Interparcel nightmare

[MikanHannille]

My first time using Interparcel for sending a bass to Italy. Booked on 3rd of March for collection on Monday 5th to be delivered by Friday 9th. After Friday the buyer won't be available to receive the bass. So just right in time.

Monday came, no collection... phoned them up first thing in the morning. No apologies, but rebooked the collection for the same day. Was assured that the deilvery will still be Friday. Okay fair enough. It was then collected mid day. I phoned up again to reconfirm the delivery day. And now it's changed to Monday. I was starting to get grumpy at this point. I asked if I they could send the parcel back as it wasn't even an hour after they collected.  They say they will update me as soon as they can. No news after one day. Next thing I know the bass is already on it's way to Italy. Told the buyer about this and he said he could cancel some plans to be able to receive it on Monday.

I phoned Interparcel again to cancel my request of returning it to me since I can see it's already left UK. All is fine. Buyer received a message that the estimated delivery will be on Monday. That worked out well....... NOT! Upon looking at the tracking now it says return to sender. Now this is really annoying. Buyer cancelled plans to be able to receive it and then this happened.

Ok, so now return to sender. Process going well, until the bass came back to UK. Last scan was 15th and it says it's in their depot. I just phoned Interparcel again for updates and they said the courier will take at least 5-7 working days to locate the bass.

This is really embarassing for me as a seller and really annoying for the buyer.

Any advise can you guys give for formal complaints? I must add that during all this debacle I only received one email update from them. I have been ringing them every day for updates.

Worst case senario is I'm going to refund the buyer and I'm out one bass.

[itsmedunc]

That's one of the reasons I now ask buyers to arrange their own courier, meet or collect in person. I'm very reluctant to post and won't now accept responsibility for items after they have left my possession. I know it sounds a bit off and deters some buyers but I've had scenario's where things have been lost or damaged in the post. I really can do without that hassle of sorting all that out, refunding and losing out financially. I've even had folk (not on BC) claim they hadn't received items although signatures were supplied from the correct address (paypal refunded them their money too). Don't do paypal as a result either.

Looks like you may have to call them again (if their website doesn't give you an option) about their complaints procedure. I wouldn't expect much to happen about it though. Was the bass insured?

[ambient]

This is why I won't post a bass, or anything really expensive or fragile.

Often the insurance that they insist you take out doesn't cover instruments anyway.

[itsmedunc]

1 minute ago, ambient said:

This is why I won't post a bass, or anything really expensive or fragile.

Often the insurance that they insist you take out doesn't cover instruments anyway.

Yes always check the small print. I'd posted many basses and paid insurance when they weren't actually insured. One company used to insure guitars but then if you checked the parcel length limitations, it had to be under a certain size? A 34"" scale bass would have been too long to be insured?

[MikanHannille]

Received an email on Friday saying that my parcel is now in Birmingham depot. Due to be returned to sender (me). But asking me another £20 for the return fee. 

[Skol303]

Sympathies to the OP; that sounds like a pain in the donkey.

Thankfully however such instances are very much the exception rather than the rule. Courier companies make many thousands of successful deliveries each day that go unreported. Nobody starts threads saying “Yeah that thing I wanted delivered? Well it arrived ok. No problems”. So we only ever get to hear about the bad experiences, which leaves the overall picture looking deceptively bleak.

You’re statistically far more likely to be involved in a car accident whilst delivering your bass to a buyer than you are to lose the instrument by shipping it. But of course things can and do go wrong; and it always sucks to be on the receiving end of that.

In this instance, trying to change the order once the package has been collected and is in transit was always going to add an element of complication. Not your fault of course; but most companies terms state that they’re responsible for the order as placed (hence you’re always asked to check and confirm details before paying).

Hope this works out and that Interparcel get things sorted. I’ve had good dealings with their customer services, so fingers crossed...

[tauzero]

Coincidentally, you and I both had couriers booked via Interparcel for that Monday who never turned up. The difference was that I rearranged mine for the Wednesday, it was picked up, and made its way to Finland satisfactorily and intact. I say "it", it was in fact "them", a brace of speakers which the buyer was very happy with.

I think you should hold out for them to return the bass to you without an extra charge - that's just adding insult to injury. Twitter and Facebook can be effective weapons, apparently.

[Burns-bass]

6 hours ago, Skol303 said:

You’re statistically far more likely to be involved in a car accident whilst delivering your bass to a buyer than you are to lose the instrument by shipping it...

I’d be interested in where you got these stats from.

[Skol303]

16 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

I’d be interested in where you got these stats from.

Cambridge Analytica.

But in truth very much a ‘straw man' guess, based on:

• Price Waterhouse Cooper report on Royal Mail performance quotes an average of 1 in 1000 of parcels being lost in transit - so that's a 0.1% failure rate.
• 37 million UK driving license holders made ~775,000 motoring insurance claims last year (~390,000 successful) - meaning 2% of motorists made an insurance claim, or in this context a 2% 'failure rate' (I am of course making the sweeping assumption that these claims resulted from road accidents).

So yeah. Rough as a badger's backside. But I'd wager a more robust analysis would support the idea that sending parcels by post is statistically 'safer' than delivering them in person by car when you stack up proportion of parcels lost vs. proportion of road journeys involving an accident.

Probably not as interesting as you'd hoped though... can't help that. Sorry 

Edited March 26, 2018 by Skol303

[MikanHannille]

Well, here's the deal, I've talked to citizen's advise and told me that it's a breach of contract. So what I'm doing at the moment is paying for the fee just to get my bass back safely and then raise it further by sending an a letter saying what the citizen's advise said.

What is really annoying is that when I phoned them just now asking what is happening with the fee being taken out of my card/paypal account is that they said that they already sent me an invoice on my paypal which is clearly a load of  $"£&$"*($£&%$ as I am in front of the computer looking at my paypal account. The communication in this company is appauling and to flat out lie and said they already sent it to me.