When my parents ordered a 15-inch PowerBook for my sister, the delivery people left it outside on the doorstep. Even if one was naive enough to assume that everybody in the world was honest and nobody would steal a parcel off a doorstep, that's 1500 quid's worth of shiny hardware at the mercy of weather. At least it didn't rain.

Our postmoron just puts stuff in the bin, but at least he leaves a card saying "PARCEL IN GREEN BIN". So that's okay then!

Ah. Our postman had been making a habit of omitting to ring our doorbell or knock on the door when delivering parcels, instead opting to leave parcels on the doorstep, in the rain and full view of any passers by, with not even note through the door to announce their presence. I phoned Royal Mail to complain, and received an apology, assurance that it wouldn't happen again, and some free stamps. And the couple of parcels received since then have been delivered in an entirely sensible manner.

Of course, we arrived home today to find the letters sticking out of the letterbox for anyone to grab...

We've had a couple of times when they've rung the doorbell, left the parcel on the step and buggered off. I suspect that what they're doing is then delivering the rest of the street and on the way back (since it's a cul-de-sac) if it hasn't been taken in then writing out the card and throwing it in the bin.

The odd thing is it's only deliveries from Amazon that have wound up in the bin.