strange delivery numbers - custardy?

jamesperrett

I'm surprised that you are even considering Hermes - by far the worst delivery company. Be prepared for lots of unhappy customers and replacing all the items that go missing (apparently around 20%).

olgadapolga

jamesperrett said:

I'm surprised that you are even considering Hermes - by far the worst delivery company. Be prepared for lots of unhappy customers and replacing all the items that go missing (apparently around 20%).

I only ever use Hermes, because I had too many items disappear into Royal Mail's system. I had way more items go missing when I used Royal Mail than have been lost with Hermes. I don't think that I've had to claim for a lost parcel yet this year, although they lost maybe six parcels last year, out of over a thousand sent. Nowhere near the 20% stated, IME. Plus, when Hermes do lose a parcel, their claims procedure is much easier than that of other companies and they pay out on the selling price, not the cost price.

At the moment, I think that Royal Mail are the worst possible delivery company, they are really letting themselves and their customers down at the moment and seem to be quite happy to let it slide further. 

soolin

jamesperrett said:

I'm surprised that you are even considering Hermes - by far the worst delivery company. Be prepared for lots of unhappy customers and replacing all the items that go missing (apparently around 20%).

I very often switch to MyHermes and have nowhere near 20% of my parcels go missing , I usually find them about on par with Royal Mail. At the moment though Royal Mail seem incapable of getting my items out in a timely manner (I suspect my issue is a local one) and I am losing items. I have MyHermes parcels sent last week that have arrived where I am still waiting for RM parcels from several days before to reach my buyers.

If I start having issues with MyHermes I will switch back to RM, and I usually use RM in preference to MyHermes purely because my system is set up to print RM labels automatically with no input from me - and I can drop them all off in sacks easily- MyHermes needs a special trip.

I did get through to Royal Mail eventually yesterday , the chap I spoke to thought that the short numbers indicated a large letter - he was surprised they were being used on my parcels and wondered if there is an error somewhere. he checked several for me and agreed that none are showing as delivered and he checked an internal tracking system and he can see them accepted at a mail centre and then disappearing. I explained that I had had positive feedback for some, so knew they had arrived- and he was very surprise by that.

Anyway, I have refunded my buyer now and fingers crossed this parcel never shows as delivered so that I can make my claim from RM in about another 10 days or so. I will be a bit cross if it suddenly shows as delivered now and I can't claim.

soolin

Just an update, as this loss was on my private account I submitted a claim to RM for loss using the page from ebay showing I had made a full refund to the buyer - and I was very impressed to get a cheque back within a few days! 

Across my accounts I still have well over 20 - 30  items with these short numbers not showing as delivered so will wait to see if I get any more claims. For those items that can't go as courier and where I have to use RM it looks like most have switched back to the long number that starts with 32....

As for the couriers I'm finding MyHermes is currently taking about 3 days to arrive, UPS strangely, even their next day delivery is also taking 3 days on average to arrive.