OT: another courier to avoid.

On 11:35 31 Oct 2018, Chris J Dixon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Hermes is a cut price operator and all their drivers in my area all seem to be (Brit) part timers taking on courier work in their own cars. They don't seem the slickest of delivery people. IMHO an East European working for Amazon has more nous than the average Hermes courier.

On 10:57 31 Oct 2018, "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk:

Unreliable couriers can be a real nuisance. That's why I buy from Amazon Prime wherever I can and avoid eBay like the plague.

I would willingly pay an extra 5% to know the package will arive on time and also get picked up right from my front door there's a problem.

We've had the same hermes woman here for years, she's a Brit, has an escort van, turns up within the emailed slot, has a squiggly tablet PC same as any other ... I've not had any bad experience with hermes, yes they used to be slow when doing a collect and deliver, but seem to have improved to be like most other couriers now ... DPD still fave though.

I had one item that was thrown from the drive onto the doorstep where it landed in the snow and got wet. I could tell they hadn't been closer to the doorstep than about 10 feet because of the absence of footprints in the snow...

I don't know which courier that was. Amazon were very good about replacing it (broken and water damaged) and said they were claiming the full cost from the courier; they actually commented "the lack of footprints shows they haven't got a leg to stand on".

I had one item that would have been non-delivered if I hadn't chased the courier. I watched him arrive in his van, walk up the drive to post a "failed to deliver while you were out" card and walk back towards his van. I was expecting him to ring the bell and give me the parcel. When I called after him "yes, I'm in", he didn't actually have the parcel with him and had to go back to his van for it, so he hadn't even *tried* to deliver it. That got a very sarky report to Amazon, to let them know what one of "their" couriers was doing (I say "their" as in a third-party courier that they were entrusting with their deliveries). What made it more amusing was that it was a courier that my brother in law worked for as a director. He was horrified when I told him. I notice that Amazon haven't been using that company recently.

On 13:29 31 Oct 2018, Andy Burns wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

I don't mean to disparage Brit workers (at least not this time) but my Hermes drivers are very mumsy fitting in the driving between their domestic commitments or some youth doing his best but struggling.

DPD is good unless you get one of their sub-divisions. DPD seems to have taken over some smaller couriers and not fully integrated them into their mainstream. I sometimes get a DPD package sent from Germany which always get s passed onto one of these smaller DPD operations which don't let me track the item properly and who seem less slick.

UPS and FedEx can be good but I think they're quite pricey compared to DPD.

Royal Mail are generally good, but a few years ago I heard the letterbox, saw that I had been carded, and managed to catch the departing delivery driver, who wasn't the usual guy. He claimed that he had knocked, which I hadn't heard, but he certainly didn't use the easily audible doorbell. He told me that the parcel was behind the recycling bin, and that this was OK because it was marked "no signature required".

He then claimed that in any case it was fine for him to simply drop the parcel, and he had no need to knock.

I asked him specifically to confirm that his training was that there was no need for him first to attempt delivery, and he was quite clear that this was his understanding.

I complained to Royal Mail, and they apologised, and said that steps would be taken...

Chris

Pamela wrote

Never quite worked out the difference between "red DPD" and "blue DPD", I see the blue vans around, but only seem to get deliveries from the red ones.

We were carded when my wife was sitting at the computer. She heard the letterbox, but didn't immediately get up , open the door and walk the 6 feet to the front door.

I happened to come home shortly after and she told me that there had been no knock and no attempt to use the doorbell.

Shortly after, the postwoman came back, doing the other side of the road and I went out to speak to her. She told me that parcels are delivered by van and that the usual driver was off. The replacement couldn't be bothered, so simply filled out cards AT THE DEPOT and put them in the pigeonholes for the normal postmen and women to deliver with the letters!

More recently I bought an item on Ebay and the seller agreed to pay extra for next-day delivery and for me to reimburse him for that. It did not arrive the next day (Friday) or on the Saturday or Monday. On the Tuesday a card was pushed through, which my wife found later. Being in a rush for the item, I came home from work and went to the counter at the depot, despite it being too early for the parcel to have got back there. They were very cooperative, phoned the driver and he agreed to come back and re-deliver it in 10 minutes time. Only after delivery and when he'd already driven off, did I find why they were so helpful ... the parcel HAD been posted on the Thursday, for delivery on Friday, but they'd failed totally!

SteveW

Good idea.

The blue ones are the former Interlink Express business which DPD took over awhile back, Now trading as DPD local , their target market are smaller business and more local operations but I don?t know where the actual demarcation is.

GH

On 18:04 31 Oct 2018, Marland wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

What I don't understand is why DPD Local are the ones who always end up delivering my packages sent from Germany. I would have expected mainstream DHL to handle them. Oh well.

On 18:00 31 Oct 2018, Chris French wrote in news:L6mCD.142702$ snipped-for-privacy@fx33.am:

I was being a bit vague there because it's the vendors on eBay whose unrelaibility causes problems rather than their courier - plus eBay's policy to wait a few weeks to be sure that goods are lost in the mail.

I want my widgets within a few days but with a hopeless (or tricky) eBay vendor it can literally take weeks to sort out a problem.

In message , Pamela writes

I've used UPS a lot over the past year to send parcels. They have been cheaper than DPD and reliable. One recipient used some feature of their internet access to divert delivery to a different address, which seemed to me to be a useful feature.

Some of the cheaper carriers will leave undelivered stuff at the local collection point - which may be more convenient than a PO sorting office and open at more convenient hours too.

Scan Computers use them for their courier service and though I might have ordered from Scan on average once a year over the past 5 or 6 years, I've always been pleased at the tracking service provided by DPD.

I've read the rest of this thread (33 posts in all so far) and it's reassuring that there's been no mention of Parcel2GO since I'm waiting on a delivery of a Siglent DSO from Labtronix who are shipping the 'scope via this courier whom I'd never heard of till yesterday (strictly the day before seeing as it's now "Tomorrow" - it's just turned 1am Thursday 11th November, the promised 'should be no later than' delivery date by P2G).

Does anyone have experience of Parcel2GO's delivery service? I'm wondering about the reliability of their tracking service. I'd placed my order with Labtronix Tuesday afternoon about 4pm, got a couple of emails at 16:16 followed by a replacement login information email 3 minutes later as a result of a confusing account login procedure after completing the transaction. I then got an email from Parcel2GO at 17:04 giving me the good news that my parcel will soon be despatched with a "track your parcel" link followed by a final email from Labtronics 2 minutes later to inform me that my order status was "Completed" with a link to their user account login page that I could use to view my order details.

On Parcel2GO's tracking page, there are a total of five stages of progress none of which had completed until around midday Wednesday when the "Collected" box had been ticked. Nothing else happened until about

The delivery date of your parcel should be no later than

A message that remains unchanged right up to this minute.

It was the "should be no later than" part of the above which triggered my sense of optimism in thinking this was leaving the door wide open for a possible delivery before the end of the day.

I guess the psychology used in phrasing such soothing reassurances had worked its magic on yet another victim of their PR division's Mind Games dept. Such mind games are more usually reserved for those vacuous promises made in product labelling and TV advertising... Oh, wait, I get it now! The tracking page *is* "product labelling! Silly me! Yeah, they got me good an' proper this time. :-)

If I hadn't fallen, hook line and sinker, for that implied "It might even arrive earlier than the 'should be no later than' date if you're lucky." I'd have carried on thinking of the "should be no later than" date as simply being an overly optimistic promise they'd be very lucky not to land up breaking.

Mind you, like many before me, I've had the odd order delivered the very next morning (10am in fact which is AFAIAC, "Silly O'Clock in the morning") so there was some small justification for my misplaced optimism. :-)

Anyhow, back to that tracking page. There are another three "Progress Tick Boxes" to go before the final "Delivered" box gets ticked. The other two are labelled "At Delivery Depot" and "Out for Delivery".

I've just noticed that the empty Delivery History log below has suddenly become populated (in reverse order - latest at top). The last entry for

- DSOs don't come cheap, not even the 'cheap' ones).

Anyone know whether they send you an ETA email when it gets to the "Out for Delivery" stage in their tracking system like DPD do? I realise the answer may have (hopefully) become academic by the time I get to read any replies but I thought I'd ask just the same. It'll give me something to ponder on should I be last on the delivery driver's list.

They're an aggregator ...

ups, dx, hermes, yodel, dpd, city sprint, palletforce, inpost, parcel force

In message , Johnny B Good writes

AIUI, Parcel2Go is just an agent for a wide range of couriers, including dpd, Hermes, UPS etc. I think their tracking info box often has an area at the top where you can click to see the more detailed tracking of the real courier.

I'm about to send a bunch of negs and slides off for digitisation (no I don't have time).

Was considering DPD but will check UPS - ta.

DPD, when you get onto sending a parcel have a bizarre list of prohibited items - basically anything made of glass, marble (!), "art" (I phoned them to check if photos counted as "art" - apparently not), "Delicate Items", "Driving Licence" (why?), ...

It's almost like they don't want to carry anything breakable or of legal value. That doesn't inspire confidence...

Not just them. UPS have started doing it.

On Monday I returned from giving a talk to find an unexpected delivery attempt from UPS. Strange, I thought, as I'm not expecting anything. In true UPS style, the card was sticking out of the letterbox. Nothing on it at all apart from the barely legible 'KENWINS' (name of a newsagent at the other end of town, that I happen to know of). I wouldn't have minded, but son slept through (or ignored) the doorbell (logs show it was when he was in). Too late to go that day.

Couldn't go early Tuesday because Royal Mail were delivering something. Son still asleep. No good waking him because he isn't reliable. Went to newsagents, no ID asked for. Just as well as it was for son!

So, no real security all the way through.