****ing Amazon

and - the other company almost certainly has a differently sited depot.

The notable service I've had in the past few years was from BigDUG.

I ordered a load of tough rubber floor tiles (used in garage bays) for my workshop. Ordered Thursday for next day delivery. Not delivered Friday, and for various reasons all I could do was email them the next day.

I had a *very* apologetic phone call at about 9.01am on Monday. They said there had been a mistake in the warehouse, they were terribly sorry, and they would get the tiles to me as soon as they could.

They are in Gloucester; I am in East Kent. The tiles arrived three hours later. They used the fastest method of transport - a man in a white Transit.

I should have added that I live in a semi rural area. Some of the factors which have an impact on deliveries to me may well not apply to those here (presumably a majority) who live in towns or cities.

Friends in a rural area have learnt that sometimes you have to consider who will be delivering large (white) goods. Ordering form the likes of ao.com or Currys and a medium size van will turn up. Order from A.N Other and they attempt to deliver straight from the factory in a large HGV which cannot negotiate the single lane roads, often signposted as unsuitable for HGVs.

On Fri, 12 Jul 2024 15:25:11 +0100, Scott snipped-for-privacy@gefion.myzen.co.uk> wrote: [snip]

I took the item to M&S where I found a person I assumed to be a manager. She said she would deal with it. I asked her to cross out my address to make sure it did not get delivered to me a second time and she said no because of data protection. I know that where someone lives is covered by data protection but I never knew that where someone does not live is also covered. I suppose writing 'Gone away' would disclose that he/she lived there at one time. I took the packet away and wrote 'Not known at this address'. By the time I got back she had gone. I was looking forward to a bit of retaliation by saying I could not confirm my name because of data protection or confirm whether I lived at the address where the package was delivered or whether the package was delivered as addressed.

I have an ordinary domestic router in the house and a cable running out to my garden office to another ordinary domestic router on the same SSID. I don't have problems - though to be fair most of the performance critical stuff is wired in.

Andy

Yeah. 15 mins with another router was a waste of time. Have instead exchanged it for a 3-box Mercusys mesh system (arriving Friday).

While the initial delivery was a mess up, the return was like a polished pig on rails. I selected "no box, no label" and was directed to a post office which is 8 mins walk away. Dropped it in with QR code which was paired with the coded bag they had. Was a little taken aback to not get a receipt - it's all electronic.

By the time I got home I had an email my return had been received, processed and refund issued. You really can't fault that.

Weirdly there is an eVRI pickup location 1 minute from me. But Amazon don't always offer it as an option. And next door to that is a pickup point that doesn't do returns.

All positives of choosing to live a civilised life in the city :)

I get the same (or better service) in the country.

Well, the Mercusys 3-box mesh system is up & running and covering the entire bungalow with a single SSID. Finally. All my smart crap and 3 google nest minis are one the same SSID which I am hoping will solve the increasingly irritating niggle whereby you ask the kitchen nest to switch a light, and the one in the bedroom responds. This is despite frequent prompts from my google home app on my phone asking if it got the right speaker.

Had a bit of a faff getting some Tapo bulbs connected. They needed the

Big plus for the motors for the blinds. They allow the Wifi network to be changed via the app.

They should be fine. I’ve got lots of 2.4G devices paired with my mesh system and always have to disable the 5G first but they always keep working.

Tim