Eaton concluded that my UPS was indeed faulty, and arranged to send me a new one. But neither Eaton nor UPS gave me even a hint as to which day it would arrive, it was purely luck that I was home when it dd. Not receiving any pre-warning meant that I had no opportunity to designate a Safe Place. Oh well, it's here, and it will go on charge for the required 24 hours forthwith.
Covered in the news recently..
Designating a *safe place* for an unattended delivery may impact your chances of getting a free replacement from the supplier:-(
>
I've had delivery firms telling me what my 'Safe Place' is (and claiming to have put a parcel there), despite that place _not_ having been named by me and not actually existing.
I fell foul of the Argos system recently. Many years ago I invested in some remote controlled mains sockets because the way that the furniture is arranged I have a couple of sockets which can be reached with difficulty and it is so much easier to switch them on and off using a remote control, and I had noticed that the operational distance between the remote and the controlled socket wasn't a far as it used to be.
I had built up a number of Nectar points from my weekly Sainsbury's shops, and there was an Argos tucked away at the back of my usual Sainsbury's, so I decided to order a replacement battery (a MN21) from Argos. With a click and collect order placed online I could collect on my next visit to Sainsbury's. The website allowed several ways of paying, and insisted on payment to place the order, but paying with Nectar points was not among them. I abandoned my on-line order.
On my next visit to Sainsbury's I went along to Argos and used a Customer Entry terminal. It said the item wasn't in the shop, but if I ordered it that day it would be ready to collect the following day. So I went through the order process, and there was again no way to pay using Nectar points. I joined the short collect queue instead and explained that what I wanted was to order the battery and pay with Nectar points, and I knew it wasn't in stock and I would come back to collect it on another day. The assistant asked for my Nectar card, keyed in my order and told me it was in stock. He rummaged in a drawer beneath the counter and picked out the battery, and handed me my Nectar Card, a receipt showing the Nectar points that had been used, and the battery. Job done! But what a chaotic way of doing it.
I looked at Argos the other day for an item. It said that I could click and collect, or order for delivery, at Checkout. It asked for my Postcode, and replied that it was not available at my nearest branch, Bury St. Edmunds. Nor at Thetford, nor Stowmarket, at which point I backtracked and tried delivery, which I thought would be trouble-free. No such luck, not available at any the same branches. Why not ship it from some central warehouse? Much as I hate to use Amazon, they may get my order. As you say, what a shower.
Well they used to be good, and I've had no problems with my very occasional orders. But I think I saw in the news that Sainsbury was trying to sell off their Argos division, perhaps so they could reclaim the area devoted to them in so many of their shops. So maybe nobody is trying very hard at Argos any more.
Currently round here the courier who delivers Evri and Next parcels works with a partner one driving the other making the deliveries to the door. So far they have been excellent regards timing and are amongst the few to realise the big black box next to the door marked parcels is guess what for parcels.
Back in the Hermes days it was terrible and on one occasion when we got a mistaken delivery it took over two weeks for them to collect it during which time I sent numerous emails pointing out they had a customer waiting for his/her delivery instead they seemed more concerned who was at fault for delivering to the wrong address on the other side of town than doing something about it.
Richard
On 18/12/2025 10:28, Indy Jess John wrote: ...
Online works only when it works.
In the case of banking, mostly it doesn't. OK for routine stuff like paying bills and setting up repeat payments or direct debits, but anything else you really need to find the nearest bank that still actually has a high street presence. And talk to a human.
Did you try Newmarket? :-)
Likewise, My Evri driver is first class, and round my way he knows what neighbours will accept it an pass it on if he doesn't get a reply at the address he tried to deliver to.
The real dead loss is Yodel. My street is an Edwardian terrace both sides. One side is odd numbers (1, 3, 5 etc) and the other is evens (2,
4, 6 etc) Between each pair of houses is a passageway through the terrace with a gate right and left giving access to the two gardens. To deter burglars getting to the back of the houses, each pair have put a door with a lock at the street end of each passage, so that along the street there is 1 which has a footpath before it and a gateway into the garden, then 3, then the shared doorway to their gardens, then 5 as a pair, then 7, then the shared doorway to their gardens, then 9 as a pair, and so on. I live on the evens side which is similarly configured. The Yodel driver only seems to look on the Odds side, and assumes that the doorway to the gardens between number 3 and 5 is number 4, and so on down the street. When I get a notification that a parcel I am expecting as a Yodel delivery has been delivered, it is almost always on the other side of the road at the garden door between the number below and the number above my address number.Royal Mail hasn't been 100% reliable either. I have a relative who lives 120 miles away from me, who hasn't got a computer and doesn't want one. If she wants anything to be ordered for delivery, she phones me, I find a supplier and I order it for delivery to her address, and she reimburses me when it arrives. She wanted a particular model of microwave. When I looked for suppliers, there were not many for that particular model because it had been superseded, and I opted for the one that also sold by ebay as well as their shop because ebay is very good at keeping tracking information updated. I ordered it, it was duly packed and sent Tracked 48. When there was no sign of it 3 days later and the tracking still showed In Transit I reported non-delivery to the seller and they investigated and then told me that Royal Mail couldn't explain what had happened and if it still hadn't turned up after another day, to let them know and they would send a replacement. It didn't arrive, so they sent a replacement and that did arrive OK. 5 weeks later my relative answered the door to a delivery and it was the first microwave finally delivered, and the postman refused to take it back. I got in touch with the seller and explained that if I used the ebay returns system, I would end up with the return label to print at my address and the goods to put the label on was 120 miles away. Full marks to the seller, because they arranged for a courier to collect from my relative, and the courier would bring an address label for the parcel. That all worked perfectly. However neither I nor the seller ever found out where it had been for the 5 weeks it had been delayed.
I don't remember it offering Newmarket, but I had already given up, they clearly didn't need my custom.
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