Parcelforce

sarahlouise210

I had the same problem before Christmas - attempted delivery...address not found ..address not found in fact my address was "not found" on 11 occasions!!! I live on the MAIN road into town - impossible to miss (mmmmmm difficult to stop on !!!) I complained (in the strongest terms!!) and hey presto - the found my house the next morning!!!! They are completely useless...lazy...if its easier not to deliver then they dont. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Forris

I have been a driver and a manager at PFWW and now work for them as a self-employed contractor.

I agree that some of the drivers are lazy, stupid, and ignorant. The majority, however, are conscientious and professional. Obviously, the driver that had Poochel's parcel was of the former variety, or he was a new, or agency, driver that had been given to many parcels to deliver by the manager. I would expect most drivers to be doing collections at that time of the day and it is quite likely that the driver decided to scan the parcel as 'Not at home' in order to save the Quality of Service (bad phrase I know!) so that any undelivered parcels did not show up as fails. This practice is, officially, forbidden but it happens fairly regularly. And, yes, drivers have been known to 'forge' a signature on a parcel, although this is getting much rarer and is a sackable offence!

To take Sarahlouise210's point, I would be more inclined to think that the parcel had not even left the depot but had been scanned, again to save QofS. The fact that it was done 11 times suggests that the failed parcels (which do happen, especially at busy times) were not being managed properly - ie. parcels that fail on one day should be prioritised the next day. You can normally get away with failing a parcel once, but twice or more is just asking for trouble.

I understand that this is a forum for rants (I've posted one myself!) but I do get a little annoyed when I here complaints regarding PF or Royal Mail. It does seem that both get more than their fair share of criticism, yet very little is heard about the bad points of the other carriers who, believe me, are the same if not worse. PFWW has an national average success rate of 97.2% of parcels delivered on time. The problems usually occur when the customer service issues resulting from the remaining 2.8% are not handled correctly.

Finally, I would like to say that the drivers rarely have an easy life. Its not all sitting in laybys, drinking coffee! A poorly addressed parcel, people not displaying their house name or number, or just plain awkward delivery points - these can take up to 15-20 minutes to deliver, and thats just one parcel (in the weeks before Xmas I was deliverying upto 270 a day!). A few of these in a day can really make things difficult.

If either of the correspondents would care to post their tracking numbers then I would be happy to see if I could shed any more light on the problems.

greyteam1959

Have to say that all these comments about PF are probably well justified.As a business we stopped using PF years ago cos parcels just disappeared or were broken / stolen and all the rest.
Most businesses use PF cos VAT is not charged on the cost.Parcel couriers have to charge VAT on their shipments.
To give your shipments the best chance of getting there use Royal Mails online postcode & address finder the they have no excuses
Cheers

Forris

everythingblogcast wrote:

Forris you say that 'forge' a signature on a parcel, although this is getting much rarer and is a sackable offence!

Who do I contact to get this driver sacked.

You would need to contact your local depot, and a disciplinary procedure would be carried out, unless it was an agency driver, in which case Pf would not use that driver anymore.

However, I feel that you are complaining just for the sake of it. You said that the driver gave you your parcel but signed for it themselves, so the parcel was not left unattended, did not get stolen, and you have your goods. I have used this 'trick' myself in the past as when you have 200+ deliveries it can save an awful lot of time. Perhaps you should find something worthwhile to complain about over than ' I got my parcel but I didn't have to sign for it!'

mpython

Forris

EverywhichmoanIcan has already been advised on another thread about his complaint and it appears to have gone no where, the police aren't interested, postwatch aren't going to do anything, PF have apologised.

In my recent experience, there doen't seem to be much to choose beteen the couriers. PF, Citylink, Home Delivery Network have all failed to find my property, andboth PF & citylink have put cards through my door for goods that aren't mine. Both handed me goods in their depots without checking the name & address on the packets matched my ID (good job I'mhonest!) but neither would compensate me for my wasted time visiting their depots for their mistakes (sorry - now I'm guilty of imitating everywhichever and hijacking OPs vent).

justpaper

update: senders got the parcel cuzs they send parcel thru a agent the agent has to put in the claim but the agent is taking the !!!! now,. and the parcel has 2 items missing,. so im guessing parelfarce employee (maybe a temp) got hold of the box - opened it took what he/she wanted then just wacked the box anywhere which happened to be the out fowards posting = express return,.. ok u might think im paranoid but i really think thats a high chance of what happened,..

anyways the sender has been charged 80£ for express return service,.

Tetsuko

smcaul wrote:

You silly little boy/girl, how many times do you have to be told that the driver did not actually forge your signature, he just signed to say you had received your parcel.
.

No. The person who receives the mail signs for the parcel. The postman, on signing, would be acknowledging that he himself had received the parcel. The person who received the parcel could in theory then deny ever receiving the parcel and accuse the postman of stealing it. The postman should be in no position to deny this as he had signed it.

However those stupid handheld electronic devices now make it practically impossible to sign on anyway which is why people probably think they can get away with abusing the system.

poochel

Have just come back to work after the weekend to find that my vent against Parcelforce (parcel still not turned up by the way, living in hope it will arrive today after having blasted the people at the depot - when i eventually got through that is) has turned into a really nasty, spiteful and abusive slanging-match between 2 mse's. er, call me naive, but I thought that one of the forum rules was to be nice to each other? If you have a problem with each other please take it someone else. Thank you.

poochel

oh and I was also told by this lovely and helpful man at the depot that the driver on that particular route is an owner-driver and so if they don't deliver, they don't get paid. Therefore I must be lying when I said that there is someone here all the time as the drivers have an incentive to deliver. Charming.

I'm losing all patience with this joke of a company. I was told on Friday that it would be delivered today. Then I call up today only to be told that 'maybe the person who told you that doesn't work on Saturdays and so didn't put your parcel out for the delivery run today' and it will be here tomorrow. What a totally pathetic excuse. I'm not holding my breath that it'll even be here tomorrow. I called the depot itself and asked to speak with a manager or supervisor - I was told at 2pm that the manager should have been in at 12 but wasn't and they didn't know where he was, and that the supervisor doesn't start until 3pm. Ridiculous.

If it doesn't get delivered by tomorrow morning then I am going to send a stiffly worded letter to Amazon saying that I will not be buying anything more from them unless they can guarantee it won't be delivered by Parcelforce.

mpython

Poochal - PM & I can let you have PF's MD office number.