Sounds like the US Mail to me. I live in Apple Valley, 100% of all my boxes I have to pickup. When they fit in my box. Where 100% of all my FedEx and UPS gets to me. On a side note. I had 13 netflix DVD come up missing in 8 months. Netflix said what they said, 4 months later I started to get DVDs in the mail. None of them my DVDs.

I'd say the OP's problem is less OnTrac and the employees in his region that suck. I have this exact same problem, except with UPS, where FedEx and OnTrac are consistently on time, and manage to get into my complex without a problem, and even placing them on my porch when I'm not home instead of leaving an attempted delivery notice. Obviously, UPS is perfectly competent where he lives, but where I live, some of the drivers are idiots, and (and this is just a theory) outright lie about attempted deliveries, as they don't leave a notice or even knock on my door, or try to get buzzed in.

Anyways, after constant complaints to UPS, I was able to get my local branch's direct number. I suggest you do the same for your local OnTrac branch, and report to a manager that the driver is being lazy about your deliveries.

If Amazon wants to cut their Prime costs they should ditch all of the scammers who sell their "household member" slots to people who aren't household members.

I'm an Amazon Prime customer in Seattle, and OnTrac has been pretty reliable so far. Everything shipped to me via OnTrac has arrived on or before the estimated date, and once I was lucky enough to get same-day delivery.

I have had other shipping delays with Amazon Prime shipments -- but FedEx was the slow shipper in those cases. Every time I've had an issue, Amazon customer service agents have been only too happy to issue my account a small credit ($5 or $10, depending on how bitchy my e-mail was).

I had a bad OnTrac experience about a month ago; a "next day" shipment didn't arrive for a week. By that time, Amazon had shipped the replacement. Furthermore, the tracking notice for OnTrac kept saying "out for delivery" when it turned out it had never left the depot.

I am also a prime member and just got my first shipment via OnTrac today. It seemed to go well, but I happened to be home when the delivery person came. God help them if they start pulling the "driver doesn't know where to leave a package, so you're overnight order will now take 3 days until you get it because they only attempt residential deliveries at 2pm on weekdays" crap.

No problems here in New England, Prime shipments always come UPS/FedEx.

I had pretty bad experience with OnTrac too. I was supposed to get the package on Wednesday. No package arrives. On their tracking website it says: "Delivery failed, business closed". The address is not a business, it's a house, in a residential neighborhood, and my wife was home all day. So, wondering what was happening we called later that day. We were told that the driver didn't want to come to where we live (Santa Cruz, from their office in San Jose, CA) because there was fog on the road. While it is true that there was fog,it's not uncommon for that to happen, thousands of people drive that every day (I commute that route, including that day). We were told the package would be delivered the next day.
No package on Thursday even though it was supposed to be delivered according to their website. We called. Apparently they were overloaded, Amazon had sent too many packages or something, so they decided not to deliver our package. They were going to deliver it Friday.
Friday, no package. Website doesn't say why. My wife called to see if I could pick the package up on my way back home from work. They said the driver would bring the package back around 8. I decided to go home, since they were going to deliver for sure on Saturday.
Saturday no package. Well, the driver doesn't work on Saturdays. And, it turns out, the driver kept the package in the truck (with him) Friday night, so I can't even go pick it up at the warehouse. But hey, on the bright side, the driver delivers on Sunday.
Sunday. We didn't expect the package to show up, but it did. I'm kind of thinking the driver came to spend the weekend in the Santa Cruz boardwalk and decided to drop the package.

I understand delays, but come on! You have to know how your delivery system works!

I've had horrible experiences with my prime membership and Amazon's new contractor A1 International delivery services starting in October.

It's a dirty little secret but for the overwhelming majority of people, expedited shipping is utterly worthless.

About half the time I order stuff, I end up getting it a business day after it ships. A quarter of the time it's two business days later.

Large retailers strategically locate their warehouses where most folks live, to optimize. On Wednesday afternoon I ordered stuff from Thinkgeek, who are located in Virginia (they're not that big, actually). The stuff went out Wednesday evening, from a warehouse about a dozen miles from me, and I got it on Thursday, about 24 hours after I placed the order.

If you live out somewhere in the boonies, premium shipping, like Amazon Prime might make sense; but for the majority of folks its wasted money.

@mrsam: Amazon doesn't have any warehouses in California to avoid collecting sales tax, so it's really useful here.

Everything I order using my Prime membership is delivered by UPS. I do know that I have complained on the rare occasions that my items do not arrive on the designated day and Amazon has been very accommodating. I recommend actually calling Amazon every time. They'll usually offer some kind of compensation (especially since they can look up the tracking number) and it also get's the track record of the delivery company on the record.

While using the shipping company probably is done for fiscal reasons, that doesn't mean Amazon is cutting corners. While this is in no way the OP's fault and this whole mess sucks, his experience might be isolated to him, his area, this specific shipping outlet, driver, etc. Certainly we've run the gamut of who sucks more in the comments on every story criticizing or complimenting some shipping service (DHL, FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc.). They can't all both suck and be awesome without varied experiences occurring - I wonder how many others have similar complaints about OnTrac?

Also if this were to cut costs like the OP suggests - would Amazon not drop them as a shipper, as it must surely be more expensive to continually refund and reship items that aren't delivered as promised.

I signed up for the trial "free" month of Amazon prime about 2 months ago, and was happy enough with the service to keep it. I was surprised the first time I saw that OnTrac was the shipper because I'd never heard of them. Maybe I've been lucky, but so far, so good for me.

Yes, Ontrac failed to get a package to my condo as well. USPS is best (since they can get in), 2nd ups and fedex.

I switched my office to OnTrac for local deliveries because $7.50 through the entire west cost is much cheaper than the rate we were paying for FedEx. That being said, Ontrac had the bad habit of delivering packages at 7:30 in the morning before businesses were actually open. The items we would be shipping would be confidential legal documents and I wasn't happy with them leaving them outside front doors.

@californian: I wish I could skip going to work because it was foggy outside and get away with it.

@Darklighter:

Are you sure? I've been getting a lot of video game shipments that are picked up by UPS at a warehouse in about 30 miles or so south of Los Angeles.

On the East Coast they are using some company called A1 Express or some thing like that. What a horrible company. I was much more satisfied when they stuck to UPS, USPS and Fedex.

@Cant_stop_the_rock: It doesn't actually cost Amazon any more to ship to four unrelated people than it does to ship to four related people.

Amazon is using the Lowest bidder.

You got what you paid for.

The only solution is to stop using Amazon or tell them to take their prime service and shove it up their butts and give you a full refund. Either one of my suggestions will get the attention of Amazon to rectify the problem.

I would suggest that the OP cancel his Amazon Prime membership and ask for a full refund of the $79 fee.

Somehow I have the feeling though that the OP is going to keep the membership and keep complaining about it. Some people like to suffer.

@californian: What a terrible fucking driver. It's Northern California; there's going to be fog. Are they saying that they can't find/hire a driver who isn't lazy as shit?

I've had 1 package delivered by OnTrac recently, and was nicely surprised. They used the callbox to call my condo, and the delivery guy looked professional. I'm in Portland, OR..... so far, so good....

@wcnghj:
RTFA. He's specifically asking about West Coast customers.

OnTrac left a $600 computer on my doorstep without ringing the bell or getting a signature. I was tempted, but didn't. I emailed them and suggested that they might want to address that shortcoming in their delivery policy. They didn't seem to care much. They were fast though.

@kmw2: @VaultComplex: There is a major hub for Amazon in Phoenix. That's not far from most of Southern California.

@MickeyMoo: re: above - this was Reno origin for shipping, San Francisco delivery.

@kmw2:

How is that relevant to what I said? If they weeded out the scammers it would either force those people to pay for their own memberships (more money for Amazon) or it would reduce the number of shipments associated with the scammers' accounts.

Additionally, I think you'd find that 5 members of the same household order less than 5 separate households. When I added my wife to my prime account it didn't increase the amount of orders we placed, it just allowed her to order stuff without bugging me to do it with my account.

Amazon Prime is great back east... we rely on it for at least three items per week, both personal stuff and hardware for my PC repair business. If I ever see OnTrac coming to Delaware, I'll promptly freak out.

Once, I ordered an item I needed on the day it was supposed to be delivered. Our regular UPS guy drove through our neighborhood without stopping at my house, so I checked online and saw that UPS screwed up: it got to our local depot at 9AM, and the truck had already gone out. They had changed the expected delivery date to the next day.
I called Amazon and told them I would be returning the item, and that I would not pay for return shipping. They said I could just refuse delivery, but I said I would not be home the next day to do so. The lady E-mailed me a shipping label...
...but it wasn't needed: an hour later, a different, smaller UPS truck pulled up and delivered the item. Imagine Amazon's clout, forcing UPS to send a special truck just for one package.

@VaultComplex: I'm in California, have Amazon Prime and have never received an Amazon package from California (and I've ordered from Amazon maybe a hundred times over the years). Maybe that one you mention is just a video-game supplier - I don't buy video games. I pay extra for Amazon Prime, though I'm in LA, certainly not the boonies, and it pays off for me because non-Prime shipping used to take about 5 or 7 days for me. Prime Shipping saves me 3 to 5 days, a significant amount of time. I shelled out for Prime after years of getting fed up with Amazon packages taking about a week and I feel it's worth the money.

I solve the "not home" problem by renting a business mailbox a mile from our house.
(It also solves the rare but occasional "customer who is pissed off because he wrote me a bad check and now demands my mailing address in a threatening manner" problem).

I have Amazon Prime and have had few problems, although I don't live in an area where OnTrac serves and hopefully never will.

@MickeyMoo:

Low bidder. Why would they care.

@mrsam: i live a bit out in the boonies and i still had a UPS Ground package get to me so fast this week that i didn't realize it had been delivered for two days. [it's been stormy and the delivery person tried to protect it from the rain by hiding it in the bushes on the side of my front step and i don't use my front door]

i went to look at the tracking for UPS ground the day before i expected it and saw.

11/09/2009 9:00 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
11/10/2009 12:37 P.M. DELIVERY

and no, it wasn't coming from around the corner.

I got my first OnTrac delivery from Amazon this week. They never bothered to ring the doorbell when they dropped off the package. I discovered that it was delivered because I had previously setup a delivery e-mail notification.

OnTrac used to be known as Golden State Overnight. They're pretty darn cheap to send stuff intra-CA (and a handful of other states). But not all the drivers are professional. And they use sub-contracted drivers sometimes (i.e. like FedEx Ground/Home delivery). I don't mind OnTrac but I wonder if this is all due to initial growing pains.

USPS With a po box. never a problem.
always a problem with ups and fedex because I don't have a doorman and my neighbors works so no one can accept packages.

i pick my vendors based on whether they use usps....

It seems that most of the people complaining live in some kind of limited access community. Maybe you should work with your neighbors/association to make it easier for these companies to deliver to you.

For example, I have signature waivers on file with Fedex and UPS for my SFH. That way my package is waiting on the porch for me when I get home from work.

@kmw2: Yes, but 4 households = 4 times as many orders to ship 2 day.

@twophrasebark: Oh No, complain loudly and often!

Back when they shipped DHL, that company had trouble counting to 2. I would complain by email and phone and would almost always get a $5 or $10 gift card for my delay.

I got my Amazon Prime membership back in Gift cards with all my complaints.

I order from Monoprice all the time and ontrac rocks and is super cheap. I say this is probably a problem with the local driver(s).

@VaultComplex: I agree, it all depends. I've lived in 6 different addresses in San Diego, and the mix of which delivery companies are great and which suck changes each time I move. Fedex sucks right now.

If I was OnTrac (or UPS or Fedex) I'd be begging Amazon to help me collect data for regional quality of delivery, so I could keep my company on top. Amazon could just sample 10% of the customers on a route, and ask them if they were satisfied with their most recent delivery. Do that twice a year and make it part of the drivers' performance review. Heck, Amazon should want to know that data too, to prevent articles like the OP.

@crichton007: Seconded! Every time I have had a shipping issue, Amazon has bent over backwards to make it right for me. That's worth $80/year.

@schwnj: I hate that. They always come between like 1-2pm and I call them and explain "I have a job, I have things to do, I can't drop everything for a package." "WELL. I guess we will just have to throw it in a puddle near the back of your house and forge your signature then."

@Taint_Too_Proud_To_Beg: I live in the SF Bay area and get stuff overnight or in two days from Amazon all the time. They have a big warehouse in Reno and the USPS makes the trip in one day.

@Ben_Q2: I never have problems with U.S. mail.

@oldgraygeek: That might not have been Amazon's clout. This exact same thing (with a different shipper) happened to me, and they sent out an additional delivery truck with the items that arrived late at the local depot.

Several times, in fact, have I seen the dreaded 'rescheduled delivery date' and still gotten the item on the original date.

@HankScorpio: How do you get UPS and FedEx to take a signature waiver? I have tried looking in to doing that and I have never found anything out about any kind of waiver.

Nothing but good luck so far with Prime, had it for a couple of years. It's 75% UPS which has great drivers in my area (Sacramento, ca), and 25% Fedex who are also good.

Last holidays I ordered an item, 2 day, on sunday around lunch. It arrived UPS, monday at 10.00. I was amazed. Getting an overnight from a local distribution center isn't too uncommon, but having them working sundays as well was pretty surprising.