I don't like Hermes

[Scott]

I don't like Hermes (but I like DPD).

I was waiting for a parcel when I started receiving contradictory emails from Hermes. One said the delivery would take place in a certain timeslot. One said it was postponed until the next day. One said the delivery had taken place. I phoned Hermes. They said they would get the local manager to contact me.

Next thing the delivery driver phoned to say he was here (in his van that is, when I live in a top floor flat). I asked why I had been given wrong information and he became hostile, asking if I wanted my parcel or not. I went down to collect it. He said it was nothing to do with him as he did not work for Hermes. He said he had been round earlier and no-one was in (untrue) but he was unable to tell me which flat he had been to. Finally he said I could complain about him if I wanted but it would achieve 'f*ck all'.

[S Viemeister]

I've had crappy service from Hermes, too - although, the usual delivery guy (contract, not a Hermes employee) is reasonably good. It's all those idiots messing things up before the parcels get to him... He loads up in Inverness - I've often had things show as 'out for delivery' from Perth or Dundee. We're 100 miles north of Inverness. Those parcels don't always arrive, but when they do it's often a week or so after the 'out for delivery' date.

[mm0fmf]

Hermes = poor service. I always tell companies I buy from that I will buy from elsewhere if they continue to use Hermes. It may do no good but it makes me feel better.

[Andy Burns]

Not sure if it's still the same, but a few years back "out for delivery" seemed to mean a big van is delivering it to the hermes agent, who will then actually deliver it to the destination by car tomorrow ... but the hermes agent here has been the same person for quite a while now and no complaints.

[S Viemeister]

Yes, it does seem to mean it's on its way to Inverness.

Once, I had something marked as delivered to someone named Mackay, in Inverness. My surname isn't Mackay, and I don't live in Inverness.

I did eventually get the parcel a few weeks later, after it had been handed to my cousin's husband a mile or so up the road. The driver would have had to pass my clearly marked gate on the way there and back - there's only one road.

[alan_m]

Royal Mail (48 hour packages) has lost two parcels since Christmas. The senders of both have had no luck in tracking them beyond their local depot. There is no record of delivery and I haven't been carded to say a missed delivery.

[James Stewart]

and that is all that matters ...

[Brian Gaff]

Sounds like they muck their drivers about as much as the customer to me. Obviously a slightly perceptible tendency to poor communications. Brian

[spuorgelgoog]

The joys of rural living.

I bet your house has a name not a number :-)

Owain

[fred]

I'm quite fond of their silk scarves

||Category

[Andy Burns]

I've had the opposite problem ... ordered a factory refurbed kenwood chef from ebay for collection from argos, got the email and collected it a fortnight ago, then yesterday got another email with a different reference that it's ready to collect from argos ... kenwood want me to collect it from argos so that parcelforce can collect it from me, I've suggested parcelforce go and collect it from argos!

[The Natural Philosopher]

I cancelled an ebay sale when after three weeks, Hermes had simply failed to deliver it.

[Bill]

In message [e-mail]>, S Viemeister [e-mail]> writes

My old, white Land Rover 110 came from Scotland. When I got it, it had what looked very like a wooden bed frame in the back. I was told it was previously owned by a postman, but maybe your parcels did the rounds in something like that.

Does your delivery man have very strong leg muscles? I traded it in for the auto Disco when my clutch knee started to go.

[charles]

we used to have a Hermes lady deliverer who use an ordinary car. I think she moved away. I gather from Newsgroup traffic that our new deliverer resigned so we have a very intermittent service. I don't think that those who deliver are actually Hermes employees.

[Bob Eager]

I one had a 1952 Series I. There was *no* hydraulic assistance on the clutch. Even worse when I put a new clutch in.

[S Viemeister]

How did you guess? No number, and the road doesn't have a name. Tesco has no trouble finding us, but Yodel and Hermes drivers often have problems. The Menzies driver and the postie are pretty good.

[Dave Liquorice]

Pretty sure they aren't, thus don't have the rights of a employee (holiday, sick pay, redundancy, etc), have to find a replacement if they can't work and are barely paid for doing it.

Google "heremes driver" and read that 2016 Guardian article. Reda the indeed.co.uk Heremes-Parcelnet-Ltd company review.

Looks like they are paid per parcel starting at 55p. Lets take the normal working day of 7 hours (ie time actually working, not lunch or pee breaks etc). Exclude the comute to collect the parcels. Include

30 mins to check and load the parcels and mean of 5 min per parcel to deliver (travel between drops, finding the address, finding the parcel, carrying to door, waiting for answer....) means 78 drops at say 65p, £46.80/day. Less about 40 p/mile for fuel, insurance, maintenance, tax and depreciation on your the vehicle. Do more than 117 miles and you're losing money. Half that mileage and your effectively being paid £3.34/hour *and* working your socks off.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Odd, isn't it?

The only time I've ever had a parcel lost was one sent to my brother via Parcel Force. Luckily, it was insured, and I eventually got its value, albeit with plenty effort.

Given the millions of parcels sent, no company is going to be 100% perfect.

The worst one for me was UPS, who regularly put cards through the door without ringing the bell.

[Peter Johnson]

They are not all doing it full time. I don't think my regular Hermes woman is, and she's making enough out of it to afford two or three cruises a year. I got the impression, it's been a while since we talked about it, that the parcels are delivered to her, she doesn't have to collect them. Yodel use 'use your own vehicle' drivers as well - one who came here a couple of weeks ago told me that he had started doing it as a post-restirement 'something to do' job. Although he was available for six days a week, that day he had started at 10.00 and would be finished by 14.30. Amazon use the 'use your own vehicle' model as well

- their drivers, the ones who I've seen, all seem to be doing it as a full time job, though.

[Dave Liquorice]

Cheap cruise for one, say £2,000, two of em, £4,000, that's 6100 parcels at 65p/parcel. Say 61/day @ 5 mins each = 5 hrs/day for 100 days = 500 hours. Less costs say 50% so 1000 hours or 200 days (= 4 days/week, every week) to have £4,000 real disposable income/year or £4.00/hour.

A normal M-F 9-5 employee does 1800 hours/year, so I guess it's "part time" but it's still very low paid work, way below minimum wage levels (£8.21/hour > age 25).

Round here Yodel deliveries come from branded vans. Who owns and maintains the van is another matter, which company went bust leaving the drivers and their branded vans in the lurch? If you don't factor in the cost of the fuel and wear and tear on the vehicle and increased insurance costs(*) people are only fooling themselves.

(*) First para under "exclusions" on my insurance cerificate:

"Use for hiring of the vehicle, the carriage of passengers or goods for payment, the carriage of goods or property which does not belong to you as a courier or for takeaway food or fast food delivery."

UnderI noticed that besides the normal "not for reward" exclusion a new exclusion of "carrying goods not belonging to me" has appeared.