Spanish postal service marks package as delivered that nobody received

Correos marks a package as delivered that the recipient never received

An Aliexpress notification at midday, a tracking status that says "delivered" and no box at home. That is how the case opening this thread begins: a buyer had been waiting for a shipment for several weeks, receives notice that it has arrived, checks Correos tracking and it shows as delivered. He calls customer service and they confirm the delivery. He calls the post office in his neighbourhood five times and nobody picks up; on the sixth attempt, all he gets is a busy tone. He cannot go there in person until the trinc day. Meanwhile, one specific suspicion: that the postman signed in his name or left the package with a third party without notice.

The case is not an isolated one. In the same period, another buyer describes an identical pattern: the shipment goes out for delivery, is marked delivered, goes back out for delivery, is marked delivered again, and so on three times in the same day. His order cost 26 US cents. His hypothesis is that it is an ordinary shipment with a Chinese tracking code that nobody in Spain knows how to handle.

What Correos says when a package goes missing

The official response, according to the affected customer's account, is that the shipment shows as delivered and that, if he wants to see the delivery certificate, he should go to the post office. In other words: the burden of proof falls on the person who has received nothing. The problem is that this certificate may bear a signature the recipient never wrote. A man who worked as a security guard in residential estates tells it bluntly: he has seen postmen forge signatures to avoid asking the doorman collecting the package for ID.

There is a less conspiratorial explanation circulating among those who know the sector: in August staff are cut, replacements from temp agencies are used, and some mark as delivered what they were unable to deliver in order to balance the records. The next day, the package turns up. It is not ethical, but it is common.

Delivery to a neighbour: common practice without consent

Several cases describe the same ending: the package was at a neighbour's home. No note in the letterbox, no notice, no doorbell ring. One of those affected had to search half the building to find it; the neighbour holding it was not home when he went to collect it. Another recalls a female postman who did not even go upstairs: she left the "absent" slip directly in the letterbox.

The underlying question is raised by one of the messages: if the package is addressed to a specific person, why is it handed to someone else? The practical answer given in the thread is that the postman knows the neighbours and trusts them to pass it on. The legal answer is that nobody has authorised that delivery. And when the contents are worth 2,000 euros, the difference matters.

The seller's shadow: packages that never left

There is a more uncomfortable hypothesis than the postman one. Some Aliexpress sellers, according to one participant, send a real package and use its tracking number for another order that never arrives. The one who complains cannot prove anything because the receipt is signed. The one who does receive something does not complain. The scheme would consist of opening a shop, operating for sixty days —how long shipments take— and closing down. A 100% return every two months, according to that account.

The affected customer rules this out: the shop has 922 ratings. But the shipment arrived in 12 days, unusual by Aliexpress standards. And the tracking showed delivery at 14:23, when several people were awake at his home. Nobody rang the doorbell.

What can be claimed and to whom

The administrative route involves filing a complaint with Correos and a consumer complaint form (hoja de reclamaciones) with the consumer authorities. The incivil route, if there is a forged signature, would be a report for forgery of an official document. The reasonable doubt is whether anyone will investigate. The experience of those who have complained to carriers sums it up: complaints to the company, to consumer authorities and to a lawyer, and the practical result is zero.

The outcome of the case that opens the thread was prosaic: an inventory error, he was told after getting "tough" on the phone. The package turned up. Another affected customer resolved it by talking to the substitute postwoman at his front door: the regular postwoman had had an accident and the shipment had not gone out for delivery. The lesson, he says, is that treating people well works better than living embittered.

One fact remains unresolved: the system marks as delivered what has not been delivered, and the signature certifying it may not be from the person who was supposed to sign. Nobody has explained how often this happens.