Any idea how to squeeze a refund out of parcelforce?

vyle

This is a bit of a vent and a bit of a warning.

I recently needed to send two parcels using parcelforce, so thought I would be clever and use their website.

Although it's not very well laid out, I managed to successfully book one parcel and print off the postage label.

I then tried to do a second, and all went fine until it came to printing my postage label. I clicked the link and my web browser crashed.

That isn't parcel force's fault, but that's where my problems began. I received no email confirmation of my payment, and when I called PF's customer services (both my local depot, as well as the number on the website) they told me there was no record of ANY deliveries coming from my address.

Doubly worrying is that nobody on the phone seemed to understand that I hadn't ordered a collection, but had selected to print the labels and drop off my consignment at the post office (something the site promotes and offers a discount for).

They assured me that the second attempt hadn't gone through and I would not be charged, so I should just re-book the delivery.

Naturally, I have been charged.

Without a tracking number, I cannot seem to claim back. The "claims" website (https://claims.parcelforce.com/) is useless as it cannot process a claim without a tracking number.

The parcelforce customer services faq says to ring their customer services number. The call centre tells me that my local depot can see all my consignments using my postcode, but when I speak to them, they say I have to fill in a claim on the website, because they can't do such a thing, and the claims team can check using my bank details.

Surely their system should be able to see that I have ordered to deliveries to the same person. One has been posted and delivered, the other has not (seeing as the post office checks in every delivery) and refund that one?

So praise: The barcode labels are massive, and this amuses me.
Vent: !!!!! website, !!!!! processes. No option to reprint a delivery label.
Warning: Use paypal if youre going to book a parcelforce order, because you CAN reprint labels if it goes wrong.

Any idea what I can do next? £11.40 is a lot of money to me.

missminx

Maybe try using the tracking number for the replacement label and explain that you had already paid for it once and failed to print? Offer to provide proof from Bank Statement? Not sure, sorry I too would feel aggrieved.

vyle

It might be worth a go. The only hiccup may be that the tracking number is attached to a parcel that has been delivered and it may confuse the call centre staff even more.

I may give them a ring tomorrow and hope the guy I spoke to isn't working, because both times I spoke to him (he's the guy who told me that I wouldn't be charged) he sounded annoyed, and came off quite aggressive and I'm not a confrontational person at the best of times, so wouldn't want to speak to him again.

If I have no joy tomorrow, I'll resort to Sir Marcus tactics and see what happens.

vyle

Well, I got my refund. The call centres remained useless, so I winged off an email to their big cheese. Yesterday one of his assistants called me, apologised, noted my points and promised to notify the managers of the department involed to retrain their staff (I dunno if that WILL happen, but one can hope).

He explained that due to the glitch in the system, it didn't issue any delivery details, but they managed to find my transactions in a matter of seconds with my card details, and issued a refund for the erroneous charge.

So, all in all, it worked out in the end.