SHAKEN UP AT HOME
Casimira Teruel and her husband, Carl Escala, with their children Coraline, far right, and Clara. The family was shocked when an Amazon delivery person just walked into their home after the doorbell went unanswered. T’Cha Dunlevy reports
Casimira Teruel orders from Amazon nearly every other day.
“All the time,” the HochelagaMaisonneuve resident and Amazon Prime member said Wednesday afternoon. “My husband jokes that Amazon delivery employees are here more often than family and friends. Especially because we have two young children. We order diapers, wet-wipes, Kleenex, everything.”
Until Tuesday, Teruel had never had a problem. Now she has a big problem, to the point that she no longer feels safe in her own home.
Things started off innocently enough.
“It was like any other Amazon delivery,” Teruel said, noting that she received an automated email Tuesday afternoon saying that Intelcom Express, a service that Amazon subcontracts to, would be delivering her package in the next three hours.
Teruel’s husband, Carl Escala, came home from his job as a construction contractor. Then around 4 p.m., she decided to take their eldest daughter, who is 19 months old, to the park “to blow off some steam — she was acting a little crazy.”
Escala stayed behind to tend to their seven-week-old daughter.
“I told my husband I wasn’t taking the keys since I was going right next door and I wouldn’t be long,” Teruel said.
She returned home less than an hour later to find the door locked, and her husband in a state.
“He was visibly upset,” she said. What he told her next would keep them both awake Tuesday night.
Escala had been about to give their newborn her bottle around 4:45 p.m. when he heard the doorbell ring, twice, followed by knocking. He stayed put.
“Slowly I take the bottle out of her mouth, and as I put her on the bed, I hear the front door open,” Escala recounted.
He heard the door close again and assumed it was his wife; he made his way to their front office, into which the front doorway opens.
“I’m taking my leisurely time getting to the hallway, and as I step through at the end, I see some guy standing there, with an Amazon box on the floor,” Escala said. “As soon as he saw me, he was shocked. He saw someone was home so he turned around and opened the door.
“I said, ‘What are you doing, coming into my house? This is not standard practice. We get Amazon packages every day.’
“He said, ‘Don’t you want your package?’
“I said, ‘Excuse me?’”
The delivery person shrugged and walked away, according to Escala.
“He had a friend in his car with him. It was very odd. I keep telling myself it wasn’t ill intention, but he closed the door behind him, he didn’t just slip (the package) in. And when it came time to sign, he didn’t bother. He ran away.”
When Escala explained what happened to his wife upon her return, “she was shaken up,” he said.
In lieu of the standard emailed photo of the delivered package, his wife received “a blurry picture of something black,” Escala said. “It was extremely odd.”
The two immediately contacted Amazon.
“They were shocked,” Teruel said. “They escalated my call to a supervisor, who said they were going to run a report.”
A conference call with Intelcom led to an Intelcom supervisor advising Teruel and Escala to call the police, which they did.
Two officers came by Tuesday evening, and the couple filed a report.
“(The police) agreed,” Teruel said. “He was clearly inside the home. They saw where the package had been left. It’s not like we have a hallway with double doors. We live in a duplex. He was inside, inside.”
The couple has been back and forth with Amazon and Intelcom since then, but aside from learning that their delivery person’s name was Nick, they have received no further information or response from either company.
To make matters worse, each time they want to reach Amazon, they must send an email, as there is no direct phone number.
“I would appreciate having someone ... be in contact with us directly,” Teruel said.
Spooked, Teruel asked her husband to sleep in the hallway Tuesday night. And though he talked her down, neither of them has been able to relax since the incident.
“I keep looking back down the hallway at the door to make sure it’s locked,” Teruel said. “It’s freaky. Not to say the individual had criminal intent, but it’s frightening to have someone in your home, looking around. That could have been me, by myself with two babies. It’s scary.
“Everyone uses Amazon. For sure, it’s convenient to do online shopping, but then who’s bringing packages to your doorstep?”
On Wednesday afternoon, the couple received an apology from Intelcom Express, which informed them that the employee had been fired. They had yet to hear back from Amazon, despite emailing the company again.