Couriers - is there any hope?

[Rob D]

Just come off the phone to Royal Mail [after being on hold 10 minutes of course]. Parcel to Denmark - sent on the 7th December - seems like it went to the USA - then got re routed to Jordan! I get that things go wrong when we send things - but I don't understand how the courier companies can get away with the lack of follow up. In this instance the advice was 'wait until the 9th January and then if it still has not arrived send another and claim compensation'.

 

It seems that it is an industry where as a customer you bear the time and cost of the other party making the mistake... and if you complain you get 'any idea how many millions of parcels we deal with this time of year?'

[Rob D]

Officially complaining and be met with a barrage of - 'we are so sorry this happened, rest assured we will do everything in our power to rectify this situation'.

 

...But actually that is not true is it?!

[difflock]

Locally Hermes are very good, due to their excellent local del guy, a retired lifetime local shop owner, who knows the area and the people.

Ditto DPD with a Polish Bloke, Marius, who I also took deliveries from in work 10 years ago, and he was 100% way back then, plus now he too knows the area.

BUT GOD FORBID, you have a del coming courtsey of UPS and their Yellow Pack/Christmas Season/Student Delivery drivers.

Aaaragh!

I let the wife deal with the ensuing ph calls.

Edited December 23, 2019 by difflock

[Toad]

Hermes are terrible here. They did have a depot on the next farm but most deliveries would come here from Southampton. I've had other couriers deliver a snowboard to a house two miles away instead of here and badly damage another snowboard.

[spudulike]

Here we go, bashing the couriers although Robs issue does sounds a bit extreme! I use DHL who were Ipostparcels and Parcelforce, I receive parcels from UPS, APC, Hermes, DPD, Yodel etc etc.

Our DHL guy was a Romanian, also called Marius ...we called him Marion but he was always fab, his replacement, also Romanian is also a polite grafter and never an issue. The Parcelforce bloke...Darren is excellent as is our postman but don't tell him as it will go to his head.

At this time of year, the couriers deal with Black Friday that lasts two weeks, cyber Monday, pre Christmas sales, Boxing day sales and then on to New Year Day sales. Their workload goes north of 100 -150 drops a day. I always help them shift my shipments to the van and get to the door fast...anything to help.

You have to see both sides as most couriers don't take on extra drivers so expect more from their drivers which defies logic and tend to sympathise with them. Most by far do a good job.

[David R Barras]

I have been working at the Royal Mail mail centre at Inverness as a temp since November and Rob D's story does sound to me like a rather unusual exception rather than the norm.

[Rob D]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Hmmm... May not have worded this thread that well as people seem to have interpreted this as me knocking the drivers - far from it.

 

It is the company policies and the back up when things go wrong I was knocking... Ref the incident with Royal Mail - their policy is that if the parcel is not lost then there is nothing you can do for 30 days.

 

But you can't tell a customer to 'wait 30 days and then if you don't have it we'll send another'.

 

We would send another - wait - if the customer ends up getting both parcels - ask them to send the 2nd back [and refund them for doing so]. And then go through the 'purposefully' time consuming process of trying to claim costs back.