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Story of the two thousand stolen Playdate handhelds

(podcast.play.date)
173 points textadventure | 2 comments | 22 Nov 24 06:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.419s | source
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gambiting ◴[22 Nov 24 09:25 UTC] No.42212376[source]▶
The thing that surprised me the most about it is that FedEx didn't just pay them the 400k for lost shipment. They had all the proof that it was lost, all that Fedex had was a signature of someone who doesn't even work at their fulfilment centre. Even after their "higher ups" got involved all that FedEx could do was "huh, sucks to be you I guess?" Does freight shipment not have insurance? What's going on here?
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michaelt ◴[22 Nov 24 11:31 UTC] No.42212944[source]▶
> all that Fedex had was a signature of someone who doesn't even work at their fulfilment centre. [...] What's going on here?

Basically a lot of global logistics runs on trust.

If a driver is delivering a pallet to the FooCorp warehouse, he doesn't get given a copy of the FooCorp org chart, or get an example signature to compare against the signature they're given, or get given a map or a secret password or anything like that.

He just pulls up to the building that says FooCorp on it, says "got a delivery for FooCorp", they let him in and he accepts any name and signature from whoever is near the door.

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1. ndiddy ◴[22 Nov 24 17:03 UTC] No.42215494[source]▶
The article you're commenting on mentions that FedEx didn't deliver the pallets of handhelds to the warehouse, but instead left them at an unrelated construction site next door. This is clearly FedEx's fault, they didn't even deliver to the correct address.
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2. michaelt ◴[22 Nov 24 17:35 UTC] No.42215751[source]▶
Sure, FedEx shouldn't have delivered to the wrong address.

I'm just saying it's totally normal for the names and signatures to go unchecked when the goods are handed over.

The driver can't validate someone is a real employee before handing over the delivery. There's no mechanism for that.