Suppose you order some item online and then you pay a shipping company to deliver the item to your home address. What exactly is the shipping company contractually obligated to do?
In spite of how this process is desribed, the shipping company does not make a promise to actually deliver the package to you. But it was my understanding that they are obligated to make an attempt at delivery. So they have to bring the package to your address and if you are not there this is not their problem and they have fulfilled their part of the deal anyway. You get a note in your mail box and can then pick up the package at a location of their choosing. So far so good.
Recently I had a situation where the package never came near my home address at all. After the announced delivery date the online status of the shipping company changed. The wording was something like 'We planned to deliver the package today but were too busy with other things. So we didn't manage to come by your house. Please pick up the package at the following post office.' No note or similar was in my mail box.
I don't know whether somewhere in the fine print it says that they are allowed to do that. But it seems to me they can't sell a service 'delivery of package to specified address' if this kind of thing is allowed. That looks like writing a contract for some service and then writing in the fine print you might not actually do it. It also seems wide open to large scale abuse by the shipping company (it happened to me only once). Is this legal?
Jurisdiction was Germany.