Parcelforce being bad...again!

[theplumber]

Just sold a bass to one of the fine chaps on here. He had arranged a pickup from my house today and after my wife being in all day and me arriving in after 3 and waiting till 6pm it was a no show. A while later I checked the tracking only to be told that ''Unfortunately we were unable to attempt collection of your parcel today'' What the!!!  I had seen the van in our street and thought it was turning at top of the road. Checking online some folk say this is what they do when they are running late or are too busy.. Anyway we will never know cause thats all that was said! It has been rearranged for Wednesday. Fingers crossed!!

[AndyTravis]

Had this a few times. I go for the “drop off” option now. Just a minor inconvenience to take it to the local post office, but means I’m not waiting about.

[casapete]

Happened the same to me today, only with UPS. Waited for them to arrive to collect a bass, supposedly between 8am and 1pm, no show. They then rang me to let me know it would be tomorrow, although couldn’t say when. Supposedly ringing me at 9am to give me a time. Not good.

[Downunderwonder]

There must surely be a market for a courier outfit that does what it says when it says it will, all without throwing the boxes around.

[AndyTravis]

1 minute ago, Downunderwonder said:

There must surely be a market for a courier outfit that does what it says when it says it will, all without throwing the boxes around.

It does exist - but it costs.

 

Sadly, as with many things…driven by price.

[Mickyk]

21 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

There must surely be a market for a courier outfit that does what it says when it says it will, all without throwing the boxes around.

There already is bud, its called  DPD, in my experience the most professional outfit out there.

[Downunderwonder]

31 minutes ago, Mickyk said:

There already is bud, its called  DPD, in my experience the most professional outfit out there.

Must be too rich for most basses.

[BassAdder60]

12 hours ago, Mickyk said:

There already is bud, its called  DPD, in my experience the most professional outfit out there.

Yep DPD one of the best and that’s why most good shops use them. 
Timed collection or delivery notifications and they are very near to those times always 

Better to pay DPD rates in my opinion for valuable items 

[BigRedX]

12 hours ago, Mickyk said:

There already is bud, its called  DPD, in my experience the most professional outfit out there.

 

IME DPD can be just as bad as all the others. My last experience with them was for a delivery for my business (I work from home). Despite the fact that I was in and it was reasonably obvious that there was someone at the address, for some reason, instead of knocking on the door, they elected to hide the parcel in my front garden/yard on a day when it was also raining. I only knew that they had been because a couple of minutes later an email popped up saying they had "tried to deliver" my parcel accompanied with a low-resolution photograph of the "delivery". If it hadn't been for the photograph I doubt I would have found the parcel before it was irreparably damaged by the rain.

[fretmeister]

They are all as good or as bad as each other.

 

They shift millions of parcels every day and there will be a percentage that gets lost / destroyed / never collected.

 

I've had brilliant and terrible service from all of them over the years.

[BassAdder60]

And in truth the drivers ( some better than others ) are under huge pressure to deliver a growing quantity of goods with heavy deadlines to achieve with very average to low wages. 
 

We have all had delivery issues but on the whole they do a pretty decent job mostly 

 

 

[Trueno]

I sold an amp a few weeks ago. I used Parcelforce 48 with no problems. The guy who picked it up was obviously a man with a van who contracted out.

I’ve just sold another two amps… saw no reason not to use Parcelforce again… they’re due to be picked up tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes…

[BigRedX]

12 hours ago, Mickyk said:

There already is bud, its called  DPD, in my experience the most professional outfit out there.

 

Also during the first lock-down last year DPD, obviously struggling under the increased number of parcels they were having to deal with, decided to cancel acceptance of any parcel with any dimension over 1m, which meant it was impossible to send a bass guitar with them. Nothing about this limit was immediately obvious on their website, and in fact it was possible to get stuck in a loop where the limit tried to get you to use a a different branch of DPD service that had also applied a limit, and you were passed between the two without actually being able to book a parcel collection. It was only after an exchange of emails with their customer services that it became apparent what had happened, and I was able to give up trying to use them and book a collection/delivery with UPS instead.

 

As other have said a good delivery service depends on all parts of the chain being good. There is a certain bass company that I can't use because they insist on using APC as their carrier service and unfortunately here in Nottingham the APC depot appears to be staffed by the most useless collection of individuals known to mankind. They wouldn't even answer the phone when a member of APC head office tried to call them on my behalf to locate a delivery that had gone missing. That didn't go down very well with the person trying to help me. Unfortunately nothing has changed since then, I continue to avoid using them.

[casapete]

14 hours ago, casapete said:

Happened the same to me today, only with UPS. Waited for them to arrive to collect a bass, supposedly between 8am and 1pm, no show. They then rang me to let me know it would be tomorrow, although couldn’t say when. Supposedly ringing me at 9am to give me a time. Not good.

Needless to say UPS Customer Services at Dewsbury didn’t ring me at 9am today as they faithfully promised. After lots of emails / calls made by both me and the buyer of my bass this morning, UPS have just collected it.

 

What boils my p*ss more than anything these days is the complete lack of communication, despite having the option of phone call / text / email - no excuse for not keeping the customer up to speed in my view. Sure, we all know the problems facing many companies with logistics at the moment, but all the more reason to keep people on side by letting them know what’s going on (or in my case not).

[Bassfinger]

20 hours ago, Mickyk said:

There already is bud, its called  DPD, in my experience the most professional outfit out there.

I think im on their blacklist after recently losing my rag at one of their neanderthals who'd blocked the path by parking his van 4 wheels up on the footway because their was nowhere to park in the road. Twit.

[FDC484950]

As has been said, all couriers get it wrong. I’m just lucky that I’ve not had anything lost (yet!)

That being said, Parcelforce is not a company I would trust with any musical equipment

Since COVID I’ve noticed many more deliveries just being dropped near the door without anyone knocking - the first I know about it is either the delivery message or when I open my front door. And that’s with every courier (PF, DPD, APC, UPS, TNT, FedEx, Amazon’s own deliveries, and of course, Hermes).

[jezzaboy]

8 hours ago, BigRedX said:

 

Also during the first lock-down last year DPD, obviously struggling under the increased number of parcels they were having to deal with, decided to cancel acceptance of any parcel with any dimension over 1m, which meant it was impossible to send a bass guitar with them. Nothing about this limit was immediately obvious on their website, and in fact it was possible to get stuck in a loop where the limit tried to get you to use a a different branch of DPD service that had also applied a limit, and you were passed between the two without actually being able to book a parcel collection. It was only after an exchange of emails with their customer services that it became apparent what had happened, and I was able to give up trying to use them and book a collection/delivery with UPS instead.

 

As other have said a good delivery service depends on all parts of the chain being good. There is a certain bass company that I can't use because they insist on using APC as their carrier service and unfortunately here in Nottingham the APC depot appears to be staffed by the most useless collection of individuals known to mankind. They wouldn't even answer the phone when a member of APC head office tried to call them on my behalf to locate a delivery that had gone missing. That didn't go down very well with the person trying to help me. Unfortunately nothing has changed since then, I continue to avoid using them.

I had the same thing. Tried to send a bass with DPD and they said the package was too large for them, on the very same day I had a bass delivered by them form Guitarguitar! GG must spend a few bob with DPD so it` worth their while.

 

 

[TheGreek]

I've got to say that in all the transactions I have done using both UPS and Parcelforce I have never been let down. I know both of my local drivers for said companies - one I went to school with and the other a big dog fan who was devastated when Shalla died.

 

Other couriers I have less faith in - I'll always use one of the above.

[CookPassBabtridge]

Yep, everyone has different experiences with couriers. I won’t touch DPD anymore as they lost a lovely neck-thru Warwick Thumb I bought (never to be seen again), and managed to destroy the body of another bass I sent with them. 

 

Funnily enough, Hermes have never let me down and most people I know say they’re the worst of the lot! 

Edited October 27, 2021 by CookPassBabtridge

[gareth]

On 25/10/2021 at 22:23, AndyTravis said:

Had this a few times. I go for the “drop off” option now. Just a minor inconvenience to take it to the local post office, but means I’m not waiting about.

I only ever use the drop off option 

 

you then don’t have to wait in

 

just drop it off at your nearest post office 

 

simple

[BigRedX]

TBH the best delivery service I have had over the past 18 months has been from Royal Mail and Parcel Force. I suspect this is because the same people/drivers service the same area day after day and if you have regular deliveries they get to know the various residents of the area. I've had the Parcel Force delivery driver wait because he spotted me (returning from the Post Office) so he could hand me a parcel (which was a redelivery originally handled by DHL who claimed they "couldn't find my address" and then damaged the parcel).

[gareth]

Yes

Edited December 1, 2021 by gareth

[Trueno]

Parcelforce has just picked up the two amps I’m selling… on time. So far so good…

[yorks5stringer]

22 minutes ago, gareth said:

All the basses I’ve ever shipped have been using parcelforce, unless the buyer insisted on another carrier

 

Ive never had a problem with them

 

 

Conscious I'm going down the rabbit-hole, Parcelforce exclude musical instruments from Enhanced Compensation i.e. anything over £200 that you might pay insurance  for. "Musical instruments are excluded from enhanced compensation. Guitars and brass instruments are particularly prone to damage and should be packed very carefully, in a hard case. See our packaging guidelines for guidance"

[gareth]

On 27/10/2021 at 14:37, yorks5stringer said:

Conscious I'm going down the rabbit-hole, Parcelforce exclude musical instruments from Enhanced Compensation i.e. anything over £200 that you might pay insurance  for. "Musical instruments are excluded from enhanced compensation. Guitars and brass instruments are particularly prone to damage and should be packed very carefully, in a hard case. See our packaging guidelines for guidance"

Yes

Edited December 1, 2021 by gareth