Courier Company - fcuking awful service
Discussion
Right, I'm not pleased. And, unlike some on here, I don't tend to swear when I am seriously annoyed, so there will be no 
's in this post.
I needed to post some things back to some American friends who stayed here recently.
People on PH recommended me to interparcel as being good value, so I booked a collection and delivery via them yesterday. The carrier was a company called *** (could be referred to as "Delta Hotel Lima"), and a van from *** turned up this morning at the allotted time.
The driver (***) refused to give me a receipt for the parcel, despite the instructions I received from interparcel telling me that he would sign an additional copy of the waybill as a receipt for me. (I gave him an additional copy of the waybill, printed off from an eMail, and he gave it straight back to me saying "This is your receipt." I asked "Aren't you going to sign it?". Answer: "No, we don't sign anything, because if we do then something goes wrong, we can get sued".)
I wasn't happy about this, so he went off to call his supervisor. I printed off the instructions I was eMailed from interparcel and showed them to him, which he told me "that's wrong, 'cos my supervisor said so".
He then decided he needed to 'check the parcel', so proceeded to open it, on my doorstep. Not just open it, but shred it (it was well packaged.) And 'inspect' the items within - which happen to be clothing, including ladies' underwear. All opened, fondled, carefully examined in public on my doorstep. He stopped short of sniffing them, but only just. I asked whether this was necessary (he had shown no interest in opening the package until I had asked him for a receipt) and he replied that because they have never collected from me before, he felt it was necessary to open and inspect the parcel contents.
I proceeded to call interparcel to ask whether this was normal. Interparcel lady was horrified and put me straight through to the head of customer service. She asked to speak to the DHL man, so I passed the 'phone over. DHL man spoke with head of customer service at length, before announcing to me that he "Didn't like my attitude, and was cancelling the collection." So proceeded to walk off, leaving a pile of scrumpled clothing and a well-shredded package on my doorstep.
He clearly didn't think this was a good idea tho', as he came back 2 minutes later to screw the clothing up into a plastic bag, and pass it to me.
Interparcel were very helpful, and commented that they expect their sub-contractors to offer a professional service as the sub-contractors (*** in this case) were the face of their - interparcel's - company. Interparcel have arranged for a different carrier to come and collect the (re-packaged) items this afternoon. The head of Customer Service at Interparcel heard the whole sorry scene from the end of the telephone, and told me that she would be speaking with their customer contact at ***.
So, two questions.
1. Why do the carrier (***) have to inspect the contents of the packages? They are just couriering the items - not taking any responsibility for what may or may not be in there.
2. Is it worth me formally complaining to *** as well, or just leave it to interparcel? I am VERY annoyed about this, and do not consider it to be at all necessary, desirable or tasteful for the collection driver to fondle underwear belonging to a good (female) friend of mine, in public, on the street.
If anyone from *** is on here, I'd be interested in whether it is standard practice to open packages on customers' doorsteps, throw clothing around in public, and carefully fondle items of a personal nature. I may add that I don't think it was standard practice to open parcels - he only did so because I pushed him for a receipt, which he wasn't planning to give me.
Oli.
's in this post. I needed to post some things back to some American friends who stayed here recently.
People on PH recommended me to interparcel as being good value, so I booked a collection and delivery via them yesterday. The carrier was a company called *** (could be referred to as "Delta Hotel Lima"), and a van from *** turned up this morning at the allotted time.
The driver (***) refused to give me a receipt for the parcel, despite the instructions I received from interparcel telling me that he would sign an additional copy of the waybill as a receipt for me. (I gave him an additional copy of the waybill, printed off from an eMail, and he gave it straight back to me saying "This is your receipt." I asked "Aren't you going to sign it?". Answer: "No, we don't sign anything, because if we do then something goes wrong, we can get sued".)
I wasn't happy about this, so he went off to call his supervisor. I printed off the instructions I was eMailed from interparcel and showed them to him, which he told me "that's wrong, 'cos my supervisor said so".
He then decided he needed to 'check the parcel', so proceeded to open it, on my doorstep. Not just open it, but shred it (it was well packaged.) And 'inspect' the items within - which happen to be clothing, including ladies' underwear. All opened, fondled, carefully examined in public on my doorstep. He stopped short of sniffing them, but only just. I asked whether this was necessary (he had shown no interest in opening the package until I had asked him for a receipt) and he replied that because they have never collected from me before, he felt it was necessary to open and inspect the parcel contents.
I proceeded to call interparcel to ask whether this was normal. Interparcel lady was horrified and put me straight through to the head of customer service. She asked to speak to the DHL man, so I passed the 'phone over. DHL man spoke with head of customer service at length, before announcing to me that he "Didn't like my attitude, and was cancelling the collection." So proceeded to walk off, leaving a pile of scrumpled clothing and a well-shredded package on my doorstep.
He clearly didn't think this was a good idea tho', as he came back 2 minutes later to screw the clothing up into a plastic bag, and pass it to me.
Interparcel were very helpful, and commented that they expect their sub-contractors to offer a professional service as the sub-contractors (*** in this case) were the face of their - interparcel's - company. Interparcel have arranged for a different carrier to come and collect the (re-packaged) items this afternoon. The head of Customer Service at Interparcel heard the whole sorry scene from the end of the telephone, and told me that she would be speaking with their customer contact at ***.
So, two questions.
1. Why do the carrier (***) have to inspect the contents of the packages? They are just couriering the items - not taking any responsibility for what may or may not be in there.
2. Is it worth me formally complaining to *** as well, or just leave it to interparcel? I am VERY annoyed about this, and do not consider it to be at all necessary, desirable or tasteful for the collection driver to fondle underwear belonging to a good (female) friend of mine, in public, on the street.
If anyone from *** is on here, I'd be interested in whether it is standard practice to open packages on customers' doorsteps, throw clothing around in public, and carefully fondle items of a personal nature. I may add that I don't think it was standard practice to open parcels - he only did so because I pushed him for a receipt, which he wasn't planning to give me.
Oli.
Company name not included, knowing the name and shame rules.
How very bizarre. I don't work for *** but I've never heard of a situation like this.
Let Interparcel take it up with them and if you don't get a satisfactory response, go for it yourself (make sure you have all the relevant document references to give them)
zcacogp said:
1. Why do the carrier (***) have to inspect the contents of the packages? They are just couriering the items - not taking any responsibility for what may or may not be in there.
The only reason I can think that he wanted to inspect it was that it was going abroad therefore checking to make sure there wasn't anything dodgy. However, all parcels are scanned and if going on a plane, x-rayed. It's up to you to declare what's in it, not ***, so any come back should be on you. If there's any inspection to be done, it should be done by HMRC at port/airside...zcacogp said:
2. Is it worth me formally complaining to *** as well, or just leave it to interparcel? I am VERY annoyed about this, and do not consider it to be at all necessary, desirable or tasteful for the collection driver to fondle underwear belonging to a good (female) friend of mine, in public, on the street.
You could try, but *** are employed by Interparcel and not you so would most likely give you short shrift. Let Interparcel take it up with them and if you don't get a satisfactory response, go for it yourself (make sure you have all the relevant document references to give them)
Very strange?
I use DHL for all my deliveries, always have, they always give a receipt (and like you I book through a third party, I use parcel2go).
1) I have always had a receipt.
2) I have found MY dhl man very helpful, he will even collect if I'm not in, just leave the parcel under the caravan.
3) I've never had parcels inspected.
4) If I have one complaint they like all couriers seem to play football with parcels, and I have had a lot damaged, so now I wrap stuff far better, takes longer but saves hassle. Since doing this I haven't had a breakage (so were the breakages my fault for inferior wrapping or DHLs for not taking enough care? Who knows, not a problem any more.)
5) If you do have to claim don't bother, the claim process is designed to put you off, it is so obtuse it is ridiculous, for a start unless you are a shop it is impossible as they want a bill of sale to prove the value of the goods.
So overall quite happy with them, sounds a strange situation you had!
I use DHL for all my deliveries, always have, they always give a receipt (and like you I book through a third party, I use parcel2go).
1) I have always had a receipt.
2) I have found MY dhl man very helpful, he will even collect if I'm not in, just leave the parcel under the caravan.
3) I've never had parcels inspected.
4) If I have one complaint they like all couriers seem to play football with parcels, and I have had a lot damaged, so now I wrap stuff far better, takes longer but saves hassle. Since doing this I haven't had a breakage (so were the breakages my fault for inferior wrapping or DHLs for not taking enough care? Who knows, not a problem any more.)
5) If you do have to claim don't bother, the claim process is designed to put you off, it is so obtuse it is ridiculous, for a start unless you are a shop it is impossible as they want a bill of sale to prove the value of the goods.
So overall quite happy with them, sounds a strange situation you had!
They're not known as Drop it; Hide it; Lose it for no reason !
FEDEX has alway been my carrier of choice and UPS have come on leaps and bounds in the last ten years.
Complain to your carrier, they are who you have a contract with and consequentially it is their duty to deal with this situation with their nominated subcontractor ***.
FEDEX has alway been my carrier of choice and UPS have come on leaps and bounds in the last ten years.
Complain to your carrier, they are who you have a contract with and consequentially it is their duty to deal with this situation with their nominated subcontractor ***.
they are total idiots tbh.
A parcel that was sent to me that was supposed to arrive in Sennen in Cornwall went to the following places before being returned to sender
Channel islands
Isle of Lewis
Ireland
manchester
Isle of Wight
Scotland
I've lost count of the time they have delivered a day later than agreed, put the wrong stickers on the wrong boxes, sent back to me the next day....
Cowboys.
A parcel that was sent to me that was supposed to arrive in Sennen in Cornwall went to the following places before being returned to sender
Channel islands
Isle of Lewis
Ireland
manchester
Isle of Wight
Scotland
I've lost count of the time they have delivered a day later than agreed, put the wrong stickers on the wrong boxes, sent back to me the next day....
Cowboys.
wildoliver said:
4) If I have one complaint they like all couriers seem to play football with parcels, and I have had a lot damaged, so now I wrap stuff far better, takes longer but saves hassle. Since doing this I haven't had a breakage (so were the breakages my fault for inferior wrapping or DHLs for not taking enough care? Who knows, not a problem any more.)
It's because they have an automated conveyor belt system. This can bash the parcels around quite a bit.They assume that anything small is documents, etc and anything cube-shaped is wrapped well enough to protect it.
If sending anything remotely fragile, wrap it to within an inch of it's life.
As an aside, if you're shipping in the UK, I've heard that Business Post don't use conveyor belts and therefore the parcels are handled a lot better.
Yes this is a st company. They managed to lose the DSLR they were supposed to deliver to me, gave me all sorts of bullst excuses as to why the tracking system told me it was in their warehouse, but why it wasn't being delivered a week later. Eventually under the threat of me paying their warehouse a visit and contacting their head office, they managed to find my camera and deliver it to me in a box that had been opened and poorly sealed with their own company branded tape.
Obviously you couldn't think they'd tried to steal my camera and only been forced to bring it back and deliver it because someone in the local office got a bking from their head office.
t company. They managed to lose the DSLR they were supposed to deliver to me, gave me all sorts of bullst excuses as to why the tracking system told me it was in their warehouse, but why it wasn't being delivered a week later. Eventually under the threat of me paying their warehouse a visit and contacting their head office, they managed to find my camera and deliver it to me in a box that had been opened and poorly sealed with their own company branded tape.Obviously you couldn't think they'd tried to steal my camera and only been forced to bring it back and deliver it because someone in the local office got a b
king from their head office.Its just part and PARCEL of using a courier.
We have used them all at work and due to the number of parcels they process something always goes wrong at some point. To be fair DHL they are one of the best but we do have a good driver who actually has a brain.
DHL are one of the few who check parcels for dangerous goods.
We have used them all at work and due to the number of parcels they process something always goes wrong at some point. To be fair DHL they are one of the best but we do have a good driver who actually has a brain.
DHL are one of the few who check parcels for dangerous goods.
As told to me by one of the courier companies (could have been DHL or UPS), for shipments going out of the country customs allow them to inspect then seal the package and this will avoid the possibility of it being held up at outbound customs for further inspection.
No idea of the accuracy of that statement, I just queried it when I booked a collection direct (rather than via a third party) and was instructed to leave the package unsealed prior to collection.
No idea of the accuracy of that statement, I just queried it when I booked a collection direct (rather than via a third party) and was instructed to leave the package unsealed prior to collection.
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