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City Link driver probably stole my flowers
Danno81
Posts: 17 Forumite
Vent and Warning:
I have to come to the conclusion that the City Link driver that was delivering mother’s day flowers to my house on Saturday stole them for himself. I wish this was not true, however I cannot think of any other reasonable alternative based on what happened.
I ordered 2 sets of flowers from Waitrose online to arrive on Saturday, one for my partner on behalf of our baby son and one for my own mum to give to her when we met for mother’s day lunch. I ordered for the Saturday because my partners parents were visiting and I knew we’d be in to receive them. In the unlikely event that we had to go out when it was delivered I put “Please leave with a neighbour if we’re not in” in the delivery instructions. All should have been fine.
Our living room is next to our front door and we live in a close so there’s no through road. My parents in law had arrived and we were all in the living room drinking a morning tea or coffee after their journey. We see a City Link van drive past the window, stop for a moment, turn around and drive off. The driver did not even get out of the van at any point as he literally drove down and left. All four of us saw this happen outside our bay windows and I noted the time and I went outside the house to see if he’d parked up further away from our house looking for us. He had not. It’s also not hard to find our house as they’re sequentially numbered in my close (as they usually are) and each house has a large number on it that is hard to miss. 20 minutes later the tracking information updated to say the parcels were delivered at the exact time the van had arrived. It was self-signed by the driver in their shorthand for “Left safe by the front door”. This was a lie. The driver had not even exited his his van as we all witnessed and the parcel was not left by our front door (we were all in anyway so an attempted delivery would have been successful).
I called Waitrose, who were themselves exceptional in their customer service, and they chased the courier who contacted their driver. The driver said he did leave them at the front door, but will return to “check that he definitely got the correct house”. No driver ever turned up despite Waitrose chasing them 2 more times. Waitrose refunded the money for the flowers at 7pm on the Saturday as there was no chance these would be turning up.
I wish I could put this down to delivery driver incompetence, however I can’t think of any other scenario other than a criminal one. The box would have been clearly labelled as flowers, it was the day before mother’s day and the driver had most definitely lied about what he did with the parcel. His mum probably had some lovely flowers the next day whilst mine had the leftover dregs of flowers from our local supermarket I managed to pick up on Mother’s Day morning!
Waitrose were very good in handling the problem and I can’t fault them about their approach. I would, however, question their choice of courier as I have so far had 3 experiences with City Link (this one and 2 more with my work premises) all 3 were disasters as a result of City Link themselves. I can find only very little amounts of positive information about them on online reviews.
What other possibility is there other than theft from the driver? Nothing else seems likely based on what we witnessed actually happen.
I have to come to the conclusion that the City Link driver that was delivering mother’s day flowers to my house on Saturday stole them for himself. I wish this was not true, however I cannot think of any other reasonable alternative based on what happened.
I ordered 2 sets of flowers from Waitrose online to arrive on Saturday, one for my partner on behalf of our baby son and one for my own mum to give to her when we met for mother’s day lunch. I ordered for the Saturday because my partners parents were visiting and I knew we’d be in to receive them. In the unlikely event that we had to go out when it was delivered I put “Please leave with a neighbour if we’re not in” in the delivery instructions. All should have been fine.
Our living room is next to our front door and we live in a close so there’s no through road. My parents in law had arrived and we were all in the living room drinking a morning tea or coffee after their journey. We see a City Link van drive past the window, stop for a moment, turn around and drive off. The driver did not even get out of the van at any point as he literally drove down and left. All four of us saw this happen outside our bay windows and I noted the time and I went outside the house to see if he’d parked up further away from our house looking for us. He had not. It’s also not hard to find our house as they’re sequentially numbered in my close (as they usually are) and each house has a large number on it that is hard to miss. 20 minutes later the tracking information updated to say the parcels were delivered at the exact time the van had arrived. It was self-signed by the driver in their shorthand for “Left safe by the front door”. This was a lie. The driver had not even exited his his van as we all witnessed and the parcel was not left by our front door (we were all in anyway so an attempted delivery would have been successful).
I called Waitrose, who were themselves exceptional in their customer service, and they chased the courier who contacted their driver. The driver said he did leave them at the front door, but will return to “check that he definitely got the correct house”. No driver ever turned up despite Waitrose chasing them 2 more times. Waitrose refunded the money for the flowers at 7pm on the Saturday as there was no chance these would be turning up.
I wish I could put this down to delivery driver incompetence, however I can’t think of any other scenario other than a criminal one. The box would have been clearly labelled as flowers, it was the day before mother’s day and the driver had most definitely lied about what he did with the parcel. His mum probably had some lovely flowers the next day whilst mine had the leftover dregs of flowers from our local supermarket I managed to pick up on Mother’s Day morning!
Waitrose were very good in handling the problem and I can’t fault them about their approach. I would, however, question their choice of courier as I have so far had 3 experiences with City Link (this one and 2 more with my work premises) all 3 were disasters as a result of City Link themselves. I can find only very little amounts of positive information about them on online reviews.
What other possibility is there other than theft from the driver? Nothing else seems likely based on what we witnessed actually happen.
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Comments
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One further thing to add. The Waitrose customer service rep said he can download a photo of where it was left (I assume this is something the driver is supposed to do when they leave it somewhere). There was no photo loaded onto the system.0
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Waitrose have refunded you. I'm not sure what more you want.Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman0
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This is in the Vent and Warnings section. I'm venting, and warning. But thank you for the valuable comment.0
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notanewuser wrote: »Waitrose have refunded you. I'm not sure what more you want.
He posts a warning/vent on a warning/vent forum.
I'm not sure what your point is?
Do you understand what the words 'warning' and 'vent' mean?
There are two types of people in the world: Those that can extrapolate information.0 -
He posts a warning/vent on a warning/vent forum.
I'm not sure what your point is?
Do you understand what the words 'warning' and 'vent' mean?
Firstly, I didn't see which forum it was in.
Secondly, the OP didn't use the words "vent" or "warning" in their post.
Thirdly, consumers rarely have the choice of couriers used by the companies they buy from. Waitrose probably use more than one.
Fourthly, one potentially untrustworthy driver in one can working for one company doesn't indicate that every driver working for citylink will be a thief.
So the OP's post wasn't really a warning, just a vent. I don't doubt this experience was annoying, but nobody died and he's not out of pocket.Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman0 -
notanewuser wrote: »the OP didn't use the words "vent" or "warning" in their post.
Fixed. Added "Vent and Warning" to avoid future confusion.0 -
notanewuser wrote: »Secondly, the OP didn't use the words "vent" or "warning" in their post.
No, he probably assumed that anyone seeing a post in the 'Praise, Vent and Warning' post would be able to work that out for themselves.
However, I do understand that there are ways of seeing posts - search, recent posts, etc - which do not make the containing forum obvious.There are two types of people in the world: Those that can extrapolate information.0 -
notanewuser wrote: »Firstly, I didn't see which forum it was in.
Secondly, the OP didn't use the words "vent" or "warning" in their post.
Cop out. Were you inwardly bursting because the OP hadn't uttered the immortal words "Will somebody please think of the children"?
Thanks for the vent and the warning."If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." -- Red Adair0 -
notanewuser wrote: »I don't doubt this experience was annoying, but nobody died and he's not out of pocket.
Ahhh, a light version of the "Appeal to worse problems" fallacy.
I'm getting off my own topic now. Theft is not a small issue, even if I'm not out of pocket. Someone is out of pocket somewhere whether that's the partners of Waitrose, their insurance company (everyone's premiums), etc.0 -
It's not as if flowers grow out the the ground.Ahhh, a light version of the "Appeal to worse problems" fallacy.
I'm getting off my own topic now. Theft is not a small issue, even if I'm not out of pocket. Someone is out of pocket somewhere whether that's the partners of Waitrose, their insurance company (everyone's premiums), etc.0
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