OT: Couriers again

Its called Christmas.

I ordered a new mattress, seven days ago from Argos, delivery it suggested the 5th, and I had an appointment on the 5th, so rang Argos and they agreed to make it the 6th - today. I've been keeping an eye on the tracking, all week, and the tracking suggests, it has not even been collected from the factory. I've waited in all day based on what was agreed, chances of delivery today, I think nil. Monday, I will ring and tell them to cancel the order, and refund me.

I thought they came vacuumed down into a cornflakes packet these days?

RM again. Received yesterday, posted 10 days ago using their "48" delivery service.

Indeed. And there is an Update:

Having been assured by the bot that delivery had been re-scheduled for Monday, I went to do my weekly shop. I returned home at about 12:50, well before the previously expected delivery time of 2 pm to 4 pm. I then found an e-mail message, telling me that the driver had attempted to deliver the package at 12:30, and had found nobody home to receive it. Well, there's a surprise! Both too early and on the wrong day. I then returned to the website, confirmed that the delivery is still scheduled for Monday, and then sent them a complaining message. It'll probably turn up tomorrow.

I've just rung Argos, to complain, and cancel the order, as they seem unable to progress it, and having checked, they claim the mattress has already been collected from the factory, so it cannot be cancelled. Yet, the tracking accessible to me, still shows it has not yet collected from the factory.

I found to my cost that Argos stock control and tracking software is not good :( Plus, Argos do not take responsibility for everything in their on-line catalogue - they wash their hands of items sold by Sainsbury although this "third party" is not identified when ordering, and the payment goes to Argos Ltd.

Wrong, it didn't. It had been 'delayed' for some unexplained reason. But my message to Waitrose achieved a sympathetic response, which didn't really help, I tried to contact them by 'phone, but between my placing the call and anybody replying, the DHL page suddenly updated, saying the wine was it its depot, I don't know why it would ever have left since last Saturday, but at least it's progress, of a sort. Waiting.....

Had this often. ( I do a huge amount of online s*it)

What often happens with me is that I am out of the way and not on normal routes and sometimes they run out of time and take it back to the depot. The better courier drivers will phone to to check you are in for bigger items..

On to the van, do the round, run out of time, back to depot, off the van.

The more experienced local couriers here are very good. If they use local people who know the area. Needless to say there are some dodgy hires by all and every company - Evri 'lost' a vacuum cleaner (driver stole it) and 'resolved the problem at depot level' (fired the courier?)...but current Evri courier is an ex postwoman who has been delivering here for over 20 years. Rock solid

You simply never know.

Indeed. Hermes/Evri has always been the most reliable here. Also the Post Office, as long as Steve is on duty. But even he can get neighbours' mail mixed up. My wine is now due between 16:48 and 18:48, giving me time to pop out to post some Christmas cards after lunch. as long as I don't get held up.

When something has been stolen in transit the tracking will continue to update you to the place where it was last scanned. The tracking software will than automatically tell you that delivery has been delayed and it will be delivered tomorrow - and repeat the same message for a week or more. A few years ago I had this with a £600 item where I had paid extra for next day delivery before midday. Even phoning the carriers help line I got the same information from them. To their credit when I informed the seller I got the item the next day - but a second item to replace the first and sent via a different carrier.

The last posting day to guarantee Royal Mail delivery before Christmas was the beginning of last month. :)

Well at least you got it delivered! Long time Evri aka Hermes sufferer here. Their parcels seem to get lost between their depot and the delivery driver often causing delays in excess of a week :(

Maybe adding tracker hardware to the vans is being rolled out over a period of time.

"which in our case we have not got"

more to it than that, it went straight from "arrived at xxxxxxx delivery office" to "handed to resident" with no intervening "out for delivery"

With Royal Mail no information is available until after the item has been delivered.

Not clear on what the split is between royal mail and parcel force, my deliveries are by the latter using tracked24

That exactly what most 24 RM tracked deliveries are. It's been posted, it's been delivered.

I recently had an M&S return, and they offered collection using Evri.

On the nominated day, even though we had been around, they claimed no response. Similarly for day 2.

I contacted them, though their system really isn't set up to allow you to deal with a collection.

They responded:

"Firstly I'm sorry we haven't delivered on time for you. I can see the reason for the delay is that the parcel missed the connection to the courier. We are aiming to get your parcel back on track and delivered today. I'll check first thing tomorrow that your parcel has been delivered. If it hasn't, I'll be in touch before 10am."

I responded:

"As it is a collection I am chasing, I don't understand what you are saying about a missed connection.

So far, despite there be "Thank you for bearing with me whilst I had the depot conduct a search over the last 2 days. Unfortunately they have not been able to locate your parcel and as it has been 5 days I must advise you that it is potentially lost in our network."

By now a week had passed, and I popped into my local M&S whilst I was shopping. Evri were not demonstrating competence.

Chris