OT: The shipper, not the courier

We avoid buying from firms that use Evri, and it’s my view that we’re not alone in that.

Last November I got between Boxing Day and around the end of March (Amazon, goods from USA). Fortunately, it came in the last day or two of December.

I've had no real trouble with Evri, but it does have a habit of sending be an email about 11:00 telling me delivery will be between 12:30 and

As is obvious from numerous postings here, it depends very much on your local Evri employees. Here they are excellent, but Yodal......

Since they generally just throw the parcel at the front door, take a picture and drive away occasionally ringing the doorbell, it scarcely matters if I am home or not.

Still it beats throwing it into the front garden and NOT taking a photo.

Also avoid any company that uses royal mail.

That is not how they operate here. Maybe you need to move to a better part of the country. Here, if you are not in, they put the parcel around the back of the house and push a note through the letter box. It used to be Eddie, then he retired to the depot. I think the new guy is called Ian.

Even Royal Mail is ok here, our postie is called Steve, and he dabbles in digital photography image manipulation. He has exhibited locally.

There are other couriers, UPS uses a giant truck whose exhaust noise wakes you up from a doze, and it has trouble getting round the tight lanes of our villages. Even the bin lorry navigates the area more efficiently and safely, and it's a lot bigger than the UPS truck.

Yodal are bloody useless.

I agree.

Our local Evri people are excellent but the ‘horror’ stories you see in the media seem to relate to the final, local, leg.

Equally, we’ve had good (and bad) service from the ‘Big ‘ Companies.

Here Royal mail are excellent. Local postmen know every single house

Here, a different postman every time. Possibly only two deliveries a week as the post will arrive in batches with some items up to 10 days in the system. Tracking emails are a work of fiction as packages will turn up 2 to 3 days after an email saying delivery today. Ex postmen have revealed that the local depot is very short of staff and new recruits last 3 to 4 weeks before quitting.

It's the same where friends live 200 miles from my address. Staffing is only 60% of that required. Many of the existing staff are close to retirement and new staff don't stay long. Timely RM deliveries cannot be guaranteed.

Local deliveries are usually no problem. But a friend in Torquay recently told me that several people, including me, had reported that they had not received her Christmas cards. She suspects some warehouse in the area may still have an undelivered backlog, or a pile of ash. A couple of years ago, I sent a US Tax form to the IRS in Texas. Because the major couriers, FedEx, DHL, etc etc require a named individual for international letters, and the IRS has no intention of naming anybody, I could not use any of them. When queried on this, they just shrug their shoulders and move on. FedEx and I have a toxic relationship anyway, they seem to be the opposite of consumer-friendly. One local individual, again, uses his noggin to help out when FedEx exhibits its corporate stupidity. In this Tax Form case, the obvious choice was to use the Post Office, or whatever it's called this year, and the US Post Office, with Recorded Delivery. It took 53 days to get from East Anglia to Texas. It took time outs in Manchester and Chicago en route. I hope it enjoyed its extended stays. Last year and this, I just used Proof of Posting.

From personal experience, any company can be really good or terrible - and it can vary from day to day. If a driver is given too many parcels to deliver in the time available, they will find creative ways to manage the situation. If the roads are extra busy or parking even harder to find than usual, there will be problems - especially if you happen to be at the end of the delivery run.

In message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net>, Spike snipped-for-privacy@mail.com writes

Our local Evri driver really is excellent, and very well liked.

He has been having van problems so no deliveries for a couple of days.

Long story short, a neighbour set up a just giving thing for his van yesterday, target 2.5k. Total today 3.5k.

Or as someone near me had - and I don't recall which company - taking a photo, then picking up the parcel and walking away.

All on CCTV as it happened!

Andy

We had an excellent young lady delivering until a few weeks ago, always knocked, or we found it where we had designated. Since when, she has been replaced with a poor English speaking immigrant, who simply dumps on the doorstep, if we are lucky, and runs.

I do wonder, with the shocking driving of some of them, if they actually have insurance, on the vehicles, and insurance covering such use?

Couldn't you let him use the toilet?

The workload on drivers probably forces them into this way of operating[1].

The decent ones probably get fired for not making their quota of deliveries.

Is that because they are . A. From a non UK background with language difficulties. B. An English person working in Scotland,Wales or NI and you live in one of those places.

That they are poor is a given if they are working for EVRI.

GH