Hermes alleged delivery attempt

Rock-on

I had problems with Hermes and no way of contacting the driver. Received an email telling me that my parcel had been successfully delivered and signed for by me. No it hadn't. No sign of any delivery driver or anyone else for that matter. Then after I contacted the retailer, the driver said it had been delivered to the 'lady at reception'. We live on a caravan park and we've never had a lady receptions just a manager (male) in the office. So the driver changed the story to 'the manager signed for it.' No he didn't he wasn't in at the time of the supposed delivery.
Apparently I eventually found out the parcel had been dumped outside reception and wasn't spotted for some time so who exactly signed for the parcel? Nobody from here that's for sure. If I order anything else from an internet store I'll make sure it isn't sent via Hermes. Somebody was telling porkies and it wasn't me

Retired_at_55

Thank you for all these helpful replies. It makes sense now as I felt sure Hermes had not been at my flat on Thursday - communication seems to be a big part of the problem. My delivery arrived in person yesterday - right into my hand at my front door. Tracking afterwards says that it was delivered through letterbox.

I won' t want to have Hermes delivery by choice in the future although I' m very pleased to have had a successful delivery at the second ' attempt.'

Thank you all again.
Retired at 55

elegant_elephant

Any parcels we get delivered to us by Hermes are dumped on the doorstep. I think the driver is a stealth Ninja because I have never seen or heard him or his vehicle, even when I have been in the house with the door wide open (rural area so fairly quiet as well)

Good job nothing has gone missing yet!

Hermia

dacouch wrote: »

My friend works for Hermes, the reason for the above is thus...

They need to scan the parcels that are manifested to them each day to ensure they stay tracked on their system. Once they've been tracked they either have to deliver them or carry them over to the next day.

Their system does not allow them to simply put something to the effect ran out of time or van broke down etc. The tracking system will just show it as a failed delivery.

Thanks. That is interesting. You think they could come up with some sort of generic message explaining there is an issue at their end. Otherwise you have all these confused buyers trying to chase up their parcel.

What I don't understand is why so many of my lost parcels are marked as "delivered to reception". My house has no reception. There are no buildings near my house that have a reception. I assume this is Hermes-speak for thrown in a bin!

Feral_Moon

I wouldn't take much notice of what the tracking says as the HHT sets they use are so antiquated they often send out erroneous information. Also, if you live in a very remote area and are the only person having a delivery on that day then the driver may well carry forward your parcel until the next day when he could have another in the same area so he's not traveling several miles out of his way for a 45p payment.

And finally, if you live in the Kent (Maidstone) or Liverpool (Aintree and Bootle) areas then you can possibly expect delays in receiving any orders as Hermes have suddenly decided a week ago to get rid of a number of couriers (without any notice I might add) and employ a contract courier company instead.

Now this company mostly employ EEU drivers but by all accounts they all quit within the first 48 hours when they realised delivering parcels isn't as easy as they thought. So now the depots have huge backlogs of parcels with no one to deliver them.

Feral_Moon

Hermia wrote: »

Thanks. That is interesting. You think they could come up with some sort of generic message explaining there is an issue at their end. Otherwise you have all these confused buyers trying to chase up their parcel.

What I don't understand is why so many of my lost parcels are marked as "delivered to reception". My house has no reception. There are no buildings near my house that have a reception. I assume this is Hermes-speak for thrown in a bin!

Choosing "deliver to reception" is an easy option for drivers to select on HHT when they've handed the parcel to resident but not collected a signature as none has been requested or paid for. If it was put in a bin or other safe place then they would most likely choose "left in outhouse".

And any query made to Hermes (or even the company you received your order from) about a parcel delivery is marked against the courier no matter what the query is. And 20 queries will get the driver dismissed. Even if the query is nothing to do with delivery, i.e you've received a wrong item, or want to exchange something, this goes against the driver too and Hermes make up bullshyte lies to cover their back.

Feral_Moon

Hermia wrote: »

I have had this happen multiple times. A failed delivery doesn't actually seem to mean they tried to deliver. Last week I had failed delivery notifications on three days even though I was in. When the company I ordered from chased Hermes they said the delivery vehicle was off the road so they hadn't been delivering to my area all week. It seems there is no way to put a note on the system about a problem at their end so they mark it as failed delivery.

I'm guessing you live in the Kent area? If so, see my explanation above.

Feral_Moon

The Guarduan have recently exposed the terrible way in which Hermes treat their couriers and there's to be an enquiry and parliamentary action over it. So before you go slating your Hermes courier you might want to have a little sympathy for them considering the terrible conditions they work under.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/18/hermes-couriers-paying-staff-less-than-living-wage

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/hermes-delivering-raw-deal-workers-self-employed

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/19/hermes-couriers-low-pay-national-living-wage-self-employed

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jul/18/life-as-a-hermes-driver-they-offload-all-the-risk-on-to-the-courier

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/18/how-hermes-couriers-shoulder-insecurity-of-internet-shopping-boom

kwikbreaks

If I know a company or eBay seller uses Hermes I shop elsewhere. Too many failures by them in my deliveries for me to take the risk again.

Feral_Moon

kwikbreaks wrote: »

If I know a company or eBay seller uses Hermes I shop elsewhere. Too many failures by them in my deliveries for me to take the risk again.

Well, good luck with that as they currently deliver for over 200 companies. And often, you wouldn't know who was going to deliver your parcel until it actually arrives.

For example, I placed an order with Aldi and it was delivered by Yodel. The next order I placed with them was delivered by Hermes. Similarly with John Lewis - I've had deliveries from them via Royal Mail and Hermes. Many of the larger retailers will use several different companies defending what the item is and which of their warehouses it is dispatched from.