The way around that one is to have your own account with Fedex or DHL and ask the sender to use that. This prevents the sender from marking up the price. Under those circumstances, the costs dropped considerably to the point where there is little difference.
When the total cost is considered, for example if you are not at home when delivery is attempted, it is a great deal easier to arrange redelivery or collection with a courier firm. I've had situations of having to stand around outside the post office in a queue while the public sector minded jobsworth inside deigns to organise his paperwork. That amounts to considerably more than the £10 or so difference on equivalent service between a courier firm and the post office.
Only if the package is above a certain size / value do Parcelfarce seem to get their hands it, compact stuff or lower value items in my experience always get routed via the same post office (Mount Pleasant in London even though I'm 200 miles away)
When items go via Parcelfarce I've had stuff returned overseas to the sender when was never any attempt to deliver and no card left. I even enquired at their huge depot when collecting another parcel and they couldn't trace it. When it finally made its way back to the sender there were stickers all over claiming delivery attempted / card left etc. All complete lies.
If there's duty or VAT payable they no longer even attempt to deliver. It sits in the depot and they write to you. If the letter goes missing...
At least you can track it on the internet if the sender gives you the tracking number. Unfortunately, thats the wrong number to get through the automated telephone payment system, you need the one printed on the letter that got lost in the post...
The sender doesn't mark up the shipping costs at all, I can check them for myself on the Canada Post website.
Parcel force don't attempt delivery of my parcels since they have a VAT charge to pay. Once that's payed I can ensure someone is here to receive the parcel or have it sent to the local post office.
I'd pay Parcel Force an extra =A310 if they could guarantee a decent service, and return to the old system of paying the VAT and/or duty to the driver. A courier would cost =A335 extra for the same parcel, according to the FedEx website, which I am not prepared to pay.
That depends on the sender and some most certainly do.
That's why the whole thing is so useless.
I have accounts with both DHL and Fedex. This is very simple to set up, for anybody and does not require any significant volume of business. For example, I probably use DHL once every three months.
When I order something from the U.S., for example, I have the tracking number and the shipment can be tracked +/- an hour or so from door to door. Normally customs clearance is immediate and the item is out for delivery the same day. Most deliveries happen before lunchtime.
Import VAT and duty, if there is any, are invoiced afterwards so there is no delay messing about with that. Payments are made using BACS via on line banking - I very seldom write cheques.
What a ridiculous performance. Delay with correspondence going back and forth, going to post offices, waiting in queues, being abused by post office staff and then hanging around at their pleasure while they deign to deliver it. Then they wonder why their business isn't successful. It's very obvious. Living in the dark ages and imagining that they can still behave like a monopoly with all of the lousy customer service ethic that goes with it.
This is complete nonsense. They are incapable of delivering a decent service.
That depends on which service you buy. Also, like hotels, they publish a rack rate. Better rates are available for account holders.
Consider also the cost of the time taken in handling the faffing around sending correspondence back and forth, chasing things, making visits to the post office. That can easily add up to over an hour on a shipment and is worth considerably more than £35 (even if it were £35).
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