I live at ABCD House, ABCD Lane, in village PQRS, XY11 1DL. I am expecting a parcel sometime, but it is not yet en route. I was preparing to leave the house this morning, for a weekend away. I opened my front door, to find a large package outside, shoved behind a plant pot. It was addressed to somebody totally different, at ABCD House, The Street, in village MNOP, XY11 1RY. So the driver got the correct house name, but the wrong road, in the wrong village, with the wrong Postcode. The package was labelled: "Delivery must be Saturday, contains frozen meat". There was no destination 'phone number, and I could not find one for the addressee. I got onto DPD's website, which hid all means of communication very well, but I called up Chat and wrote a message describing the problem, only to be rebuffed with a message telling me that I could not communicate with the driver at this time. I found a 'phone number, which had the information that there was a 10 minute wait, so I called it, and waited for 15 minutes or more, until I finally talked to somebody. I explained the problem, added the fact that I was leaving in a half hour, and that I would leave the package exactly where it was for collection. Somebody called me back and confirmed that it would be collected. I left, wondering what would have happened if I had already left home by the time the delivery was made. If the intended delivery destination had been on my route, I would have dropped it off, but it was in the wrong direction. If it is still there when I get home on Monday, then I will be back on the 'phone to DPD. There's nothing like actual experience to convince the public of a courier's accuracy.
This mirrors an event a month ago. As we were leaving the house to go to my wife's funeral, a lorry pulled up outside to deliver a load of fencing. It began to unload as we drove away. There is work going on at the back of the house, so a delivery of fencing was not a surprise. Under normal circumstances, I would have checked the whole address, but this was not a normal circumstance. Except it too was destined for another property of the same house name, again with a different street name, village, and Postcode. The contractor who ordered it came and removed it a couple of days later, releasing my car. I have still not heard anything from the company that supplied and mis-delivered it, despite leaving them several messages. I'm sure they don't care. If I could have, I would have kept the fencing for myself.