"Next day" courier services

profscooter

I booked a parcel on UKMail's Next Day service at the weekend, for collection on Monday, confirmed by the receipt, and what I assumed would be delivery on Tuesday. Monday came and went and the parcel was not collected. I phoned them and apparently the courier ran out of time on Monday so it was booked on for collection on Tuesday.

My question is, am I being unreasonable to expect that next day means next day? The terms do say "parcel delivery generally next working day throughout most of UK's mainland" and "this is not a guaranteed service", but if this is the case why don't they call their service something else like Zippy or Pronto, but not "next day"? Of course because of their small print, I am not entitled to a refund or compensation. Seems wrong to me that you can call a service "next day" and it not be guaranteed.

visidigi

its next day from point of collection - the issue here is that you didn't get to the point of collection - due to the courier, this is a failure to collect and you could reasonably ask for a discount ont he rearranged day of collection. I beleive this would be mostly down to goodwill though.

profscooter

Yes this is what I've discovered. They say "they are unable to compensate as our terms of use state that collections are non guaranteed". They won't give me any compensation, voucher code, etc. for the hassle involved. I've now actually rebooked it via UPS and cancelled the UKMail order so at least I get my money back. It seems outrageous that a courier company can set itself up in business, take people's money for "next day" orders, not turn up to collect the parcel for over two working days, and claim that this sort of behaviour is within their terms and conditions. I can see that this might occasionally happen in snowy conditions but not in midsummer!