Deliveries from Amazon and other companies

My wife and I are academic researchers, therefore we order books from Amazon, Chapitre and so on. We naturally buy other things as well. Recently the majority our orders have ceased to get here with the reason being that it is an 'undeliverable address' or 'a été retourné comme étant non livrable' depending on whether order from UK or France. When it is a birthday present for one of our children ordered well in advance it becomes a severe pain in the neck. Knowing that Amazon send out EU zone orders from Luxembourg and also many French orders emanate from the same source, we wondered whether they may be at fault? Until the summer we never once had a problem. Something has happened. They are, incidentally, usually small enough to go into our mailbox, so not a size or weight issue is most cases.


The first time was whilst our regular facteur was on holiday, but his replacement was normally good. We occasionally have other things go missing, insurance documents, cheque books and so on but the ironic thing is that after the Amazon or other firm reimbursement of the order is through, we re-order and on second attempt get it! Our address was fine to begin with but we have 'refined' it to make sure. Now the facteur has said that other people in the village proper have had the same happen. Amazon have said that they cannot do anything about La Poste if they are at fault. I am wondering if it is just here or how many people might be having the same thing happen to them?


We have had all deliveries from Amazon sent to a friend in the nearby town. Nothing missing so that. On the other hand an order from Chapitre in Paris had the same happen as the Amazon ones, first and only time, but nonetheless...

I use mail order frequently from UK, French and Worldwide companies, reading your comment sounded so familiar. We are in a small village in Southern Burgundy 71. We have lived here nearly 8 years and until last year, never had any problems with deliveries. I use Amazon UK and FR generally and have had 4 orders returned as "address undeliverable" - bizarrely other items ordered at the same time and with the same delivery address have arrived without any problem. The missing orders have only occurred with Amazon UK and our address is a house name followed by "lieu dit le bas du bourg" - we have always used the same address but after the fourth delivery went awry rather than relying on the postcode ( which in itself defines the departement) and village followed by France we inserted the departement in the written word form - dont know if this has specifically changed anything but we have received all our deliveries since then - touche du bois!

Terry, we have lieu dit because we have no street name, number and so on. Also with my wife being Swiss with a very similar address system she thought of every twist and turn. Yes, of course the alternative address such as a friend in town, etc is open to everybody. However, why? When most post arrives and the facteur knows us well enough there is no actual need. Spoke with him today in fact, because I have something due tomorrow and he said he would keep an eye out especially. No, it is something deeper, further back in the system and why I asked the question.

Never had a problem with deliveries from anyone despite not even having a street name, let alone a number. Many French suppliers offer the option of having deliveries sent to a pick up point, usually a local shop or petrol station, and this always works and is very quick. I have had problems filling out address forms on the web due to the fact our address is so succinct. If I am obliged to give a house number I just enter a full stop and if I must give a street name I enter "lieu dit". Both of these tricks have worked so far. My only defeat was American Express, of all people. They know I live in France but when I tried to redeem some "rewards points" for credit to my account. My request was rejected every time on the grounds that I had not provided a UK delivery address despite the fact that nothing was actually going to be delivered anywhere. Nothing in the terms and conditions says you have to live in the UK to benefit so clearly it's just a case of whoever wrote the programme assuming that Amex only has UK-based clients.

DHL is different and the Leipzig/Paris stuff a pure blinder because they actually have thousands of depots all over Europe and a pretty enormous fleet of aircraft. Most of the direct order companies use regular post until the weight at which it is cheaper to use delivery services. Pay for Amazon's premium service and get 24 hour deliveries that take two weeks is not what they intend, that much I am sure of. However, it becomes a self-defeating exercise to order online then never get things if for some unknown reason they cannot get the delivery service to work.

We don't have problems with any one place in particular, but our post is so undependable, sometimes letters and small packets can get to us from England in 2 days, other times it can easily take 3 - 4 weeks. It doesn't seem to matter what time of year, ie xmas or bank holidays etc. It doesn't seem to be just post from abroad, even letters that come from the next town can sometimes take a week to get to us. A couple of months ago it took 2 weeks for a 2 day delivery from England by DHL to get to us, it spent a lot of time flying between their depots in Paris and Liepsig (Germany). Maybe it's just a case of " you just can't get the staff these days".

We have the same problem in 52..I am waiting for a parcel sent from the U.K. on 5th November.. Nothing has ever arrived in a timely fashion whether I am sending or receiving..All of our Christmas things have been ordered and delivered in the U.K. so that we can collect them on a speedy drive through tour next week.