[OT] Fecking useless couriers

[The Other Mike]

Up a ladder at the back of the house doing some painting. Expecting a parcel delivery from CPC that was placed just before the bank holiday weekend.

SWTSMBO is off on shopping jolly all day. No clear line of sight to the road and the wind is blowing in the wrong direction so I wouldn't necessarily hear them arrive. No easy way of providing permanent access to the rear without leaving the garage door wide open with a few grands worth of wood and metal working machinery on display.

So I left a note by the front door saying where I was and to either shout or ring me.

I get back inside and find they have left me a note a few minutes before with "no phone provided" scrawled over it and have buggered off back to the depot with my parcel.

So I go online and one of the fields they provide for a redelivery is "phone number" and "special delivery instructions"

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Sounds like you could do with a wireless doorbell - the battery receiver type you can carry with you. Cheap as chips on Ebay.

[Lobster]

I recently ordered something online (a small package) and in the special instructions box I tried entering this: "If I'm not in, please place package in the plastic bag tucked under the locked side-gate, and lower it over the gate on the attached string to avoid dropping it (fragile)".

The side gate is about 6'6" high so it seemed to me quite a clever idea, especially as it wasn't a particularly valuable - or all that fragile - item (not that the courier would know that).

Didn't know when the delivery was likely, but predictably, I got carded when I was out. Went round to the gate, saw my bin bag with attached string clearly on view still where I'd left it. And sure enough, behind the gate was my unprotected package, where it had been flung over. :( Fortunately undamaged, and still dry as it hadn't rained.

David

[tim....]

Do you really think that it doesn't suffer worse than this on its way through the system

tim

[Steve Firth]

The Other Mike wrote: [snip]

Shitty Link by any chance?

That's their MO here. If they get as far as the house, that is. Normally they send a postcard by post to say that the house does not exist on satnav. This is a lie.

[Steve Walker]

On a Thursday, I ordered some valves for my amplifier, on next day delivery as we were having a party on the Friday night and wanted some music (I'd planned to pick some up in the local electronics shop, only to find that they'd stopped stocking them). In the delivery instructions box, I typed "If no-one is in, please leave at any of No.s 10, 11, 13 or

14." I then arrived home to find a note saying that they'd taken them back to the depot!!! Their excuse was that it was up to the drivers whether they left things with a neighbour or not, despite my clear instructions.

The post-office is even worse, they stuck a note through the door saying that there was no answer, while my wife was in. She caught the postwoman coming back down the other side and was told that the parcels guy was off ill and his "replacement" hadn't bothered to come and deliver, but had just put "we were unable to deliver" cards in the pigeonholes for the normal posties to deliver. As we were both due to be out at work during the next couple of days and the local office is not open during any hours that we can get there, I asked them to re-direct it to another postoffice that was open later, only for them to demand payment for redirection!

SteveW

[Bob Eager]

Since it was CPC, it would probably be UPS or DPD.

[John Stumbles]

Couriers?! Think yourself lucky. Bloke I heard about used this dodgy courier, next thing there's a bunch of yahoos come round took *him* away, dumped him in the fecking ocean!

[geoff]

In message , The Other Mike writes

That'll teach you to always provide a contingency plan to the seller

Then they have no excuse to be brain dead and leave a card

[geoff]

The two problems there are that you'd probably exceeded the character count of the field, and you'd exceeded the attention span of the driver by the 5th word - keep it short, keep it simple. Write a novel and he'll ignore it

[The Other Mike]

Good idea for the future - although I'd bet the courier would knock on the door rather than ring the bell!

[The Other Mike]

UPS it was. I can almost see an exact repeat tomorrow!

[geoff]

In message , John Stumbles writes

What , they didn't read the note "can leave at the military camp down the road" ?

[geoff]

In message , The Other Mike writes

I had a devious one a couple of months ago

The customer requested the item be delivered to his daughter a few streets away

Next day - no show, courier claimed that they had delivered it and had a signature. UNFORTUNATELY FOR THEM ... the driver had forged the signature of the customer as his daughter, being married had a different surname

caught the buggers out that time !

[Matty F]

I've seen how the couriers work. The guy who picks up parcels goes to the depot and parks his van near half a dozen big bins. He stands at the rear of his van and flings the parcels into the correct bin.

[Neil Williams]

Whether it is a lie or not, it is irrelevant. Have they not heard of researching other methods of finding it, e.g. a map?

Neil

[Dave Liquorice]

Well if you bung the post code for here into a Satnav an drive blindly to where is says you end up a 1/4 of a mile down a steep rough (tractor/Land Rover only rough) farm track in the middle of a field and 1/2 a mile from where we actually are. I guess townies might have a problem with a post code not landing them within 50' of the destination...

Agreed, give them the latitude and longitude so they can enter it into their Satnav, no excuse then other than not being able to read.

[Terry Casey]

Last week, my wife answered the door to a complete stranger with a parcel - correctly and clearly (printed) addressed to her.

He'd come home to find it on his doorstep. Right number, wrong road, wrong PostCode. Royal Mail - To Be Signed For!

She's complained to RM and told the sender - who is furious because they pay extra for the service.

Thinking about it, we've had at least half a dozen 'To Be Signed For' letters and packets through the letter box in the past year or so but, at least, they've come to the right address before ...

[Derek G.]

Currently I'm having a lot of success using Hermes.

They are dirt cheap and parcels are collected and delivered by local sentient beings (Unlike Securicor) in private cars, and it's always the same one.

Their service is dirt cheap (Cheap enough for SWMBO to ship kids birthday presents and baby clothes bought in the sales to relatives in Sussex and Glasgow).

The proceadure for handling missed deliveries / collections is agreed beforehand and printed on the label of the package.

Their service would be cheap enough for such as Steve to operate a nationwide shipping service, even offering low value items such as organic veggies.

Derek G

[Man at B&Q]

So why did you bother posting it?

MBQ