What is proof of delivery?

Proof of delivery is the evidence that an order reached the right place, and what it consists of depends on who carried it. A same-day courier usually returns a photo, GPS coordinates and often a signature. Regional couriers often return photos and coordinates. National parcel carriers vary by carrier and service level: some return photos and coordinates on premium visibility products, some a signature image with no photo, and some only a scan. Getcho reads whatever comes back and checks it against the order.

How does Getcho know a package was left at the wrong address?

Every delivery photo is scored at closeout against the address on the order, the drop instructions, the driver coordinates and previous deliveries to the same address. A package photographed at unit 2H when the notes say 6H does not match, and the order is flagged before the driver has left the building. Scores run 1 to 10 and anything under 6 escalates by default. You can tune the threshold, and it varies by the reason for the flag.

What happens when a delivery is flagged?

It is handled automatically. Our AI contacts the driver — by message or by voice call, in their own language — with the correction. In practice that often means the driver walks the package to the right unit before anyone has noticed. If the order cannot be recovered, the claim is filed with the evidence already attached.

What is address intelligence?

The access point and the process for an address — which entrance or dock, whether the buzzer works, when reception closes — known before dispatch and sent to the driver. It comes from what previous deliveries to that address showed, so the next driver starts with what the last ten learned.

What happens if the carrier does not provide a delivery photo?

The check runs on what does exist. Coordinates, timing, the driver notes, and whether the recipient was engaging with the tracking link all carry signal. Thin evidence is still evidence, and it is usually enough to tell a normal handoff from a problem.

Should the evidence a carrier provides affect how I route orders?

It should, and it is one of the more overlooked parts of the decision. If a carrier returns no photo and no coordinates, a "never arrived" report leaves you with a scan and an argument. That is a reasonable trade on a low-value order and a poor one on an expensive order, particularly since most last-mile carriers deny misdelivery claims where a proof-of-delivery photo exists and cap default coverage around $100. Routing by order value, not just by rate, is usually the cheaper policy.

Does it work on deliveries Getcho did not dispatch?

Yes. Delivery Forensics also runs on deliveries you send through other national parcel carriers and regional couriers, adding monitoring, evidence and claims to those orders.

Who files the claim, and who gets the money back?

Either. Getcho can file the claim on your behalf and you track its status in the dashboard, or we hand you the evidence pack and you file it yourself. Which one makes sense depends on your carrier relationships and how your finance team handles recoveries.

What does a customer see when they say they never received an order?

They can be sent the delivery photo and the driver last-known location within moments of asking. A large share of "I did not get it" reports resolve on the spot, because the package is at the side door, with a neighbour or in the lobby. No refund, no claim, no lost sale.

How is this different from tracking?

Tracking tells you where an order is. It does not tell you the drop was wrong. A delivery marked "delivered" with a photo of the wrong doorway looks identical to a successful delivery in every tracking system. Delivery Forensics is the check on that final photo, which is where most losses actually happen.

How much does it cost?

Delivery Forensics is available with any paid Getcho plan and standalone for businesses shipping through other carriers. See the pricing page for current plans, or book a demo and we will walk through what it looks like on your volume.

Delivery Forensics

Every order watched to the door. Failures caught while the package is still moving, fixed with the driver, and claimed with the evidence attached when they cannot be saved.

Book a Demo See how it works

What is Delivery Forensics?

What you can prove about a delivery depends on who carried it

A same-day courier gives you a photo, coordinates and often a signature. Some parcel services give you a signature and no photo. Some give you a scan. Getcho reads whatever comes back, checks it against the order, and fixes what does not line up before the evidence hardens against you.

Where there is a photo, it is scored against the address, the drop instructions, prior deliveries to that building and where the driver actually stood. Where there is no photo, the check runs on what does exist — coordinates, timing, driver notes, whether the recipient was engaging with the tracking link. Thin evidence is still evidence.

It is one of four things Getcho runs, alongside ship from store, options at checkout and local distribution.

Operational Impact

Caught every time. Fixed most times. Paid the rest.

Every delivery, audited: 0%
Caught and fixed in flight: 0 in 3
Claims we file and win: 0%

Audit methodology

The evidence a delivery produces, by carrier type

Proof of delivery is not standard, and the gap between carriers is much wider than most merchants realise. Worth knowing before you decide who carries what.

Carrier type	Delivery photo	GPS at delivery	Signature
Same-day couriers	Usually, plus pickup photo	Yes	Often
Regional couriers	Yes, sometimes several	Mostly	Varies
National parcel, premium visibility tier	Yes	Yes	Yes
National parcel, standard service	Often not	Often not	Image or letter, varies
Postal and international	Rarely	No	Letter or link only

This is not a ranking. It is a practical constraint. If a carrier returns no photo and no coordinates, then when a customer says the parcel never arrived you have a scan and an argument, and the scan always wins.

Which is why it belongs in the routing decision. A $40 order on a carrier with thin evidence is a fine trade. A $600 one is a bet that nothing goes wrong, and you are the one covering it if it does.

Why the timing matters

Once the photo exists, the claim is usually already dead

Read the claims terms across the last-mile carriers and the same clause keeps appearing: a misdelivery claim is denied where a proof-of-delivery photo exists, and theft after that photo was taken is not claimable at all. The photo is treated as settling the matter, whatever it shows.

So the window is not days. It is the few minutes while the driver is still on the street and the package can still be moved. After that you are not filing a claim, you are absorbing a loss and calling it a refund.

The deadlines do not help either. Filing windows run from 15 days on some carriers to nine months on others, several require a waiting period before an order can even be declared lost, and default coverage is commonly capped at $100 regardless of what was in the box.

Closeout scoring

Four things every photo is measured against

At closeout, every pickup and delivery gets a score from 1 to 10. Under 6 escalates by default — you can move the threshold, and it varies by what triggered the flag. These are the signals that carry the most weight when a photo exists; there are others, and more still when there is no photo at all.

The address on the order

Does the doorway in the photo match where this order was going? A bag photographed at unit 2H when the drop notes say 6H is a mismatch, not a delivery.

The drop instructions

"Leave at the front desk" and a photo of an empty stoop do not agree. Neither does a signature-required order left unattended.

Every previous delivery to that address

Addresses have history. If nine drivers have left packages inside the lobby and the tenth left one on the pavement, that is worth catching.

Where the driver actually was

Coordinates at the moment of the photo, against the delivery address. Distance is the tell that separates a neighbour's porch from the right one.

Address intelligence

The next driver starts with what the last ten learned

Most failed deliveries are not lost packages. They are a driver at the wrong entrance, a buzzer that does not work, a loading dock that closes at four. The same building fails the same way, delivery after delivery, because nobody writes it down.

Getcho does. The access point and the process for an address — which entrance or dock, whether the buzzer works, when reception closes — are known before dispatch, sent to the driver, and used to route around the carriers that keep failing there.

What happens next

Finding it is not the point. Fixing it is.

A flag is not a report you read in the morning. Our AI contacts the driver directly — by message or by voice call, in their own language — with the correction. Most of the time that ends with the driver walking the package to the right unit before the customer has noticed anything.

The same applies at pickup. If a driver collects a bag labelled for a different business, or from the wrong street number, it is caught before they set off rather than after the wrong customer opens the box.

When an order genuinely cannot be recovered, the claim is filed with the evidence already attached — photo, coordinates, timeline, and the driver exchange. Getcho can file it for you and you track the status, or we hand you the evidence pack and you file it yourself.

And when a customer says they never received an order, they can be sent the delivery photo and the driver's last-known location straight away. A great many of those reports end with the customer finding the package by the side door, with a neighbour, or in the lobby. No refund, no claim, no lost sale.

Every order, however it ships

It watches the orders Getcho did not dispatch, too

Delivery Forensics also runs on deliveries you send through national parcel carriers and regional couriers, so the evidence layer covers every order — the ones Getcho dispatches and the ones it does not.

It matters most where the evidence is thinnest, which is not always where you would expect. Several regional couriers return more usable proof than the national ones do — photos, coordinates, sometimes multiple images per drop. The problem there is rarely a lack of data. It is that nobody is reading it.

Parsel, a multi-carrier shipping platform, cut its middle-mile delivery loss rate by 97% with Getcho — same driver pools, monitored. They wrote about it on their own blog.

The case-file library

We publish the failures, not just the wins

Each case file reconstructs one real delivery failure from the evidence — what the photo showed, what the coordinates said, what the root cause turned out to be, and the workflow that stops it happening again. They are written to be useful whether or not you ever become a customer.

Case #60309 Your Customer Says "Never Received." Tracking Says Delivered. For brand CX and 3PL ops teams. A customer reported an $800 order never received, 75 hours after it was delivered, signed for, and photographed. The building's own log showed a friend collected it five minutes after dropoff. What to check — and in what order — when tracking says delivered and the customer says no.

Browse the series

Delivery Forensics FAQ

Questions we get asked

What is Delivery Forensics?: Delivery Forensics is the part of Getcho that watches every delivery and acts on the evidence. It scores every pickup and delivery photo at closeout, catches wrong-address and wrong-item drops while the driver is still there, contacts the driver to fix them, and files the claim when an order is genuinely lost. It is one of four things Getcho runs, alongside ship from store, options at checkout and local distribution.
What is proof of delivery?: Proof of delivery is the evidence that an order reached the right place, and what it consists of depends on who carried it. A same-day courier usually returns a photo, GPS coordinates and often a signature. Regional couriers often return photos and coordinates. National parcel carriers vary by carrier and service level: some return photos and coordinates on premium visibility products, some a signature image with no photo, and some only a scan. Getcho reads whatever comes back and checks it against the order.
How does Getcho know a package was left at the wrong address?: Every delivery photo is scored at closeout against the address on the order, the drop instructions, the driver coordinates and previous deliveries to the same address. A package photographed at unit 2H when the notes say 6H does not match, and the order is flagged before the driver has left the building. Scores run 1 to 10 and anything under 6 escalates by default. You can tune the threshold, and it varies by the reason for the flag.
What happens when a delivery is flagged?: It is handled automatically. Our AI contacts the driver — by message or by voice call, in their own language — with the correction. In practice that often means the driver walks the package to the right unit before anyone has noticed. If the order cannot be recovered, the claim is filed with the evidence already attached.
What is address intelligence?: The access point and the process for an address — which entrance or dock, whether the buzzer works, when reception closes — known before dispatch and sent to the driver. It comes from what previous deliveries to that address showed, so the next driver starts with what the last ten learned.
What happens if the carrier does not provide a delivery photo?: The check runs on what does exist. Coordinates, timing, the driver notes, and whether the recipient was engaging with the tracking link all carry signal. Thin evidence is still evidence, and it is usually enough to tell a normal handoff from a problem.
Should the evidence a carrier provides affect how I route orders?: It should, and it is one of the more overlooked parts of the decision. If a carrier returns no photo and no coordinates, a "never arrived" report leaves you with a scan and an argument. That is a reasonable trade on a low-value order and a poor one on an expensive order, particularly since most last-mile carriers deny misdelivery claims where a proof-of-delivery photo exists and cap default coverage around $100. Routing by order value, not just by rate, is usually the cheaper policy.
Does it work on deliveries Getcho did not dispatch?: Yes. Delivery Forensics also runs on deliveries you send through other national parcel carriers and regional couriers, adding monitoring, evidence and claims to those orders.
Who files the claim, and who gets the money back?: Either. Getcho can file the claim on your behalf and you track its status in the dashboard, or we hand you the evidence pack and you file it yourself. Which one makes sense depends on your carrier relationships and how your finance team handles recoveries.
What does a customer see when they say they never received an order?: They can be sent the delivery photo and the driver last-known location within moments of asking. A large share of "I did not get it" reports resolve on the spot, because the package is at the side door, with a neighbour or in the lobby. No refund, no claim, no lost sale.
How is this different from tracking?: Tracking tells you where an order is. It does not tell you the drop was wrong. A delivery marked "delivered" with a photo of the wrong doorway looks identical to a successful delivery in every tracking system. Delivery Forensics is the check on that final photo, which is where most losses actually happen.
How much does it cost?: Delivery Forensics is available with any paid Getcho plan and standalone for businesses shipping through other carriers. See the pricing page for current plans, or book a demo and we will walk through what it looks like on your volume.

What business customers are saying

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See it on your own deliveries

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