MSE News: Shoppers vent fury at Yodel as Christmas deliveries arrive late

SarahFirmin

This xmas, Yodel delivered a case of wine while I was out.
They left it IN my wheelie bin, which was left out to be collected.

Didn't leave a card or anything. I luckily went to pop extra rubbish in and found my parcel - Nearly a good day for the bin men!

suelees1

I suppose it serves us all right for not using our local shops

.....and this is what'll happen if they get rid of Royal Mail and everything is privatised

Johnmcl7

SarahFirmin wrote: »

This xmas, Yodel delivered a case of wine while I was out.
They left it IN my wheelie bin, which was left out to be collected.

Didn't leave a card or anything. I luckily went to pop extra rubbish in and found my parcel - Nearly a good day for the bin men!

I can't remember which courier did this to a friend as well, they put the package in the blue wheelie bin although they put a note through the door. The person had picked up the note but not read it as they planned to go the next day to pick it up, later on that evening thankfully they checked the note and retrieved the package from the bin which was by then sitting by the roadside ready to be collected the next morning.

I appreciate some of the companies may be using inexperienced temporary drivers but it doesn't need any experience or knowledge to know that putting an item in a bin that is still in active use or a doorstep is not a good idea.

John

ianovich

Awful company

I actually now refuse to buy any large items that will be delivered by Yodel.

2 examples ordering via Very (using Yodel)

1. ordered a large American fridge freezer. They arrived an hour early than promised so I was at work. They pressured my 14 year old son to help them carry it round the back - and removed and damaged my garden gate. When I arrived home my neighbour rushed out and told me not to accept the fridge freezer (too late they actually made my 14 year old sign !!) as they had witnessed one of the two delivery men literally throw it off the back of the lorry without waiting for his partners assistance.

2. Ordered some items for a birthday. I saw a young girl (12?) leave her mothers car with the packages - throw them onto the doorstep with a card and run back to the car. The card said no one was home and they had left the package in a secure shed in the back garden!

So I now refuse to deal with what is a joke of a delivery company.

Bilka_Skincare

Goodness! What a terrible company Yodel are! I sympathise with everyone here. I was in a similar situation last October, very serious one as I was the seller and Yodel let down my customer, which made me have the worst experience with a delivery ever! Customer ordered several items, as a thank you gesture I thought I would send them express delivery to him, to make him feel valued. In about 10 days after sending them, the customer is getting in touch with me, saying that he has not received them. I was fast on the tracking system, and what do I see - the item was damaged in transit and a decision was made to destroy it!!! £79 worth of products, destroyed! Filing a complaint was extremely unpleasant with a very unsympathetic person telling me that was normal practise if an item was damaged to be destroyed. And why was it damaged at first place? I handed it in good condition! Now reading the above posts I am getting the picture why the item was damaged. Then after about a month a received a letter from the manager defending their decision to destroy the items, not offering to reinburse me for the damaged goods, but saying that they must have been not packaged well if they were damaged. He also said that there was no clause in the terms and conditions which required Yodel staff to inform the seller if an item is damaged and to give them the choice to receive the items back as they are damaged. I was very angry.

flexrider

Nocturnes wrote: »

In the end I closed my (very long standing) account with Amazon as they could only offer Yodel delivery on a number of occasions when I begged them not to (story in a previous posting). Amazon did not seem at all bothered to lose a customer and I am relieved not to have Yodel Stress every time I ordered something. Win Win.

interesting post anyway tbh we had a few run-in. Problematical issues with yodel like poster above but have not closef down Amazon account quite yet


One I recall is no one turning up in a van once in a car like a ford ect, , grey haired gentleman in his 50's I say and dropped off at sons address items on behalf of yodel that we never ordered, lucklessly for us we managed to return the item after the blunder to delivery guy. But makes you think how many poor people missed out on blunders for there goods going astray.

Just hoping now my new media player dont get delivered by them :mad: off amazon

sourcrates

I used to work for citylink, i was there for 15 years and was a delivery/collection driver, the problems lie with the people who these companies employ, and the top bosses, weather it be yodal, citylink, hermes, whatever, they have a very high turnover of staff as each driver is expected to deliver and collect however many parcels etc have been allocated to his/her run for that particular day.
Obviously christmas is a much busier period than normal, i worked in a rural area and was expected to deliver up to 120 parcels a day plus up to 20 collections, and these could be anywere within a 40 mile radius, now we all know what traffic is like on our roads today, the slightest holdup causes delays, the sheer pace you have to go at puts off a lot of people, hence they only stay a few weeks then move on, and so on, it is very fast paced and stressful work and you are always under pressure to get everything off your van, and sometimes that is just not physically possible. They do employ extra staff but it never seems to be enough, it was common practice for office controllers to electronically "card" any address the driver didnt have time to attempt, this was to cover the driver, and the controller, but of course led to many complaints typically, " i was in all the time and no attempt was made to deliver my parcel, but your website sayes i was carded ? " managers are well aware of these problems but there hands are tied by the bosses higher up who control the purse strings, its not just yodal or citylink, most uk courier firms operate on a similar basis, after all if a driver cant physically finnish his round in the time he has allocated, he cant, simple as that, overtime was not authorised and there were many occasions were i dropped parcels off with customers on my way home.
So please dont always blame the driver, most of us did, and do, try our best.

Lottebear

The person deliverling the parcels is lovely, I think she works for a few companies as we saw her about 5 times over Dec, however Yodel was the only parcel delivered with damaged packaging they must throw all of the parcels about to end up in that state.

Who ever delivers Boots parcels in shocking, I have had 2 delivered by damaged contense, leaking all over the other items, not good when they are boxed gifts again I have complained to Boots and they do nothing.

tropicaltopaz

sourcrates wrote: »

I used to work for citylink, i was there for 15 years and was a delivery/collection driver, the problems lie with the people who these companies employ, and the top bosses, weather it be yodal, citylink, hermes, whatever, they have a very high turnover of staff as each driver is expected to deliver and collect however many parcels etc have been allocated to his/her run for that particular day.
Obviously christmas is a much busier period than normal, i worked in a rural area and was expected to deliver up to 120 parcels a day plus up to 20 collections, and these could be anywere within a 40 mile radius, now we all know what traffic is like on our roads today, the slightest holdup causes delays, the sheer pace you have to go at puts off a lot of people, hence they only stay a few weeks then move on, and so on, it is very fast paced and stressful work and you are always under pressure to get everything off your van, and sometimes that is just not physically possible. They do employ extra staff but it never seems to be enough, it was common practice for office controllers to electronically "card" any address the driver didnt have time to attempt, this was to cover the driver, and the controller, but of course led to many complaints typically, " i was in all the time and no attempt was made to deliver my parcel, but your website sayes i was carded ? " managers are well aware of these problems but there hands are tied by the bosses higher up who control the purse strings, its not just yodal or citylink, most uk courier firms operate on a similar basis, after all if a driver cant physically finnish his round in the time he has allocated, he cant, simple as that, overtime was not authorised and there were many occasions were i dropped parcels off with customers on my way home.
So please dont always blame the driver, most of us did, and do, try our best.

sourcrates hit the nail squarely on the head! The bosses in their cosy offices are absolutely clueless about what life is like on the shop floor. More of them should go undercover like on the tv show. They expect the workers to work harder and harder with too little staff while they count their bonuses but at the cost to the customer. I've seen it get so much worse in retail as the bosses squeeze harder and harder.

beckyblondon

Yodel provided we with a week of hell and then long term persistent pain for weeks.

The story starts with me ordering a birthday present on 20th October. It was an expensive item (iPad) but I wasn't concerned as I use Yodel quite a lot and there usually ok. But then I'm not usually ordering things which are high value. It was due for Delivery to my work on Monday 22nd, which is usually seamless as Yodel deliver daily to my office and post room guys are brilliant.

My confidence was misplaced Monday came and went, the website listed it as being delivered on Tuesday. I didn't worry, I had ordered 7 days in advance and Very provide next day delivery. So called this time to find out what was going on. It was at this point I was told I would have to wait between 14-22 days before they could chase Yodel! Excuse me! £700 iPad ordered on next day delivery and they won't look for it for 2 weeks min. It was for a 30th birthday gift.

I was ill but also in desperate need of the gift so I ordered a second on the 24th for delivery the next day. Thursday came and went and I started getting worried. I started with Very (25+ mins later) and got through to someone who suggested I speak with Yodel. Yodel kept me on hold for 45 minutes and told me they knew nothing and only Yodel could really help.

Called Very again this time and got through to a girl who seems vaguely competent, well an absolutely genius compared the average person/robot at Very/Yodel. She offered to start a trace on the first order and get it delivered on Friday given it's high value, and said she could see the second order was also due for delivery on the Friday. I relaxed having to spoken to someone seemingly interested in the shambles that Very and Yodel had caused.

I was busy planning my birthday for the Saturday so also ordered a dress for the evening from Very and they stock some of my favourite style.s This was also due for delivery on the Friday. It got to late Friday afternoon and it was clear that none of the packages were going to turn up. I explained my issues to a person at Very and then Yodel and then Very. I explained my desperation that it was now 5 days late for a 30th birthday present on the Saturday (not mine just a coincidence). It was at this point they offered I could collect the items from the depot. This I was not keen on given it was on the other side of London, in the middle of nowhere and it was my birthday but I decided to be positive and go collect them as long as they were at the depot. Very confirmed and then suggested I also let Yodel know that I would be coming to the depot myself just in case. I called them, they confirmed all items were in the depot ready for my collection by early afternoon on Sat.

I rearranged my Birthday plans for the day and turned up at the depot a few hours before it closed with all my details and proof of identity, after a 90 minutes journey in the cold weather. When I got there there was a general lack of speed to resolve but the guys behind the desk seemed friendly enough, if rather snail like in pace. They looked up my items on the computer and told me they could see that the dress had actually been delivered to my work address an hour earlier, the first iPad was in the high value locked area with the other iPad unclear. I explained this was unacceptable as the dress was for that evening but that one iPad was sufficient as the other was always a backup, but I desperately need one of the iPad's.

Time went by, there was a lot of umming and arring and some worried looking faces and then they said they couldn't find the item in the locked area either, at this point I had been there for over 45 minutes. Explained they needed to look again. I was unsurprisingly very stressed at this point. I had rearranged my birthday, travelled across London at their behest and was now missing 2 iPad's.

When they said clearly both iPad's had gone missing and were likely stolen by Yodel staff. I explained that I wanted to see the most senior person on site. The "manager" came out. He seemed used to this and was understanding and explained they had likely been stolen, there would need to be an investigation and he would contact me to explain on the Monday. I said they needed to agree with Very the items had been stolen and credit my account for both orders as there was no hope at this point to receive the items. He said he'd do that immediately and Very would see this "Credit" immediately.

I then preceded to cross London again to pickup the dress for the evening but as I had been at the depot for almost 2 hours I was completely out of time and had to get a cab to my office to ensure I wasn't going to be 45 minutes late for friends. £25 later I called Very to check in on the credit, unsurprisingly only one had been credited. I explained this was totally unacceptable and asked for a management callback.

At 8am on Sunday morning! I got a call which was someone from Very telling me there was nothing to worry about and they were both credited. I asked them to be sure both missing iPads had been credited and they assured me they were.

On Monday I looked at my account to see only one had been credited and so called Very AGAIN! This time they went back to their previous line of needing more than 14 days to investigate. At this point it was so late I just gave in and confirmed once it was resolved it wold just be fully credited. On this basis I left it. Unsurprisingly the depot manager never called.

Skip forward 2 1/2 weeks and I check again, to see that it still hadn't been credited. I call Very again. This time resigned and simply bored of the whole situation. After a few brisk words they explained it was all very complicated. I explained it had been missing for over 3 weeks and I would accept no further excuses. Yodel had admitted there staff must have stolen it and I had been told by Very it had been credited. Finally after 15 minutes of "checking" they credited the second order.

I was told the best I could have in recompense was my 2 next day delivery charges back so less than £10!


So in summary:

I accumulated in excess of 30 calls, I missed a few off my story for brevity

10 work hours where chasing, which I had to then make up, 15 hours of other chasing in my own time, 4 1/2 hours of travelling to the depot and back to my office. So at least 29 hours lost of my time.

Costs of travel: £25 taxi and £5 of TFL costs
Inconvenience: I couldn't even begin to quantify the stress and inconvenience this caused.

In total I had 5 management callbacks that never materialised: 3 from Very and 2 from Yodel.

It took me till now to write this because I found the whole experience so overwhelming and knew it would take hours to even document this ridiculous experience.

I will be writing to Very and Yodel in the next few days. But wanted to share my story to provide some well earned coverage for Very and Yodel. Will be sending my complaints as high as possible obviously.

Rebecca Brook