Parcelforce and the CBA message

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RogerS

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Location
In the eternally wet North
Today ...

"Parcelforce have attempted to deliver a parcel"..... Lie No 1

"An attempted delivery card will have been left" ...Lie No 2

Looking at their online tracking, the driver was an eejit as the timings show he couldn't even have reached us in the time given that the 'attempted delivery' was made.

No, he needs the CBA option "Can't Be Ar sed" as the reason for non-delivery.

Still on the plus side, I can now get the delivery charges waived :D
 
RogerS":1f0dnkt1 said:
Today ...

"Parcelforce have attempted to deliver a parcel"..... Lie No 1

"An attempted delivery card will have been left" ...Lie No 2

Looking at their online tracking, the driver was an eejit as the timings show he couldn't even have reached us in the time given that the 'attempted delivery' was made.

No, he needs the CBA option "Can't Be Ar sed" as the reason for non-delivery.

Still on the plus side, I can now get the delivery charges waived :D

It's so annoying when that happens, at least they didn't throw the item over your wall/hedge/fence and said it was delivered.
 
This sort of subterfuge is not Carrier dependant, a combination of driver & task load for the day plays a big part in the misdirection we get from various sources.

After many weeks of Yodel making regular deliveries (from same large company) we had one during last week that showed up on the van tracking data as being 8miles away with 68 out of 74 deliveries still to do. We were No.48. van found its way to less than 3/4 of a mile away with two more deliveries to do before us.
Van promptly left the area and proceeded across the valley by one of two roads available, the one that did not pass the end of the drive.
Over the next 2+ hours the van travelled some 20+ miles to the south and east of us and finally ended up adjacent to the place it started then turned back towards us along its original route, getting within 2 miles, suddenly the tracking details notification changed to " Unable to access property, collection available from depot"

A 'phone call to customer services was met with total blanked auto response with same message.

40 minutes latter driver arrives at bottom of drive with no explanation and very limited English? (centre of Postcode is actually at the end of our drive)
 
I had two classics from Yodel:

One where the driver kept taking my parcel ‘for a spin’ from the depot, getting within a few miles of my place and then b uggering off back to the depot. Three consecutive days.

Another where delivery was ‘abandoned due to inclement weather’. I was surprised, because it was a balmy evening and I was sitting by the barbecue waiting for him. Photo to prove weather, was of a field gate at sunset. Very pretty.

Another, not Yodel but some other budget courier - Herpes or somesuch: ‘Driver could not locate address’. Phoned helpline as advised. Was told my house must be a new build. Explained was built in 1862.

I don’t think the drivers are genuine comedians, but instead are under ridiculous pressure and low wages.
 
But on the other hand, our DPD driver is brilliant. Always a pleasant smile and hello. Last week I was delivery number 130 ....... 130?????
I don't think I was the last that day either.

How does he do that in a day? And keep smiling?

Now I'm not saying that this amount of pressure is any excuse for failing to deliver, but it may be a reason. Imagine having to locate 130+ addresses in a day, traffic, bad parking etc etc. Sometimes I think management need to be questioned setting these sort of targets.
 
Geoff_S":37bh85n2 said:
But on the other hand, our DPD driver is brilliant. Always a pleasant smile and hello. Last week I was delivery number 130 ....... 130?????
I don't think I was the last that day either.

How does he do that in a day? And keep smiling?

125 of them went to your neighbours house :D :D :D
 
Had an issue with a Yodel delivery last year with a missed delivery first then an attempted delivery card left on the second attempt. Had the site manager, landlord and myself looking for the attempted delivery card but couldn't find it. Rang customer services but with there being no liason between them and the delivery service it was a complete waste of time because I didn't have the reference number from the attempted delivery card! Driver turned up the next day and claimed he couldn't find my unit (big black number on front?) and hadn't actually left an attempted delivery card! Made a complaint and got the usually brush off.
I suspect these issues are down to the number of deliveries each driver is expected to make with no time allocated for "difficult" addresses so no time to stop and ask directions.
 
Maybe the thing to do if you need to complain is to call the originator of the package and let them know what happened. They are paying the P&P so should be interested if only to protect their rep.
 
beech1948":uwdna78k said:
Maybe the thing to do if you need to complain is to call the originator of the package and let them know what happened. They are paying the P&P so should be interested if only to protect their rep.
I did that and my supplier has change the courier companies he uses.
 
Sometimes I order tools from the UK and I hate it when they end up being delivered by GLS. The delivery bloke drops a slip in the letter box saying that as I wasn't in, it has been dropped off at the collection point (a small supermarket in the nearby village). He then takes two or three days to actually take it there.

So I ring GLS and tell them to either tell the bloke to take it to the supermarket on the day he comes to the house or just leave it at the door. The former never happens and the latter is against their policy (unless I become a nuisance by ringing up so much that it happens).

It seems to me that the problem is that these firms pay c**p money and give unrealistic workloads to their deliverers. Personally I think the answer is to pay them a decent wage and we consumers should accept the idea that the convenience of having things dropped off at the door comes with a cost.

There's never a problem with the "real" post service as they actually do take it to the post office for next day collection.
 
Andy Kev.":3rrrhrfc said:
Personally I think the answer is to pay them a decent wage and we consumers should accept the idea that the convenience of having things dropped off at the door comes with a cost.

Totally agree.
 
“Signature required” is one of the least convenient and least effective postage categories available. If you’re not at home to squint at the scratched screen in the sunlight and scrawl a mess with the comically unresponsive stylus, they take it away.

How does this improve security? They don’t ask your name, they supply it:
“Joe Bloggs?”
“Yes”.
I’ve even been at someone else’s house, said, “no, they’re not in”, and he got me to sign for it anyway.

Also, they have nothing to reference your signature to, so you can make any shape you want on the screen (and I do).

So the theory of requiring a signature sounds good, until you hit reality and it becomes a case of ‘is there a body there to draw a shape?’ It makes no sense.
 
DPD good. Their tracking is timely and option to reschedule once they give you a timed slot, unless they're delivering for Axminster when they hold out the promise but them make you contact Axy if you want to reschedule. DPD did rock up two hours early one day which rather threw me :)
Local to me, MyHermes is great as we have a reliable block covering our area and a fairly convenient place to drop off outbound parcels.
Parcelfarce - historically so bad that if someone advertises parcelforce as their delivery service, I tell them I'll only buy if they send it with someone else. But, one sneaked through yesterday... The lad was pleasant and the parcel arrived promptly and undamage. The tracking meanwhile was telling me it would take two more days !
 
Hmm. Deliveries. 6 weeks is not unusual. Three months might be the record, but I lose track, pardon the pun. I have several duplicates from Amazon, because we report an item not delivered, whereupon it turns up, sometimes along with its replacement, "delivered" at the same time.

My post has several possible options: most often, it is left in the village coffee shop, on the assumption that I will be in for a coffee at any minute, so it will be convenient for me. I never drink coffee, at least, not in the coffee shop.

Option 2 would be having my post left at someone's house. Someone in the village, obviously, because there is no way postie is coming all the way up the hill to my place! That's steep, that is!

Option 3; postie may telephone me so I can meet him at a random location, and swap envelopes, signatures etc. That is actually pretty handy - personal service, as it were. Note that I may have to drive three or four miles to find him, and he may have left by then.

Option 4. CBA is official government policy so no suprise there - my post may or may not be back at the post office, and I may or may not be able to go into the back room and have a rummage through all the parcels to see what has turned up. It's like an exciting game of lucky dip, and I can go home with anyone's post if I want to. (Only happened once, in error).

Good news is that we have the private couriers well trained, and they take everything to the post office, where the staff are happy to sign for us (always make friends with your postie). What happens after that is fairly random - see above. Note that whilst couriers are "supposed" to deliver to the house, it has never, not once, not ever, happened.

There is a tendency to moan and complain about foreigners doing weirdly foreign thing in their own foreign country, and I do live in paradise, but the postal system and mail-order is a bit trying, even the locals admit. However, "Lost in the post" isn't an excuse, it is the national condition.
 
Quite often have to wait a few minutes to receive my packages from the courier on my doorstep because they're "too early" and have to wait for some kind of timer to go over a certain number before they can scan it and give it to me. I think it's something to do with the allocated time-slot.
 
When I first arrived in Spain, I lived in the old town of Marbella. The postman would come to your door and hand you an official piece of paperwork which read...you where out when we called so now your parcel will have to be collected from the post office.....
There other trick was to give you all the mail for the area you lived in, we take our mail and then pass the remaining mail next door, this goes on until everyone has there mail, whilst we are all doing the posties job he is happily in the bar enjoying him self!

Sent from my SM-J530F using Tapatalk
 
Talking to the chap who came to price up a digger job yesterday and we got onto this subject.
He ordered something for one of his machines £7000 and the size and weight of the tablesaw he
was stood next to. DHL on a pallet and guess what they lost it ! It wasn't delivered to the wrong address, just disappeared ! The company send another and had to claim of DHL.
 
I took a DHL delivery for my daughter from Amazon. He was early and wanted to crack on but the software would not allow him to deliver it until the appointed time so he asked if he could take the label off the package and recorded it shortly. No problem I says as I have the package.

My daughter opened the package and it was not what she had ordered.

I phoned Amazon and they said just keep the package, as there was no label they could not identify who it was for. I assume they claimed from DPD when it was not delivered.

I was expecting a delivery from Parcel force and got a text saying it would be delivered between let us say 11:00 and 13:00. As I would be out a left a note on the gate asking for it to be left in a safe place. Got back no parcel. Read text carefully and the delivery was for the following Wednesday (It was now Thursday) Thought this was a bit long but as I had taken free delivery it had said 3-5 days I let it go. The delivery came the next day with texts to say when! The local Parcelforce driver is very good but I have had problems on the days he is off.
 
I never really have a problem other than the private companies that do the Amazon deliveries.

They are incredibly impatient. I've timed it, and they give you about 8 seconds to answer the door before they start walking off.

I'm sure it's not their fault, but more ridiculous deadlines
 
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