What an idiotic thing to do!

seven-day-weekend

We were working away from home, arranged to have a parcel delivered to that address, were both in all the time, the delivery person delivered it next door, who then denied they had ever received it

It was a laptop - luckily the company provided us with another (which we had to pay for initially, but then they refunded the money after further investigation).

prowla

I specify not to use CityLink when I make purchases.

gregg1

prowla wrote: »

I specify not to use CityLink when I make purchases.

I do that with Yodel. It would now appear I need to add Citylink to the fast growing list of unreliable delivery companies who are quite happy to take the cash but can't be bothered to do their job properly.

grayme-m

MargotGibbs wrote: »

Hey Greg-- I'm running a story about this for a national broadsheet tomorrow. Any way you could tell me more?

Or any of you frustrated customers: a chance to vent to the world. PM me your wrathful stories.

All the best,

Margot

Margot = Susie?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ios-investigation-the-great-online-delivery-scandal-8439855.html

Cybermed

I worked for a courier company for a few weeks in the run up to Christmas and I couldn't believe some of the things that went on.

Many of the drivers left the items in the bin (without knocking the door first), boxes were thrown about when clearly marked as fragile and some got 'lost in the delivery network'.

That being said, I think that customers need to take some responsibility for some of the things that go wrong. Why would you order something for delivery at home when you know that you are out at work all day? If you know you're going to be out, call the courier and let them know when you'll be back, or arrange an alternative delivery location (do this the day before so it can be put on the van for that area).

I lost count of the number of times I would go to a property at 0700 (this is the earliest time we were allowed to knock a door) and I knew that the customer was in, but they refused to answer the door. Also, if you're not in and the parcel has to be taken back - would you be happy to pay for redelivery? It costs money to carry that parcel all the way back to the depot then back out to your house again. The alternative is that the driver will try a neighbour or look for a safe location to leave the parcel. Sometimes, the customer would provide a safe location of a garden shed or greenhouse, but the gate to the garden would be locked, or there would be a big child-eating dog running about. My minimum wage job wasn't worth getting my arm chewed off, no matter who's Christmas present it was...

I am in no way saying that any of these apply to the OP or any subsequent posters, but I think that it's unfair to always blame the courier. Drivers are often targeted on their bringback rate and can ultimately lead to dismissal if they bring back too many items.

gregg1

Cybermed wrote: »

I worked for a courier company for a few weeks in the run up to Christmas and I couldn't believe some of the things that went on.

Many of the drivers left the items in the bin (without knocking the door first), boxes were thrown about when clearly marked as fragile and some got 'lost in the delivery network'.

That being said, I think that customers need to take some responsibility for some of the things that go wrong. Why would you order something for delivery at home when you know that you are out at work all day? If you know you're going to be out, call the courier and let them know when you'll be back, or arrange an alternative delivery location (do this the day before so it can be put on the van for that area).

I lost count of the number of times I would go to a property at 0700 (this is the earliest time we were allowed to knock a door) and I knew that the customer was in, but they refused to answer the door. Also, if you're not in and the parcel has to be taken back - would you be happy to pay for redelivery? It costs money to carry that parcel all the way back to the depot then back out to your house again. The alternative is that the driver will try a neighbour or look for a safe location to leave the parcel. Sometimes, the customer would provide a safe location of a garden shed or greenhouse, but the gate to the garden would be locked, or there would be a big child-eating dog running about. My minimum wage job wasn't worth getting my arm chewed off, no matter who's Christmas present it was...

I am in no way saying that any of these apply to the OP or any subsequent posters, but I think that it's unfair to always blame the courier. Drivers are often targeted on their bringback rate and can ultimately lead to dismissal if they bring back too many items.

Whilst I sort of understand where you are coming from, it does not excuse the fact that, in my case, the driver had three options, ring the doorbell ( he didn't), leave in porch (he didn't), leave with choice of two neighbours (he didn't). What he did do was dump the parcel by porch in torrential rain, ruining the contents.

I agree it's probably not the easiest of jobs (but it's not the hardest either) but whoever dumped my parcel was nothing short of a moron.

ca55ie

To risk causing controversy we had a delivery yesterday from Citylink. Driver rang doorbell and successfully delivered parcel - so perhaps it is down to the individuals making the deliveries rather the policies of the delivery companies!!!!:)

This_Year

Cybermed wrote: »

I lost count of the number of times I would go to a property at 0700 (this is the earliest time we were allowed to knock a door) and I knew that the customer was in, but they refused to answer the door.

At 7am if it's a working day I'm in the shower and if it's my day off I'm asleep or at least tucked up in my kip, so a bang on the door means I have to leap out of bed, find the dressing gown, struggle with the sleeves - and they always want to fight! get downstairs as quick as possible and open the door to see the delivery guy hotfooting it back to his vehicle at a rate of knots :rotfl:

As no-one else in this house deems door-answering to be part of their responsibilities

prowla

Cybermed wrote: »

That being said, I think that customers need to take some responsibility for some of the things that go wrong. Why would you order something for delivery at home when you know that you are out at work all day? If you know you're going to be out, call the courier and let them know when you'll be back, or arrange an alternative delivery location (do this the day before so it can be put on the van for that area).

But the courier companies can be inflexible on this - I once had a missed delivery and the note said they would try again at the same time the next day, so I called and told them that I would not be in at that time, but they told me that they would try and deliver then regardless and so it would count against me as a missed delivery anyway.

Cybermed wrote: »

... It costs money to carry that parcel all the way back to the depot then back out to your house again...

But of course you wouldn't typically do a single trip from a depot to a particular house; the van would be doing a route and so the cost would be spread across all of the packages, and also would be factored into the consignment pricing plan.

Owain_Moneysaver

This_Year wrote: »

At 7am if it's a working day I'm in the shower and if it's my day off I'm asleep or at least tucked up in my kip, so a bang on the door means I have to leap out of bed, find the dressing gown, struggle with the sleeves - and they always want to fight! get downstairs as quick as possible and open the door to see the delivery guy hotfooting it back to his vehicle at a rate of knots :rotfl:

That's what door entry intercoms are for.