A tale of woe - a warning

[fleabag]

Yodel Direct, take a bow you utter bunch of  warthogs. No offence intended to Warthogs.

 

Sold an item here, so off i pootle online to book a delivery.  This was sunday just gone.  Did the usual searches  ( Interparcel -  Parcel2Go  etc )  looked ok, but carried on.  Became obvious that using a drop off point, rather than collect from me, was cheaper by a decent margin, and of course i pick the time of drop off rather than sit in all day waiting.

 

Did some search of courier using their own booking sites instead of a middleman , mentioned above.

 

Never used Yodel Direct, though of course there have been warnings about them, but then at least someone somewhere has had a problem with every courier going. 

I avoid Hermes  ( now called Evri ) at all costs, because of a pitiful experience with them when the driver stole my goods. Thats another story.

 

So, no previous trouble with Yodel, who were the most competetive.  I book online on sunday 28th,  the booking tells me to take parcel to my chosen drop off point on tuesday 30th.

Excellent.  I wait for label to be emailed.   Nothing.  I wait another hour. Nothing.

I go to webchat, and lady says she will email label manually.  She does.

 

I print label, though i could have had it done at the drop off point digitally ( whatever that is ) 

I didnt trust that so i printed the label.  Drive over to the drop off with a 6kg lump and stand at the counter of the shop, and chap comes over with his scanner.

 

" ERROR "

 

Hmmm...strange, says chap.  Taps tracking on label into scanner manually.  " ERROR "     He asks if i have email on my mob.  where the original PDF might be better.

I need internet for this and have to go to the back of the shop to find the shop's wifi.  I find it and have to walk back to the counter to get the code.

He's on the phone with some deliquent muppet at Yodel, and when he's finished, he says they're calling back, but take the parcel to another drop off.

So i dont get to log in to his wifi and show him the original PDF for him to try a scan.

 

I suggest that if they're calling back, i'll leave the parcel with him, with my number, and call me when it's sorted. He says good idea.  That has all taken 30 minutes. The other assitant was also using the one and only scanner for other people bringing parcels. It works fine for them.  Big queue by now.  Obvs. 

Yodel don't call back

 

I foxtrot oscar back home.

 

When i get home, I decide to webchat with Yodel again, and after all the standard rubbish  webchat computer questions dont work, a proper person starts on the webchat. She says it's a bad idea to leave the parcel, so get it back and take it to another Yodel drop off.

So, back i drive to the shop, tell chap what they said, and  he gives me my parcel and i drive to another designated drop off. Its a fuel staion this time.

 

Fuel staion has two tills, but only one till is set up to scan parcels.  That till is broken, i'm told. Of course it is.  Oh deep joy.

I foxtrot oscar again, this time i go home to calm the fack down.  I check for other drop offs on Yodel webby, and there's another out of town.

 

After a cup of lovely Assam , i had noted the shop was open till 8.30 pm.  I drive ( again ) to this new drop off ( Spar shop, like the first one ) at  about 7pm.  Still fuming a tad.

 

Take parcel in, nice lady grabs her scanner  ( ooer ) and guess what kids ?   " ERROR "    She also tries the manual thing, entering the 16 digit number.  " ERROR "

 

I get home and this time i find landline for Yodel the Chimps, and speak to, yup ...a person i cannot understand very well. Bad line and poor English.  We get somewhere in the end, despite her system not recognising the numbers on the label.  She says go to Yodel webby and find  ' CANCEL MY LABEL '

I do this, and after typing this and that in the boxes, i get a message " THIS LABEL CANNOT BE CANCELLED ONLINE "

 

I go back to miss Poor English / Bad Phone Line and of course i get a different person.  Explanation  AGAIN, and this time , although the system still doesnt flag up my label, she has all my details and buyers details, so can see i booked something, and says she will cancel the label  ( how ? ) and i will get refund in 5-7 days.  Strange, it took 2 seconds to take my money when i booked, but a possible week to get my moolah back ?  I guess thats the way of the world.

 

Yesterday  i booked another courier, print label, drive today to drop off. In and out in 30 seconds. Job done.  W T  actual F  ??

 

I had a patient buyer, no panic from them at all, who i kept informed of the appalling shenanigans, but in brief.

Edited October 4, 2022 by fleabag

[TheGreek]

I think most of us have had bad experiences with couriers. 

I generally use PF, the depot is less than a mile away,  I went to school with my local driver and,  having left positive feedback on several occasions, have a good relationship with the senior in the depot. 

 

I have no control once my parcel leaves the local depot but building those relationships seems to have paid off. 

[fleabag]

I probably would have used PF, but i was apprehensive about strikes, and they seem to be more expensive ( at times, anyways )

[Lozz196]

It`s funny but recently I`ve arranged a few parcels via Parcelforce directly and they`ve been cheaper than going via Interparcel/Parcel2go etc, whereas a few years back it was def the other way round. 

[Bassassin]

Been a while since I posted a bass so it may have changed, but the big problem with ParcelFarce was that they were always delighted to upsell you insurance for the value of the contents, while carefully omitting to mention that PF insurance did not cover musical instruments.

[fleabag]

24 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

It`s funny but recently I`ve arranged a few parcels via Parcelforce directly and they`ve been cheaper than going via Interparcel/Parcel2go etc, whereas a few years back it was def the other way round. 

 

Next time maybe they'll be a bit more competetive, so will keep them in mind.

[fleabag]

7 minutes ago, Bassassin said:

Been a while since I posted a bass so it may have changed, but the big problem with ParcelFarce was that they were always delighted to upsell you insurance for the value of the contents, while carefully omitting to mention that PF insurance did not cover musical instruments.

 

Correctamundo, and it wasnt a bass so if they'd been better on price and no possible strikes,  i could have used their services

[Supernaut]

Yodel have never been good. 
 

I normally use Royal Mail. More expensive but much less hassle. 

[fleabag]

Well, thats the thing.  There are people who have not had any bad experiences with  UPS, FEDEX, DPD, PF, etc, and there are people who have had bad experiences at sometime with all of the above, and others. If you were to not bother using a courier because someone said they were useless, then you wouldn't have a courier left to use.

 

I used a courier that i have never had any dealings with in the past, despite others having had bad dealings.

 

Now i know.  They'll never get my money again.  Luckily i had a very patient buyer,  who wasnt ruffled one bit

 

I've used RM and been ok.  But i'm not sure they take parcels of 6kg weight.  Besides, little point using RM right now

Edited September 1, 2022 by fleabag

[Jakester]

I've boycotted Yodel ever since one of their HGV smashed into the back of my car on the motorway, mashing the back end up and the driver refused to give me his details. Cue police being called, who were far more interested in him than me. I gathered from the Highways Agency chaps there may have been a 'discrepancy' between who the licence said was driving, and who actually was driving.

 

In fairness to Yodel I haven't had too many problems when receiving parcels, only in the course of them being delivered (right into the rear end of my car!)

[fleabag]

They're now on my  FU list along with  Hermes/Evri

[chris_b]

So far I haven't had a bad experience in the 6-8 times I've sent bass gear with Interparcel and  DHL. 

 

I hope that doesn't mean I'm due one soon!!

[fleabag]

I remember having a problem, just once TBF,  with a courier booked through Interparcel, and Inter were on the ball, good comms, and i got a refund fairly quickly

[lemmywinks]

The unholy trinity of sh1te couriers is Evri/Hermes, Yodel and DX.

 

 

[Beedster]

Isn't it about time we had a dedicated courier rant forum, or even a new site 'Courierchat' (CC), because it really is entertaining, certainly more than 'Show me your blue basses" threads

 

The below still makes me chuckle, in part because it was mad but also because the guy who finally dropped it off was so completely befuddled by everything, as only a courier at the top of his game could be

 

Come on Ped/Kiwi, we need Courierchat

 

[tauzero]

6 hours ago, fleabag said:

I've used RM and been ok.  But i'm not sure they take parcels of 6kg weight.  Besides, little point using RM right now

 

The Royal Mail strikes are the odd day rather than constant. Delays, yes, but should still get there reasonably quickly. No more strike days for a week.

 

https://www.royalmail.com/latest-news

[Jakester]

1 hour ago, tauzero said:

 

The Royal Mail strikes are the odd day rather than constant. Delays, yes, but should still get there reasonably quickly. No more strike days for a week.

 

https://www.royalmail.com/latest-news

You’d think. I’m still waiting for a fairly expensive piece of kit from eBay, and on chasing the seller, he pointed out there had been Royal Mail strikes -yes but, er, you sent it via Herpes/Evil, not Royal Mail!

[lemmywinks]

10 minutes ago, Jakester said:

You’d think. I’m still waiting for a fairly expensive piece of kit from eBay, and on chasing the seller, he pointed out there had been Royal Mail strikes -yes but, er, you sent it via Herpes/Evil, not Royal Mail!

 

The seller might be copypasting what the eBay tracking says, I've got an item being delivered (well, hopefully) by Evri/Hermes and I get this when I try and track it via eBay:

 

"There was an issue whilst your package was in transit.

We'll update you as soon as more info is available.

Deliveries may take longer than usual due to Royal Mail industrial action."

 

 

[uk_lefty]

All couriers can be awful, I'm sure, but I have found the intermediary companies to be a completely false economy. They might get you a parcel cheaper but if you book through them you are f***ed if anything goes wrong. You can't contact the courier because you aren't the buyer of the service, the intermediary is, and if you contact the intermediary they have zero power or interest to help you AND will not refund you if the courier messes up and your parcel comes back months later looking like Mike Tyson set to work on it. They are a complete blocker to getting any sense out of anything and not worth the small discount they can give. 

[BigRedX]

34 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

All couriers can be awful, I'm sure, but I have found the intermediary companies to be a completely false economy. They might get you a parcel cheaper but if you book through them you are f***ed if anything goes wrong. You can't contact the courier because you aren't the buyer of the service, the intermediary is, and if you contact the intermediary they have zero power or interest to help you AND will not refund you if the courier messes up and your parcel comes back months later looking like Mike Tyson set to work on it. They are a complete blocker to getting any sense out of anything and not worth the small discount they can give. 

 

Not my experience at all.

 

In the days when I was selling A LOT of stuff through eBay, Discogs, and band merch through Bandcamp, pretty much everything (several thousand parcels over 10+ years) was sent by Parcel Force or UPS using Interparcel, which was considerably cheaper than dealing with either company directly. In all that time I had 4 problems - 2 with damaged items and 2 with parcels that disappeared in transit. In every case I was refunded without quibbles in full (both the value of the item and the shipping including any insurance I had paid for). The only time there was a delay was at the beginning of 2021 after all the new customs rules kicked in and the pandemic had further slowed everything down, and Belgian Customs managed to lose my parcel, and that was really only due the various processing delays at the time and needing to make absolutely sure that the parcel had definitely been lost and was not still awaiting customs inspection. However once the delay could no longer be blamed on Customs processing I received my refund within the week. I always found Interparcel's customer services easy to deal with either by telephone or on-line chat.

 

It was certainly far more painless than trying to get compensation for a new album sent to Germany by Royal Mail (dealing with them directly), that was returned several months after sending damaged beyond the point were I could consider even selling as a second-hand item.

 

Having said that, since a significant portion of my sales were to places outside of the UK, I have stopped selling completely as the UK's exit from the EU and various customs changes have made it totally impractical and uneconomical for private individuals to sell to locations abroad. Therefore I haven't sent anything anywhere by any method for almost 18 months now, so my information may be somewhat out of date.

[lemmywinks]

I've also had a payout with Interparcel over a damaged speaker which was quite straightforward.

 

Another time I had to contact their CS for an undelivered parcel as the UPS driver was trying to deliver well outside contracted hours (7pm - 9pm on three occaisions) and although initially the CS was useless once I got through to a higher up (which was straight after I requested it) everything was sorted immediately.

 

 

[uk_lefty]

Based on this, and all other courier rants, the whole thing just seems like a lottery!! Or Russian Roulette.

[Jakester]

10 hours ago, lemmywinks said:

 

The seller might be copypasting what the eBay tracking says, I've got an item being delivered (well, hopefully) by Evri/Hermes and I get this when I try and track it via eBay:

 

"There was an issue whilst your package was in transit.

We'll update you as soon as more info is available.

Deliveries may take longer than usual due to Royal Mail industrial action."

 

 

 

Yep, he has, but it's also shown as 'we have the item' on the Evri website since last Thursday (i.e. over a week now!) 

 

I'm not holding out too much hope TBH. We'll see if it turns up tomorrow and if not, I'm requesting a refund. 

[lemmywinks]

41 minutes ago, Jakester said:

 

Yep, he has, but it's also shown as 'we have the item' on the Evri website since last Thursday (i.e. over a week now!) 

 

I'm not holding out too much hope TBH. We'll see if it turns up tomorrow and if not, I'm requesting a refund. 

 

Mine has been the same for a few days now, as soon as the Evri courier picked it up from the drop off point it went to the "There was an issue while in transit" status. Evri are just generally rubbish and it's pot luck if you get a good driver, for a while we had a woman delivering here who was great but now we just get parcels left on the doorstep in full view.

[fleabag]

Well, DPD came to the rescue.  Cut those muppets Yodel loose, and dropped off my parcel at a local point, Wed PM.  DPD picked up Thurs.  Delivered to my buyer today.

 

What the frig was so hard about that ?   Yodel... take a lesson and then FO