How is it this bad?

V-Spec

V-Spec

V-Spec

Soldato
Joined
8 Jun 2005
Posts
3,698
Location
London
RANT ;_;

Sold 5 items on Ebay, I thought "aha, i'll book it all in on parcel-monkey - no problem.."

3x booked in via city-link (ok.... after reading around I probably would have been better off booking them in with my local ant-colony)

2x booked in via parcel-force global (to china)

All labels printed out, stuck to the right parcels - all customs declarations filled out, everything 100% FINE.., left with our reception who deal with all collections..

I get a phone-call from a confused parcel-force driver that there's nothing there for him, turns out the city-link driver decided to collect all 5 parcels and drive off with them :mad: after 2 hours on the phone I managed to get him to come back and get the 2 parcels off him.. fine.. Parcel-force rescheduled in for the collection again today.

I check the tracking this morning to find 1 of the city-link packages has ended up at the wrong **** delivery depot,

The parcel-force driver for the re-scheduled collection today hasn't collected the parcels because the job "isn't booked in" despite me calling the depot to check.


This is one of the most frustrating **** things i've ever had to do, considering the goods are worth £2500 in total, just **** these couriers... It would have been less stressful for me to just drive/fly the packages to the people manually...
 
Wizzfizz said:
Even so, the driver should know how many parcels there are for collection?
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That's where OP gone wrong, unluckily.

Always cover your back side and double make sure. I'd be tempted to set up the collection on 2 different dates so as to take the whole thing out of the receptionist and the courier's hands. Sometimes our receptionist would need to leave her desk for loo/coffee/lunch etc and someone else fills in, what do you do then ?
 
Wizzfizz said:
Even so, the driver should know how many parcels there is for collection?
Click to expand...

Not even that, they should check them before leaving to ensure everything is correct. When I have FedEx make collections, despite all the times I've sent with them, they still have a look over the parcel and check the pouch to make sure everything is in order.
 
You think that's bad?

I had the displeasure of dealing with Yodel last week.

Sold something on ebay on Sunday night:
Booked the collection via parcel2go for Monday, to be collected from work.
Yodel didn't bother turning up on Monday.
They (apparently) came on Tuesday at 8pm, surprisingly enough, the office was closed.
I rebooked for Wednesday, they turned up (apparently) at 7.30pm. Again, the office was closed.
Rebooked for Friday, to be collected from home (since there would be someone in all day).
They finally turned up on Friday at about 11am and collected the parcel from home.

2 hours later, they turned up at the office wanting to collect the same parcel.

How can they be so incompetent? :(
 
As they are your parcels, you are responsible for ensuring they get sent correctly by the correct courier.

Dumping that responsibility on your workplace reception does not make it their fault.
 
When I left them with reception I made two separate piles, 2x with the parcel-force labels on and 3x next to them with city-link labels,

It's not even that - the fact one has gone to totally the wrong place, and parcel-force just forgot about the re-collection, even after a phone call which went "Yes sir, the driver will re-collect them again on Tuesday, that's all booked in for you"

Then nothing gets collected and it's not booked in as a job,

It's like there are problems at every single part of the process,
 
Sadly, none of what you posted is surprising. Courier companies are a lottery. Sometimes you get a good driver, and your parcel gets a clear trip through the system. Other times they lose your parcel and deliver it to a random address three days later.
 
V-Spec said:
When I left them with reception I made two separate piles, 2x with the parcel-force labels on and 3x next to them with city-link labels,

It's not even that - the fact one has gone to totally the wrong place, and parcel-force just forgot about the re-collection, even after a phone call which went "Yes sir, the driver will re-collect them again on Tuesday, that's all booked in for you"

Then nothing gets collected and it's not booked in as a job,

It's like there are problems at every single part of the process,
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The call centre don't necessarily talk to the driver...

I once had a Fed-Ex delivery, I was not home. I got carded.

I called up to say "I am at work all week, please don't redeliver tomorrow, I will pick it up on the weekend at the depot". Guy on the phone says fine, it's all logged in.

Next day (Wednesday), I got carded.

I called up again, this time, I got the number of the local depot and spoke to the guy there. He says it is fine.

Next day, I got CARDED AGAIN !!!! I was fuming, and called up and said "please don't send it back, since after 3 failed attempts they send it back etc."

I did pick it up on the weekend but even with the parcel covered with labels, they don't seem to read it.
 
plasmahal said:
As they are your parcels, you are responsible for ensuring they get sent correctly by the correct courier.

Dumping that responsibility on your workplace reception does not make it their fault.
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The driver knows what he's supposed to be collecting. If the OP can print his own City-Link labels then the driver is supposed to be scanning the parcels to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. I can only assume his scanner was faulty or he just decided not to bother.

City-Link around here are beyond awful so I'd personally avoid them like the plague. They lie to you about when they try and deliver parcels just to get out of fines and they take no care with the parcels. We caught one of them throwing laptops into the back of his van and another left 30 laptops outside in the rain.

In their defence I think a lot of couriers are just as bad so it's not just them :p
 
I've tried to use CityLink through Parcel2Go once. They never turned up.

Parcel Force seem more reliable, at least in my area.
 
OP failed in this instance

NEVER ASSUME!

You assumed reception knew what to do
You assumed the courier knew what to do

Do not assume....EVER, EVER, EVER

When dealing with anyone these days, cover off all bases. You have to spoon feed people. Personally I would have painted the boxes the colour of the drivers logo (parcelforce red, citylink green). Even then, that might not be enough.

Flow charts are pretty good

1. Has delivery man turned up?

Yes - What colour is his van / Red = Parcelforce (give red boxes to man) / Green = CityLink (give green boxes to man)
No - Carry on doing reception work

2. Has man signed receipts?

Yes - Thank him and say goodbye
No - Ask man to sign receipts
Go back to question 2
 
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DJ_Bucho said:
Sounds to me like the receptionist didn't quite understand what was going on and just gave the parcels to the first courier that turned up.
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This is by far the most likely scenario. It's pretty rare for drivers to just help themselves unless it's a regular pick up, and even then they wouldn't just start taking stuff.

Unfortunately the whole number of packages thing doesn't really come into play, because when people book stuff on they declare all sorts, when the driver actually arrives the number/size of boxes is completely different.
 
Lopéz said:
This is by far the most likely scenario. It's pretty rare for drivers to just help themselves unless it's a regular pick up, and even then they wouldn't just start taking stuff.

Unfortunately the whole number of packages thing doesn't really come into play, because when people book stuff on they declare all sorts, when the driver actually arrives the number/size of boxes is completely different.
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Even still, they should be looking on all the parcels, even if they've been handed to them, to make sure there is an appropriate label and barcode on, if they get something wrong they're wasting their own time and the customer's time too.

For something that takes seconds, it makes no sense to not do it.
 
glen8 said:
OP failed in this instance

NEVER ASSUME!

You assumed reception knew what to do
You assumed the courier knew what to do

Do not assume....EVER, EVER, EVER

When dealing with anyone these days, cover off all bases. You have to spoon feed people. Personally I would have painted the boxes the colour of the drivers logo (parcelforce red, citylink green). Even then, that might not be enough.

Flow charts are pretty good

1. Has delivery man turned up?

Yes - What colour is his van / Red = Parcelforce (give red boxes to man) / Green = CityLink (give green boxes to man)
No - Carry on doing reception work

2. Has man signed receipts?

Yes - Thank him and say goodbye
No - Ask man to sign receipts
Go back to question 2
Click to expand...

Yeah, I often make flow charts when someone pops out to the shops and asks if I want something.

"Just a second, got to print this off."
 
Nix said:
Yeah, I often make flow charts when someone pops out to the shops and asks if I want something.

"Just a second, got to print this off."
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Lol, at minimum I would strap the relevant parcels together and slap a big piece of A4 with "CITYLINK" and the other "PARCELFORCE" and kept them separate.

Placing them together, even in 2 different stacks is meaningless really. The driver just see a pile of boxes to be collected, not one for me, one for someone else.

Imagine if there was 10 other people in the company doing the same thing, I wouldn't expect the driver to go through the labels over 50 boxes to find the 15 that belongs to him, I want him to know without scanning the labels which boxes are for him.

You need to take the decision out of their hands.
 
Even funnier actually, for the City-Link parcels, I left the collection receipt on top of the pile, with "THIS CONSIGNMENT CONSISTS OF 3 PACKAGES" written in huge bold font at the top, (with a similar one for the parcel-force boxes) and the city-link guy has signed it and just taken all 5 anyway..

I think the only way I could have ensured this was ok, was to have taken the day off and stood in our parcel collection area waiting (I live in an enormous building where all mail is dealt with by the reception)

One of the city-link parcels has ended up in the totally wrong part of the country because it was mis-routed, and the sender address has also been changed to something totally different, so hell knows if it'll ever get there, just worn out with dealing with these people,
 
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