Do not use Hermes Parcel service, they are USELESS

vet8

This is the saga of my parcels.

I live in an unadopted road, it is NOT narrow and bumpy, it is wide, level and because a lot of the residents drive posey cars they are always looking after it, filling in even tiny pot holes and levelling it with a roller, so it is actually better than a lot of the tarmac roads around here.

I have never had any trouble getting stuff delivered until recently. This year I have had three parcels delivered by Hermes parcel service, all of which took 10 days to reach me and the last one came in a van. The driver told me that the problem was that the couriers for Hermes would not drive on unadopted roads so they had to bring the parcels in a van. It sounded daft to me.

Anyway, 4 weeks ago I ordered some waterproofs from Cotton Traders, which I especially wanted for a walking holiday I was going on three weeks later and I ordered some plants from Parkers. Weeks passed and neither parcel turned up. The Cotton Traders' parcel's tracking showed that the parcel had been sent out to a courier 3 times and rejected immediately each time for “Access problems”. When I phoned C.T. they spoke to Hermes and told me that, yes, the couriers would not drive on unadopted roads because of their car insurance!!. They would now transfer the parcel to UPS who would bring it and my address would be on a list of roads where they would have to transfer the parcels to UPS in future. Great.... No.

Still neither parcel turned up. Parkers assured me the plants would arrive on Monday the 12th, no sign of them, No waterproofs either, so I had to go on holiday without them and get wet.

Now I have started chasing these up again as it has been 4 weeks and no parcels. C.T. have now sent a second parcel over a week ago as they assumed the first one was lost and according to Hermes that one is also lost! Parkers say they cannot understand why the parcel keeps being sent from one depot to another and they managed to speak to the courier himself. He said he would not deliver to my address and he could not understand why Hermes just keep sending him the parcel and he sends it back again.

There are so many problems here I hardly know where to start.

1. What is the point of a delivery company which will not deliver to certain addresses?
2. How many times did they plan to send my parcels out to the courier for them to be returned to the depot to be sent out again? Have they no system which flags that they have a parcel for weeks which has not yet been delivered?
3. They now seems to have misplaced all three parcels.
4. At no time in all this saga have they made any attempt to contact me or the selling companies to say they will not deliver.
5. The worst thing is that this shower of sh*t deliver for loads of firms and virtually anything I buy on line is likely to be delivered by them. Ha Ha - rather not delivered by them

I just want to warn e-bay sellers DO NOT USE HERMES. If you do you are likely to get a lot of negative feedback as buyers have to wait weeks for their goods if they arrive at all. I certainly will not buy anything from an e-bay seller who uses this useless lot.

Osarkon

Surely it would be less hassle for him just to deliver it?

Seems completely daft.

vet8

I would be happy to meet him at the end of the road to save him having to risk his car, but I am not sure if this is HIS personal objection or Hermes' official policy.

lindseykim13

To be honest you may just have an awkward courier for your area-each of the couriers is self employed and the get a few pence per parcel that they deliver. Unfortunatly you always will get a few workers who don't do a good job but that happens everywhere.
I have been running an ebay business for a few years now and use hermes, with only a handfull of problems mostly down to an individual courier taking holiday or being ill. However they have improved in the last year and fingers crossed not had any major issues.
Parcels always track and make it within the 5 days- think you have just been unlucky in the courier for your area.

I would also point out that you can't really choose a seller or item from ebay that uses hermes as the listing won't tell you in detail which company they use. It will just say (courier 3-5 days) so won't specify which one.
I would put in a complaint in writing so they can speak to the courier involved.

vending-expert

I dont like Hermes either its a very amateurish company, i received a box delivered by them a few weeks ago from Thorntons all smashed up

Then the latest from them was an order from M&M direct waited a week for delivery then after checking the tracking the status said....Not Delivered - Damaged Parcel

I phoned M&M asking for a refund as i didn't want to wait any longer and they resent the order using Interlink Direct, i have since told them unless my future orders are sent using interlink i wont be ordering from them again

mgdavid

sounds like an issue caused by living in an unadopted / unmade-up road, which will only be a tiny tiny number compared to the millions of houses in UK. There are other disadvantages of living in unadopted roads, most of which are either missed or ignored when house buying.
You could always revert to buying in shops, or if online has become a way of life then can you have stuff delivered to work?

vet8

Thank you for your replies.

I cannot accept that this is a consequence of living in an unadopted road, we have lived here for 25 years and I always order stuff on line as there are no shops around here and I have never had any trouble before. I do not know if this is just the local courier or Hermes, but I do know that Hermes seem to have no idea what they are doing.

The latest news is that C.T have spoken to them and they have said my address will be put on the database of addresses where the parcel needs to go in a van. This is exactly the same thing they said exactly 2 weeks ago today. The 2 C.T. parcels which they said were lost yesterday seem to have miraculously appeared.

They have now told Parkers that even UPS will not deliver to our road! UPS brought the last Parkers' parcel. I get the distinct impression that Hermes just make up the answers as they go.

And yes, I keep being asked if I can have stuff delivered somewhere else. To be honest it would be really inconvenient at work as the parcel might arrive in the middle of surgery when the waiting room is packed. Also I cannot see why I should have to. A delivery company should deliver to every address in the country like Royal Mail and not just pick and chose those which they fancy.

RED_LYON_LADY

I am experiencing real problems with Hermes, I ordered from Amazon on 16th November and was given a delivery date of approx 22nd November. We are still waiting!!! When the parcel was delivered to their courier on 20th November she was unavailable to receive them so they were reurned to the Gatwick depot. They were finally delivered to courier 26th November and she didn't attempt to deliver until Wednesday 28th. We live in a block of flats with entryphones and they never attempted to deliver, just left a card in the entry doorway without any contact details

Amazon has been extremely helpfull but why do big companies like Amazon continue to use firms like Hermes?

vet8

An update on this post.


It is now 36 days since the first parcel was sent and nearly 4 weeks since I first complained and not only do I not have the parcels, but I appear to be no nearer to ever receiving them.


Hermes seem to have no idea what they are doing. They have made endless excuses and seem to say anything to get complainants off their phone, I now have four parcels from different companies lost in the Hermes system at the same time, so they cannot say that it is just an aberration involving one parcel. The reasons for the parcels' disappearance seem to change every few days and basically they have no real idea where they are. Their latest fairy story is that the original Hermes courier for my area has left and no one knows what he has done with the parcels. So that sounds a good screw, get a job with Hermes, get a load of parcels to deliver then resign and get to keep all the parcels for yourself.


This firm seems to be a total con, they take the money from firms and make no attempt to deliver. One of the firms is now going to send a third parcel to me, will that ever arrive. I doubt it.


I agree with Red Lyon Lady why do firms use this USELESS lot?

The_ICT_Engineer

I agree they are a bunch of useless, incompetent layabouts, I ordered a set of winter snow boots off ebay on the evening of the 19th Nov, The seller dropped off the package at a ParcelShop before 10am next day, it was another two days before Hermes collected, This pick-up was the last thing recorded on the tracking. It's now the 29th, yet still no sign.


Date Time Status
23/11/2012 15:20 Collected from ParcelShop
20/11/2012 11:19 Order Generated
20/11/2012 09:54 Customer Sent via ParcelShop

Lynsey

I used them 2 weeks ago, dropped off at a shop (saves waiting in) on a Monday and it was delivered on the Wednesday morning very early.
So they can and do get it right at times.
Cheap prices at the moment and there is a discount code you can use every time you register as a new customer with a different email address. The discount code more than covered the Paypal fees and offset some of the ebay fees.

I rate the last time I used them at 10/10 for convenience, speed of delivery and price - past performance doesn't mean it will happen again though.

Lynsey