California Man in 4-Day Standoff with Abandoned Amazon Truck in Driveway

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxd58y/california-man-in-4-day-standoff-with-abandoned-amazon-truck-in-driveway

by rahimiali • 5 years ago

52 42 5 years ago

op00to• 5 years ago

Can he … take it for a ride around the block? It’s clearly abandoned. He gave adequate notice. It should be his.

cowvin• 5 years ago

It sounds like it barely moves, so I'm guessing that's not an option. He doesn't have the pink slip so he can't really sell it or donate it properly.

Maybe he should start charging Amazon rent for the parking spot.

lotsofpulp• 5 years ago

Amazon most likely does not own it, hence Amazon telling him to have it towed.

The guy is being an idiot looking for publicity.

willcipriano• 5 years ago

Just walk around the bad part of town loudly proclaiming into your cell phone:

"Oh no, Amazon left a brand new Sprinter van in my driveway at 123 Fake Street, it's unlocked and the keys are in it. That's 123 Fake Street, anyway I'll be gone all weekend."

GekkePrutser2• 5 years ago

Only to find the contents of 123 Fake Street gone as well no doubt :D

toast02• 5 years ago

That's not how abandoned vehicles work in California. It's not yours because it's left on your property.

Here's a 12 step program to get rid of an abandoned vehicle that's probably worth money (I'd recommend getting law enforcement to take it, so they or their contracted impound yard can go through the steps instead of you)

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/vehicle-industry-regi...

wyrm• 5 years ago

"I’m not going to have the vehicle towed. Amazon should be able to figure this out. So now it’s an act of defiance. I did not follow Amazon’s instructions to just call the cops and have it towed."

There's a simple fix, and he didn't want to do it. Instead, he's whining on the Internet, blaming a company that doesn't own the vehicle and can't do anything about it, either.

toast02• 5 years ago

Yeah, I'm not sure why spend hours on the phone with Amazon if they don't want to deal with it, when it should be a relatively quick call with Law Enforcement dispatch and then the problem will be solved whenever they can get around to sending an officer and then a tow truck. +/- if they need to leave a notice for some amount of hours/days.

Assuming Amazon is as with it as ever, they won't pick it up from impound and eventually it'll get auctioned to pay the impound fees, and the registered owner will get a check for the proceeds minus impound and administrative fees, which should be a decent sized check if it's only got 400 miles, has the keys even if it's got an engine issue.

Alternatively, the vehicle probably has a lien, if the registration is in the car, the lienholder contact could be in there too and just call them.

908B64B197• 5 years ago

Assuming Amazon is as with it as ever, they won't pick it up from impound and eventually it'll get auctioned to pay the impound fees, and the registered owner will get a check for the proceeds minus impound and administrative fees, which should be a decent sized check if it's only got 400 miles, has the keys even if it's got an engine issue.

I'd let the towing guys take it for an extra 500$ (finder's fee) that they are welcome to add to the final bill since it was found on my property.

GekkePrutser2• 5 years ago

Amazon probably doesn't own this thing. They tend to contract out to 'independent' contractors that need to take care of their own vans, and they can dodge providing employee benefits (think sick pay, holidays etc) at the same time.

Even here in the Netherlands the post company did the same thing :( A lot of package delivery people got the offer of becoming "independent" or being made redundant.

However eventually the law kicked in gear and reversed all this because it's not really independency if you work for only one company.

Teever3• 5 years ago

The simple fix you're describing is Amazon or whoever owns the truck abrogating their responsibilities and shuffling them off onto law enforcement and California Man.

Amazon can damn well pay for that truck to be moved and not a single tax dollar should go towards moving it.

This man is correct in publicly shaming Amazon for their inaction.

dmitriy_ko2• 5 years ago

When police tows a vehicle, owner has to pay for towing to get the vehicle back. If nobody picks up the vehicle then vehicle is auctioned off and proceeds cover the cost of towing and storage. So the only way tax dollars end up being used is if the vehicle is worth less then the cost of towing.

jwilber• 5 years ago

That plus the fact that he asked the story to link to his Twitter account, I’m guessing he’s doing this more for publicity than any real concern.

windexh8er• 5 years ago

There's a simple fix, and he didn't want to do it. Instead, he's whining on the Internet, blaming a company that doesn't own the vehicle and can't do anything about it, either.

Except, he's not whining.

From the article: “I also just kind of want to see what happens,” Lou said. “How long is it gonna take them to figure out that they have a delivery truck that’s just sitting somewhere?”

It doesn't seem like it's bothering him and it's now just a game of see how long it takes Amazon to care that they're paying for something stranded in the guys driveway. It's also pointing out the inefficiencies and waste of a company like Amazon, wherein it's cheaper for them to abandon a Sprinter van than deal with the logistics of caring about dealing with it. The reality is very likely that Amazon doesn't own it so they'll just punt it to the leasing / rental owner to reclaim it. This is how companies of Amazon's scale operate - with what would be an unacceptable loss / overhead for a smaller outfit. Most will call this the cost of doing business, but it's unfortunate the waste that is generally accepted as normal.

This brings up an interesting question - do the hyperscalers operate in a similar manner? Having and accepting large inefficiencies in their stacks but that may not be worth optimizing?

GhostVII• 5 years ago

It sounds like this is just a van fully owned and operated by an independent contractor though, not Amazon, so I don't really think it speaks to any kind of inefficiency within Amazon. Prime vans generally have graphics on the side, no? And Amazon sometimes just has random people delivering packages from their vehicles.

Seems kind of like talking about the inefficiency of Uber for not dealing with an Uber drivers abandoned car.

nullc2• 5 years ago

It costs money to have a car towed off your property. So he's supposed to pay to get rid of amazon's (contractors?) illegal dumping?

michaelmrose• 5 years ago

It costs the owner money. Calling the cops means they call the tow company and the tow operator expects to recover from the owner.

pengaru• 5 years ago

There's a simple fix, and he didn't want to do it.

Not everyone considers inviting armed representatives of the State onto your property a "simple fix."

walrus01• 5 years ago

put it into neutral and push it into the public street, off your property line, then call the traffic cops. not your problem anymore.

democracy• 5 years ago

Looks like the guy is enjoying the story )))

sawmill-picture• 5 years ago

Well, Florida Man would have installed a Jacuzzi in the van, been forced to abandon it after it became infested with alligators, and then fired about a hundred rounds of 00 buck into it before offering it to pawnstars.

dopidopHN• 5 years ago

agreed. Florida man would have solved that issue really quick. California man is tame and boring.

CogitoCogito• 5 years ago

Why he doesn't he just call a towing company? Then Amazon can sort things out there with a company whose job it is to hold cars until their owners sort such things out.

cyounkins• 5 years ago

Who pays to have a car towed by a tow-trucking company? I'm thinking mainly of business parking. Does the business pay? I assume the vehicle owner has to pay?

dehrmann2• 5 years ago

Is it even owned by Amazon? If not, complaining to Amazon would be a bit like complaining to them if UPS left a truck in a driveway. That, and if they don't own it, they don't really have the authority to tow a contractor's van.

hermes8329• 5 years ago

If it has a gigantic Amazon logo on it and delivers Amazon orders I wouldn't care that is some subcontractor. The blame falls on amazon

dehrmann2• 5 years ago

This truck had no logos.

solarkraft• 5 years ago

It’s a contractor’s. If it was a UPS branded truck they could reach out to UPS. In this case the only thing they seem to know is that the vehicle is in operation for Amazon. So they naturally must reach out to them. And Amazon should at the very least be able to tell which contractors they use in the area, or rather even which contractor delivered a specific package.

aimor• 5 years ago

Can't believe how many people want Lou to have the van impounded. The Amazon name is so big and so impersonal, anything and everything associated with it is expected to be taken care of by the System right away.

This is our culture. Lou at least got a chance to talk to the driver, but other than that it seems whoever owns the van hasn't thought to keep Lou informed about what's going on. Lou doesn't even know who owns the van, with the only lead being the Amazon association. And nobody at Amazon seems capable of connecting the two sides together. This is how we operate today, it's kind of terrible.

If I were Lou I'd at least leave a note on the windshield asking the owner to call him.

Edit: This happened a week ago, and is resolved. Great Twitter posts, and he did leave a note: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEVzOvJVkAAOTq2?format=jpg&name=...

Cerium• 5 years ago

Clearly the California man is following: HEURISTIC #1 When in doubt, chose the adventure. (Credit: Nietzsche) [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297594

hcrean• 5 years ago

Clamp it, charge the statutory maximum for parking on private property; then after a relatively short period of time you can start the claim for ownership on the grounds of abandonment. (There is some DMV paperwork involved).

That van is worth something if repaired, airflow on a sprinter is normally something you can do yourself. If not there is a whole lot of scrap metal sitting there...

peanut_worm• 5 years ago

Oops someone left the van in neutral and it rolled in to a ditch :(

California Man in 4-Day Standoff with Abandoned Amazon Truck in Driveway

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