OT: More Courier Hell

I had a FedEx delivery due last Friday. It never turned up. Went onto the website and found a new message telling me that I needed to pay charges; first I'd heard of it, although they were valid.

Redelivery yesterday. I heard nothing until there was an email saying it had been delivered (it's a keyboard, so not that small). I opened tyhe door and it fell onto the mat. The front door is a metre from the pavement with no gate, so ripe for pilfering.

I checked the doorbell log; never used. My son works in a room immediately above the front door; nothing.

CCTV shows the driver striding up to the door and leaning the package against the door. He vaguely pushed his hand in the direction of the door, stepped back, took his photograph and left.

I had a delivery due by Evri from 1900 - 2100. My instruction was to put the package by the top of the steps at the front patio (this area is not visible from the road). At 2030 I decided to track the delivery online and found the package had been delivered 50 minutes previously! There was a photo of a package (not mine), at a front door (also not mine). I went out and found the package halfway down the drive in full view of the road. No bell or knocker had been used as the delivery driver obviously didn't bother to get as far as the front door.

Around here, EVRI is the best courier. FedeX is the worst. I recently had a Fedex package delivered to the wrong house, in the wrong road, in the wrong village, in the wrong Postcode. Not bad. I had the replacement diverted to the local FedEx agent, the Polish Grocer, I collected it the next day. Worked great. The package due last Friday was scheduled to be delivered when I knew I would not be home, so I had it sent to the agent instead. Except FedEx don't allow collection from all agents unless Diverted from an active Delivery. That's not what it says on the website. Chaos ensued. It arrived here this morning, delivery having been attempted last week at some slum house, according to the photo. The address they had made no sense at all.

And then there's the US Postal Service who have my US Tax Return stuck and won't move it on. It's in the right city, but since April 10 it's been scheduled to be delivered 'on the next working day'. 'Help' is the greatest misnomer ever.

You see why I call it Hell.

This type of hassle raises everyone's blood pressure, so at least some venting here can help.

Nonetheless, I found myself wondering about that 200 year delivery timeslot.

That explains a lot - the recorded time of delivery was 1941. The driver probably couldn't see where to put the package as it was during the blackout...

I'm expecting a delivery tomorrow (later today, since it's gone midnight) so I may be venting in a few hours.

I wish you luck. Don't forget to timeshift from 1941 to the present day, though.

This morning, Evri told me my package would be delivered between 9:05 and 11:05. It arrived at about 9:45. The driver used the door knocker, so I knew he was there. All is good, as usual with our local Evri. Now for Royal Mail, later today.

In message <10sv5bq$hndv$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, at 09:54:18 on Thu, 30 Apr

This morning DHL told me I was going to get a delivery between 09:05 and

Yesterday I got a delivery from them about 4pm, which their tracking site says was delivered at 11am.

So they really do have a TARDIS.

Move to East Anglia, we have the best Evri service of all!

DHL and DPD are equally unimpressive here. FedEX is the worst of the lot. Royal Mail is pretty good.

Sadly QOS is entirely dependent on the local courier-person and the brand means nothing...

In my corner of East Anglia, we seem to have the perfect combination of courier person and whatever happens behind the scenes. And that goes for the previous courier person as well. FedEx seem to have the worst of both worlds.

Sounds like we are geographically close. RM and most courier-persons are excellent, and bad courier-persons get fired

Weird how it varies. Around here you can set your clocks by the accuracy of DPD deliveries. My courier of choice!

Tim

In message snipped-for-privacy@perry.uk, at 10:46:49 on Thu, 30 Apr 2026, Roland Perry snipped-for-privacy@perry.co.uk> remarked:

Got another DHL delivery today, this time without confusing timestamps.

It didn't arrive in a posh liveried DHL van, but an un-sign-written wreck of a white van, although the driver was wearing a DHL hi-vis.

On the outgoing side, as I have had a few ebay parcels to send, I was pleased that there is now a Royal Mail parcel locker in the village.

However, my first experience caused me to write the following:

"The screen message invited me to enter my email address. The main screen layout only offers alphanumeric characters. It is necessary to switch to the symbol screen for "@" or ".".

This meant that for my 18 character email address, I had to use an additional 6 keystrokes to switch to and from the symbol screen.

Since all email addresses use those two symbols, many software keyboards will make them available at the same time as the alphanumeric characters, and I would strongly recommend that you make the same provision.

It occurred to me later that, since scanning the barcode on the parcel I was sending enabled the system to recognise it, it should be possible to populate the email address field as a default with the one that was used to buy the postage. This would make matters even simpler."

They have asked a few questions, but are yet to actually address my issue.

Chris

It used to be like at my last house. They'd clearly set a conservative one-hour window and turn up on the dot of the start of the window. Must have been waiting around the corner for it to be so predictable.

Where I am now, it's as random as all the other couriers.

I recall a visit to Bombardier's Swedish offices, where I used one of the computers. It was quite some time before I found out that for @ I needed <Alt Gr> <2>.

I don't think I had ever previously found a use for <Alt Gr>.

Chris