The Feds Accidentally Mailed Part of A $350K Drone To Some College Kid 157
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes "A Redditor got more than he bargained for in the mail today: He was accidentally mailed parts to a $350,000 environment and wildlife monitoring drone owned by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. 'We sent a set of about eight boxes for this one aircraft system, and one was misdelivered by UPS. We're working with UPS to find it,' the federal agency says."
wait... what??? (Score:5, Interesting)
$350,000 for a drone!?!?! I realize that this is durable and has good RF systems in it, but still that strikes me as a bit pricey for what it is. I mean for a few bucks more they could just buy Predators right?
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$2500 hammers.
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$2500 hammers.
It's really $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat
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According to this [over-blog.com] the $350K is for a complete system and not a single aircraft.
A complete system (controller, spare parts, and three UAVs) costs $250,000 for the Raven and over $400,000 for Puma.
The price for a single aircraft is much closer to $100k.
Take a look at the capabilities [avinc.com] of the Puma. The optics, communications, and autonomous navigation features are not cheap.
Re:wait... what??? (Score:5, Informative)
automous navigation features cost you less than $500 for a fully working system controller including required accelerometers, gyros, GPS, compass and a short range telemetry system (only short range due to low output power). The flight controller doesn't have to be any different on a tiny little RC model all the way up to the the largest aircraft in service. The OSS software doesn't yet support orbiting but I suspect it will soon. The only hardware difference is the servos to drive the control surfaces and power output of the engines.
Oh, and its open source ... and it probably does more than anything the UAVs you mention do as far as flight control.
If you want the cheap asian knock off, its less than $200 from hobby king.
UAV controllers are an essentially solved problem, its just refinement at this stage, and the hardware to do the actual flight management is dirty cheap.
Communications are also a solved problem, the hardware is available already and is available to anyone, though it requires a operator license ... which doesn't come with the UAV, you have to get it yourself from the FCC.
Optics are a little tricker, but nothing to justify the cost of these systems unless you're ordering optics like used in the U-2 spy plane, which your drone isn't going to be capable of taking advantage of anyway. For anything other than what the NSA wants, a gimble to deal with pan/tilt/stabilization and vibration dampening isn't that expensive either, though gimble and camera are likely to be the most expensive bits if you want high quality but that may just be my misperception as thats the area I know least about. Low end stuff that works as well as anything you've actually seen footage from (i.e. not secret stuff) is less than 5k and it will shoot as good as most movie cameras ... from thousands of feet up where you can't hear it at all.
$100k is a ridiculous price. The communications/control system is a freaking PC with a high power transmitter, nothing special.
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It isn't just the cost of the base hardware that could theoretically function in that capacity, it's fitting it all together, custom designing and building components where necessary then going through the necessary testing (range, quality, flight control, durability, etc) and refinement processes. You could build Google Glass for $100 too if you don't care about having a horribly clunky, heavy, unreliable device with a cumbersome user experience.
Just because you can come up with a cheap parts list to theor
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It isn't just the cost of the base hardware that could theoretically function in that capacity, it's fitting it all together, custom designing and building components where necessary then going through the necessary testing (range, quality, flight control, durability, etc) and refinement processes.
You are doing it wrong. Nearly all of what is listed in the feature list can be made from off the shelf components using interoperable (read analogue voltage) signals. Even the flight controllers and RF systems use standard protocols (again typically analogue signalling). If you're blowing money on proprietary crap when off the shelf components already exist and work then you're doing it wrong. You want telemetry? Autonomy? Long range? How about 3D control of gimbals and camera control? Yeah my drone does
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> You are doing it wrong
No they are doing it right. Their customer has a nearly unlimited budget which needs to be spent and which they prefer to overspend because it gives them a way to expand their budget in the next cycle.
If they want to pay $20,000 for a hammer that is individually serial numbered, and wrapped, then you are an idiot for not stamping serial numbers on each one, bagging them up, and charging them 20k.
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My point is you're doing it wrong if it actually costs you $20k to put that serial number on it.
The point was not that this is expensive, the point was that there's a HUGE markup. Frankly I'm amazed that people think otherwise given this was a government order.
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automous navigation features cost you less than $500 for a fully working system controller including required accelerometers, gyros, GPS, compass and a short range telemetry system (only short range due to low output power).
Just stop right there and think about it. NOAA and the USG are not hobbyists. Perhaps this platform does leverage open source but they probably need FAA certified equipment so that they can fly above the limits placed on hobbyists. Not to mention the potential liability to the government if they rolled out a $1000 drone and it crashed and killed someone. If they tried to explain that one away then some enterprise would leverage that to say that the USG should have dropped $2M on a predator (whatever its
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It's military pricing. Nothing costs less than $100k. Hell, it costs the vendor $10k just to process the required government paperwork.
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How else do you think the SS pays for all their hookers and blow? ;-)
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Its FAA certified parts - essentially take a normal part, multiply the price times 10 or 20 = FAA certified part.
Don't believe me? Look up how much a rubber tire for landing costs.
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How do you know how big that drone is?
It could be a Cessna with built-in autonomous navigation systems.
etc.
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you're kidding right? RTFA and you'll see that it's about the size of the average weekend hobbyist's RC airplane. [noaa.gov]
I need to get into the drone business because the profit margins appear to be staggering.
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I need to get into the drone business because the profit margins appear to be staggering.
Think twice. It will take only one terrorist to have all non-government drones completely banned.
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Well, we'll have already designed anti-drone drones which of course will cost extra.
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Perhaps you can start a drone lobby. Americans have the right to protect themselves using drones!
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you're kidding right? RTFA and you'll see that it's about the size of the average weekend hobbyist's RC airplane. [noaa.gov]
I need to get into the drone business because the profit margins appear to be staggering.
You need to get into the "selling things to the government on a no bid contract buisness". The profit margins are staggering once you have greased the right palms.
Re:I know, right? (Score:5, Informative)
Show me a model plane that has a 15 km radio range, autonomous GPS navigation, IR and visible light camera on a stabilized mount, designed to be reliable in hazardous environments while being handled by infantrymen, and can stay up for 3.5 hours. Then plan to build less than 30,000 of them. Complex systems and low quantities make these things very expensive. This is very different than a simple toy that takes a tens of thousands of dollars to design and hundreds of thousand are aircraft are made.
Sell them to the government at a 100,000% markup.
You even exaggerate or do you really think you can but an RC aircraft with remotely similar capabilities for $1. (The $350K is for the complete system which includes 3 aircraft plus spares).
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No, it depends on your margin.
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... I could convert my fixed wing UAV to nitro and hit an hour of flight time, you can fly it in 'super simple mode' with a playstation controller and a laptop without any previous experience flying (I've tested this with multiple people who knew nothing about it in advance), I can get 4-5km range with off the shelf components and a directional tracking antenna.
GPS, IR and visible light camera on a stabilized mount, and able to be operated and handled by an infantrymen ... all check, though I generally car
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So you are 1/4 of the capability of the equipment we are talking about. Good for you. The 4-5 km range is much less than 15 and the flight time of an hour is much less that 3.5 hours. You be the one to tell the mother her some was killed because the drone ran out of power.Sure you can do some of the things an expensive drone can to but doing them all is very expensive. Your logic is like comparing a Honda Civic [autorooster.com] with a quarter mile time of 17 seconds to a Bugatti Veyron [autorooster.com] with a quarter mile time of 10 second
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Show me a model plane that has a 15 km radio range
$100 UHF transceiver. Even the cheap ones can do telemetry as well as instructional commands, failsafe detection etc.
autonomous GPS navigation
any $100 flight controller
IR and visible light camera on a
This one is expensive. Budget $5000 for it.
stabilized mount,
$1000 gets you a well made 3D gimbal for a heavy camera.
designed to be reliable in hazardous environments
define this. Is it raining acid up there? Are you wanting it bullet proof? Given the amazing footage of a cheap DJI quad flying through an erupting volcano without issue, how hazardous are we talking?
while being handled by infantrymen,
The aforementioned flight controllers have some really idiot proof mod
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How about you show some examples of the products you mention. As far as I can tell you are pulling numbers out of the air.
A gambol is not stabilization. Stabilization is much more difficult.
The $100 transceiver could not deal video in high enough rez to be useful. Cost estimate on camera is way low. This camera has to see people at over a mile away and be about the size of your fist. That kind of performance is very expensive. When I mention infantrymen I mean they will be the ones assembling and taking car
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Horsecrap on the video. IR video feeds are NOT highdef. Reconnaissance video is not highdef. Images are and they can be delivered in due course. The important part about reconnaissance is that the camera is controllable and has a sufficient zoom ratio. Stabilization is a function of the camera and optics. Gimbals will stabilize the camera against movement from the equipment as well. Yes it is more difficult but not by much and helicopter mounted cameras capable of IR can be had for under $10k, $5k for a che
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What about radar?
This is a wildlife monitoring drone, it's going to need reasonable range and that means good battery life and low power equipment. Add $100+ to all purchases and a reasonable budget for a long life, lightweight battery. Autonomous navigation and other custom software features (which need to be extensively tested with your possibly unique hardware combination) ass at least $5
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Accurate or repeatable? You've never used one of these systems have you? People instinctively think that something automated or something that flies in the air needs to be accurate to 1mm or some garbage like that. It doesn't. From a $20 GPS unit you can hold a perfectly steady location within 1m on a really windy day using a multirotor craft. Using my multirotor or my plane I can take off, fly for however long I want and then land autonomously within 1m of my starting location. Sure that 1m may be a few me
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Accurate or repeatable? You've never used one of these systems have you?
And you've never used one of these systems where you need to collect accurate date (such as this one would). It also has to be more durable then your hobby plane, and possibly fly a lot longer whilst carrying heavier equipment to use for wildlife monitoring (HD cameras, backup radios, radar, etc (depending on what exactly it was doing).
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Actually I have, and not all data needs to be accurate. Location of plane is fine with an accuracy of several meters. There is ZERO reason that the plane needs to know it's location more accurately unless it needs to weave between obstacles, and when that happens LIDAR is used for navigation instead.
But maybe that's how the cost got so high. Someone like you decided to gold plate every spec without actually thinking which are the important ones. As for hobby plane I know of no hobby plane that comes in the
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100 UHF transceiver. Even the cheap ones can do telemetry as well as instructional commands, failsafe detection etc.
Does it do encryption/frequency hopping in order to be able to resist jamming and people attempting to take control?
define this. Is it raining acid up there?
Not the original poster, certainly, but I'm thinking a small amount of hail resistance, not to mention buckshot.
The aforementioned flight controllers have some really idiot proof modes.
You haven't worked with infantry, have you? They tend to redefine 'better idiot'. A lot are great, a number make you wonder...
That's a function of size, battery and engine capacity. For a big hardened one carrying heavy reconnaissance equipment I'd budget $10k
I think you're being optimistic and are forgetting labor for putting it all together. Hobbyists tend to forget/discount the hundreds or even thousands of h
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Yes my cheaparse receiver does frequency hopping. They typically have to in the hobby arena as many people are using the same frequencies in close proximity.
You seem to think drones are more difficult than they really are. Most systems are plug and play. They use simple analogue outputs / digital inputs to communicate with each other. If you can assemble a computer and figure out which USB port to plug a mouse into then you can assemble a drone. Some of the more expensive (read $400 instead of $100) flight
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You may have noticed that FAA approval regulations depend on size and payload weight, both of which are easily achievable using the same equipment and as such has no additional regulatory requirements. You may also note that the FAA has so far not successfully enforced any regulation on any drone user even in cases of unapproved commercial use. Or you could look at commercial systems which already exist for things like event coverage which have the required payload capacity to handle large HD studio video c
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And shipping.
You left out the shipping costs.
Then the costs of recovery.
It all adds up.
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No, you can do the first half of the requirements that way. The second half, not so much.
Stupid headline (Score:5, Insightful)
The Feds Accidentally Mailed Part of A $350K Drone To Some College Kid
More like "UPS Unloads Extra Box containing Drone Parts at Some College Kid's House". The box was not addressed to him by the Feds. They do enough stupid things without ascribing UPS mistakes to them.
Re:Stupid headline (Score:5, Funny)
I hope the feds paid for insurance. Otherwise all they're getting is $100. No exceptions, no matter what, I was told.
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The fact they don't guarantee/insure it by default is the reason most people can afford them in the first place. If they wrapped that into their default price, the price of every package sent would go up.
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It also is important for assigning a value to a package. Without a way to establish value that has an associated cost, everyone could just say the value is $1 million and UPS would be stuck with the bill. Even with this I think you still have to have some way of demonstrating the real value - you can't just pay for $1000 insurance on a bag of old confetti.
Re:Stupid headline (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't "performing the service you accepted money to perform" a pretty basic level of liability? Can I accept a contract to write some C++ code for you, but if you don't buy insurance from me, sometimes I just deliver your code to some other guy instead, and fuck you if you want redress?
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they basically do the same as you would, they would refund the shipping cost if anything and nothing more.
As you would be expected to return the fee you received for the service you provide but would not assume liability for potential losses the client my assume because you didn't deliver the C++ code
Re:Stupid headline (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, that is true. Except for the insurance part. UPS doesn't really provide "insurance", per se.
Don't be fooled by the optional 'high value' stamp, which allows you to declare a higher value. Rightfully so, it's not "insurance" but just allows you to claim the proper value if it is lost or damaged.
If it's really important, ship it via a UPS customer counter or Mailboxes facility.
I used to work there a couple decades ago. One of my roles was to process computer claims. Considering that many items can fall from belts and "Fragile" means "Throw me hard, please!" in UPS-ese, I'd make sure to ship any critical items through their desk with a proper declared value.
Not that FedEx is much better. I think at one point they were but if you've seen what goes on behind the scenes it's a wonder that anything gets to its destination in one piece.
Might as well talk about the USPS too. (BTW, UPS is not USPS; some are not aware.) I shipped a display stand once. It was a fairly sturdy unit, cube shaped, of some expensive teak wood with brass corners. It could easily bear my weight (and I am not a slender dude). When the first piece arrived, my aunt asked what it was. "It's a stand," I said.
"How do you put it together?" she said.
Eh?
Apparently they'd shipped a piece of my broken stand with a piece of someone else's broken furniture. The label from my box cut out and taped to this other box. I still don't know what happened to the rest of my display stand, but presumably someone is wondering what the heck happened to the rest of their chair.
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Huh? It man not legally be called insurance, but you have the option of declaring the value of the merchandise being shipped and for $.90 per $100 (current book rate), paying a fee to cover the loss beyond th
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"$100 (current book rate), paying a fee to cover the loss beyond the initial $100 should the package become lost, stolen, or damaged. That sounds a lot like the lay definition for insurance to me."
The devil's in the details...
http://www.pressroom.ups.com/F... [ups.com]
Just because the lay definition of declared value sounds like insurance, it isn't. With insurance, if you are at fault the insured item may still be covered. E.g., if you crash your car it will often be covered even if you are at fault. With declared va
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By the way, the label on the box may not have been put on by the Feds. From the article;
“I can tell you that it didn’t come from us addressed to him,” he said.
It could have been done by UPS when they damaged the original label beyond recognition and just picked the closest package label to duplicate. I also doubt the presence of the label considering there are no pictures of it. The recipient's statements are very like made to make the Feds look bad.
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He probably didn't show the label because posting personally identifying information on the Internet is generally a bad idea, especially if you're in temporary possession of a $100K+ item.
And I'm not sure where you're coming from about trying to make the Feds look bad. Having a package mis-delivered by UPS or a call ring through to voicemail are hardly scandalous.
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He probably didn't show the label because posting personally identifying information on the Internet is generally a bad idea,
He didn't have to post the whole label, just the sender's address. I don't think the label exists.
Having a package mis-delivered by UPS or a call ring through to voicemail are hardly scandalous.
Exactly, but the government putting the wrong address on a package worth about $100K is scandalous. The kid is trying to turn a UPS mistake into a scandal.
Good Grief (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a non-story: UPS mis-delivers a non-classified package from to government to some college student who decided to whore for 15 minutes of fame.
Done.
Next...
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Posting something odd on reddit is "whoring for 15 minutes of fame" now? What's posting on slashdot then?
Karma Whoring
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Both of you are wrong, actually.
He posted on Reddit because he was trying to get into contact with NOAA, which is apparently difficult to do (when he contacted them directly, they didn't provide any means for him to get it to them; perhaps not even aware of what he was talking about.)
Furthermore, it was addressed to him, even had his fucking name on it. That makes him well within his rights to open it, especially when he was actually EXPECTING a big package.
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The package had contact info that the receiver chose not to thoroughly pursue
Mark it RETURN TO SENDER, drop at a UPS office and tell them it was mis-delivered, problem solved.
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Bullshit. The package had contact info that the receiver chose not to thoroughly pursue, and his story related to that doesn't hold water. Reddit is not the proper place to contact NOAA unless you wish to gain the kind of "street cred" that whoring bullshit at Reddit gains you, while calling a few numbers and taking the time to look into ownership is not as "sexy" to a "Redditor".
Bullshit. When I'm expecting a package, and I receive one addressed to me, I never bother to look at who sent it or where it came from, I just fucking open it. I'm pretty sure 99% of everybody else does the same thing. Maybe you're the paranoid type, or perhaps you have more enemies than you can count, but as for me personally? There's no reason for anybody to send me a mail bomb.
On top of that, once you open it, you have to pay return shipping to return it to the sender. I don't know about you, but I would
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This time it was the fault of some stupid fuck at Vice, rather than some stupid fuck at Dice, because the headline is a direct copy.
Doesn't make it any better that the headline doesn't at all match the summary even, but I prefer to point fingers at the right stupid fuck.
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Vice is stupid for starting it Dice is stupid for following along. Lets point fingers at both of them.
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Now if it was sent via USPS, then you could conceivably say "the feds", though it would be willfully obtuse to do so.
Re:Stupid headline (Score:5, Insightful)
If theft is what you're worried about, I'd take USPS over UPS or FedEx any day. The Post Office consider mail theft to be Serious Business.
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Which begs the question: Why didn't the government ship USPS?
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Which begs the question: Why didn't the government ship USPS?
Good question. Where I work (Air Force), we are directed to use USPS Next Day or Registered when we need that kind of service. And, we have never been disappointed. But, most of our Next Day and Registered is classified, so the *law* says we have to mail it.
A few years back, A UPS guy delivered a very LARGE bottle of oxycodone (I have mail order pharmacy as part of my very nice non-ObamaCare medical as a government employee) to a neighbor... My cost $70, street value $5000.
Shipping UPS/Fedex (Score:2)
The simple answer would be contractors. Contractors can ship however they like. They may be working 'for' the government, but they're not government employees
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I don't know how big things that USPS can handle are allowed to be, but size of the packages or weight may have something to do with it?
Other drone parts to follow! (Score:5, Funny)
If he doesn't return it, odds are he'll get other drone parts for free! [patdollard.com]
A Nice Gift (Score:1)
According to postal inspector rules, he gets to keep it:
If you open the package and like what you find, you may keep it for free. In this instance, "finders-keepers" applies unconditionally.
https://postalinspectors.uspis... [uspis.gov]
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Only if it was actually sent to him and not just miss delivered by UPS. He says there was a label addressed to him but no pictures of the label. There are for other picture but none of the label. Also the USPS article is about unsolicited merchandise and the NOA is not a merchant. The paper inside also states ownership of the package. So yeah, he will get a visit to get the package back.
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So yeah, he will get a visit to get the package back.
They do have to make it very easy for him to return it though. Like him saying 'I'll be there at 1515-1530 to hand it over' and UPS being there at 1515, even if they have to send a supervisor.
I once donated a package to charity after it was delivered to my house with a supremely messed up address and the business didn't want to pick up their phone. 90 days later* when I noticed the package still hanging around I donated it.
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According to postal inspector rules, he gets to keep it:
UPS is not USPS. And it wasn't sent to him, it was misdelivered. Stop trusting the headlines of /. articles. They're intended to fan flames and not to inform. If a certain cable news network did the same kind of thing they'd be accused of being inept and corrupt. When /. does it, it's just fine.
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That applies ONLY to unsolicited mail ... i.e. spam. It does not apply to misdirected, mislabeled, or packages delivered to the wrong address.
Easiest return policy ever! (Score:1)
At least it's easy to return: just make it fly back on it's own.
Re:Easiest return policy ever! (correction) (Score:1)
correction: "on its own".
Your produce is dangling perilously low (Score:2)
A Redditor got more than he bargained for in the mail today.
Possibly a key that might start a new truck down to the local Ford House?
Working with UPS to find it? (Score:4, Interesting)
The real question is, if they have the capability to know where it was really delivered, why would they not program the handhelds to make all sorts of noise when the delivery guy screws up?
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The real question is, if they have the capability to know where it was really delivered, why would they not program the handhelds to make all sorts of noise when the delivery guy screws up?
I've had both UPS and FedEx actually change the customer-supplied delivery address because they ... thought they knew better? The last time, the hand-written FedEx form was still on the outside of the box, but the computer-printed one said something different. They're deliberately delivering things to the wrong place. Why would the handheld scanner complain about that?
US Postal Law (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you receive something addressed to you that was sent by accident, you are under no obligation to return it and it legally belongs to you. I'm pretty sure this is US Postal Law.
IANAL so anyone more familiar with this, feel free to chime in. But AFAIK the parts now legally belong to the kid.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you receive something addressed to you that was sent by accident, you are under no obligation to return it and it legally belongs to you. I'm pretty sure this is US Postal Law.
IANAL so anyone more familiar with this, feel free to chime in. But AFAIK the parts now legally belong to the kid.
Go ahead and try that with the federal government and see where that gets you! Not to mention the law covers mail that is addressed to you. IT was to prevent people from sending you "gifts" and trying to invoice you for that item later. It wasn't addressed to him. He shouldn't have even opened it to begin with.
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I am smoking US Law.
"Q. Am I obligated to return or pay for merchandise I never ordered?
A. No. If you receive merchandise that you didn’t order, you have a legal right to keep it as a free gift."
Source: Federal Trade Commission Re: Unordered Merchandise
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/a... [ftc.gov]
Mix Up (Score:1)
You see they meant to do a drone strike but accidental instead.ly mailed it to him
about eight boxes (Score:1)
so if you sent about eight boxes of stuff.. is that 7.8 boxes and maybe next time 8.2 boxes? and how do you know you are missing one if you get 7 which is quite close to about 8?
Delivery confirmation on that? (Score:1)
Somewhere between $350,000 and $1-2 billion (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/ - see the NRO bit) is the government's Give-a-fuck-threshold for assured delivery. SpaceX may have a point.
boss: send a drone over to check him out (Score:2)
The best post on the reddit thread:
[–]LoveExists 392 points 3 hours ago
NSA Agent: "Sir, we have reports that u/Seventy_Seven may be working with a terrorist cell, what should we do?"
NSA Officer: "Send a drone over there, let me know what happens." walks away...
NSA Agent: mutters to himself "its not like anyone ever sends them back.."
permalinkparent
350K and UPS?? why noy pay more to have (Score:2)
it hand delivered or why not get a army guy to drop it off. But then then can get a gomer pyle to mess up.
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Reminds me of Music Club Subscriptions... (Score:2)
This is not that case, but really, I wonder if those laws are applicable to the delivery of packages to the "wrong" person by UPS in such a case. If so, the mis-delivered or un-asked-for delivery is his/hers to keep — no strings.
Or, alternatively, why w
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For one thing, this isn't USPS. It's UPS. I expect the laws are different for that.
For another, the part apparently wasn't addressed to him. It was misdelivered. If someone else's mail ends up in your mailbox, you don't get to open it and keep whatever's inside. If it's not addressed to you, you're not allowed to open it at all.
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Apparently, by the time it got to the guy it was addressed to him. I rather assume this was not placed by the sender, but put on by UPS.
He was on a different list (Score:2)
Someone thought that the "drone target" or surveillance list ment he should get spare parts.
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So the republicans are going to go after him because UPS doesn't want to be run by a union traditionally run by the mafia?
You might want to check if your powered tinfoil hat is working...generally those don't include batteries, so if you didn't put them in then it isn't going to do anything.
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I wasn't aware that Republicans were in charge of UPS.
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And some are Democrats as there are rich Democrats too.
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Seven of the ten wealthiest members of Congress are Democrats, although reporting on Congress members' net worth is inaccurate by design. There's quite a few of them with a net worth in the negative six figures too.
Republicans are running the government? (Score:1)
Last I checked, the democrats have been "running" things for the last six years.
* Where "running" means "destroying".
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What do you think the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does?
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OK, now mixing up homophones...it sucks, but this is the Internet. But using a homophone correctly in the title and wrong in the text...that's a little more creative.