal Mail delivery point - its usually an abbreviation related to location.

eg

LATITUDE - Degrees Minutes Seconds (DMS)

Probably script is meant to be using the values provided for google earth or something to then render an arrow on a map or something.

and cannot do from the data provided by royal mail.

Lost a lot of any faith I used to have in them to be fair.



 

[vodkafan]

I work for Royal Mail.  We do NOT leave things on doorsteps. Even if it is left in a designated "safe place" a red card will be filled in and put through the door.
Beware scams that come on your phone and say they are Royal Mail. You can tell they are scams if they ask you to confirm your address- if we really have your parcel your postman already knows your address!

[FramFramson]

Late As The Day Might Stretch 

[carlos marighela]

Lazy Ass That Delivers Most Shit. It's their calling card.

Fear not, it's a international disease these days. As I am as often as not working from home, I'm generally here when the delivery twat drops the card on my mat, having made zero attempt to ring a bell or knock. To add insult to injury the last one required pick up at the furthest of the three post offices in my manor.

Local contractors get paid on piece rates per item delivered so there's no incentive to wait for 30 seconds for someone to answer a door, whatever evidence may present as to them being at home.

Piece de resistance was the box my wife ordered two weeks ago. A large box was placed on the steps in front of our outward facing mesh security door. Not knowing what the contents were I couldn't risk opening the security door and knocking it off the steps. I had to go all the way around the house to open the gate to retrieve it.

I think Australia Post must administer a special stupid test to the people contracted to deliver parcels.

[elliesdad]

Can’t help - sorry. As an aside, I don’t always trust what Amazon say. The last package I received shows as “handed to resident”.
Errr… no. Item (an A5 rule book) was folded in half and rammed through the letterbox. Doorbell didn’t ring - I was home and watching the delivery get closer on Amazons delivery tracker. At least the rule book wasn’t damaged, although it would’ve been if it had been A4 size.
As far as you are concerned, you have not received the item you bought and paid for. The delivery failure is an issue for Amazon/Royal Mail to resolve (in reality it’s Amazon, as although they use Royal Mail as their delivery agent, your contract is with Amazon).
Good luck,
Geoff

[Spinal Tap]

I work for Royal Mail.  We do NOT leave things on doorsteps. Even if it is left in a designated "safe place" a red card will be filled in and put through the door.
Beware scams that come on your phone and say they are Royal Mail. You can tell they are scams if they ask you to confirm your address- if we really have your parcel your postman already knows your address!

This has always been the case in the past and why I have always trusted having things delivered by Royal Mail.

However, looking on Royal Mail's website and Twitter they are now rolling out Photo on Delivery on Tracked 24/48 and Special Delivery Guaranteed for if the recipient is out when delivery is attempted, which seems to have happened in this case.

Twitter has a few people complaining about photos of their items on other peoples doorsteps already.

I already avoid couriers who do this and, sadly, it looks like I'll be avoiding purchases from sellers who use Royal Mail from now on as well.


As for the OP, Amazon are usually really good at refunding on delivery errors.

[carlos marighela]

T'was always the case here but then our former govt gave full head to the obscenely well paid heads of Aussie Post to outsource work*. The actual postie, when he comes,  rings the bell. The dickhead contractors don't.  I would have thought it would take them as long to fill out the delivery slip as wait for the punter to answer. DHL just leave stuff on the door. Even tracked stuff I've noticed. I refuse to use Amazon and further enrich dickheads like Jeff Bezos.

Of course one is lucky to have a post office these days, they are closing at an alarming rate of knots as are the agencies.



*The previous one was a weird woman from Cheshire, who got into hot water handing out luxury watches to senior execs. Her predecessor was discovered to have done the same but departed after bilking Aussie Post out of a $5.6 million per annum salary. His final payout for cutting services was $10.8 million. Nice work if you can get it.

[Leunstoelgeneraalbd]

DHL (and all the others) are "served" by modern slaves. They have to run (not walk) everywhere to be able to earn some meager pay. This can be a reason for not topnotch service (;-)). Unfortunately you as addressee have NO influence at all because they recognize only the SENDER as legal contact. The only way to act (a little) as addressee is contacting the sender and lodge your complaint. I would love to be able to suggest a better solution but alas !

[clibinarium]

Well mystery solved, or not really , but I got my package.

 Next door called round with it yesterday. Why it was left with them I don't know, its harder to post stuff to their house than ours. Fits with why I heard no bell or knock- as Vodkafan says the RM generally don't leave things on the doorstep, they always ring the bell. Though if nobody's in I guess that is just leaving it on the doorstep.  At least that's the practice here.
Everyone else though just drops stuff and doesn't ring. Yesterday I had a package of paint sitting on the doorstep most of the day as I had no idea it was there. Still its better than the wrong address; last month my Dad had a package of car parts delivered to an address which was photoed but not our house. He went for a walk the next morning and spotted it a couple of streets up and got it. It had been out there for 24hrs at that point. Right number, wrong street. Right street might be more useful than wrong number though.

However, LATDMS will remain a mystery. Some sort of location code seems a fair bet though. I thought it was an abbreviation that might help me track the thing down.

Thanks for the discussion.

[ithoriel]

My guess is "Left At Door Message Sent" as I get emails or texts these days rather than postcards. Which, given that I'm not a 14 year old girl glued to my phone and don't get out as much as I used to means things can sit on the door step (thankfully not facing the street) for days.

For some couriers "Lobbed At Dustbin. Missed. Sorry!" might be closer :-)

[Lovejoy]

My postie says it's 'Left at the designated mail Safeplace.'

But they're not supposed to do it unless a 'Safeplace' has already been agreed, or is on the address label.