The sh** show that is Royal mail / ParcelForce

[Leonard Smalls]

1 hour ago, Lfalex v1.1 said:

I've received an Email with tracking reference. 

I've had this a lot with various delivery firms...

It basically means that they've received notification that this parcel exists but that they haven't been actually given the item yet. 

You'll get next day delivery after they've finally found and scanned the thingy!

[Lfalex v1.1]

It's arrived. Nearly 36 hours after the first Email... 😐

 

Nice cab, though. Sounds good.

[Chienmortbb]

I tend to send a lot of small parcels containing cables that I have made to fellow BCers. I have sent with both Royal Mail and Evri in the past but even though they cost more for many parcels, Evri were .....unreliable. Royal Mail are generally fine, often delivering second class next day,

 

When I see DHL or DPD on the postage/shipping from anywhere, my heart sinks. 

[tauzero]

I thought I'd add another anecdotal experience. Sold a Precision pickup(s) to a BCer in Luxembourg, to avoid customs declarations did this via another BCer in Norn Iron. Posted using 24 hour tracked on December 2nd. Delivered December 9th, a mere week later. Even Evri is quicker and more reliable than that.

[Downunderwonder]

It took 3 days and a poke from me to have NZPost USA depot acknowledge my parcel had arrived. Then they left off my postcode at this end when forwarding.

 

You type your address into their widget and it spits out your postcode. I guess the AI sorting machine doesn't need no postcode no more.

[Chienmortbb]

8 hours ago, tauzero said:

I thought I'd add another anecdotal experience. Sold a Precision pickup(s) to a BCer in Luxembourg, to avoid customs declarations did this via another BCer in Norn Iron. Posted using 24 hour tracked on December 2nd. Delivered December 9th, a mere week later. Even Evri is quicker and more reliable than that.

I can only speak from my own experience. I used to use Evri as they were cheaper, and I could drop them at the shop around the corner. Several issues including one huge cock-up meant a massive delay. Add very poor handling, and added failure by me to properly secure a vital component, and a fellow BCer and I nearly fell out. This was the last of many "exciting" adventures with Evri for me. It is amazing that @JohnDaBass is still even civil toward me. 

 

The final straw was when taking a large parcel (well within Evri's maximum size) to the corner shop, I was told they would not accept it and I should take is to the Post Office 2 miles away. Don't get me wrong, RM/PF are a long way from perfect, but amalgamating the two parts of the business seems to make sense and will hopefully work for everyone.

 

[probonopublico]

I would not touch ParcelFarce with the longest stick in the country.  I've entrusted them with two basses and in both cases they failed. On the first occasion the driver said they had attempted delivery but no on was in. They had been in all day.  The purchaser contacted the driver who admitted he had been nowhere near and had to put attempted for their IT systems.  

 

Second occasion they damaged the bass. I tried to claim but I needed to prove how much I'd purchased it for. Difficult as this was in 1979.

 

Terrible company. Very very difficult to get in touch with them.  

Edited January 3 by probonopublico

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

When purchasing from Amazon, sometimes the Amazon seller uses Royal Mail or EVRI ! I got caught out a couple of times ,and notice the “Amazon” service deteriorating because of this . ( Not Royal Mail, but EVRI in my case) . The tell tale signs of delays and unavailable tracking ,and even stuff delivered a day later is way out of line !

I always have to double/ triple check what courier is being used .I shouldn’t have to !

 

I saw a big company selling speaker stands for my Sonos speakers  on eBay . Good price etc.  . Then I looked at the feedback and declined their offers ,because they use EVRI They lost a sale but are probably oblivious as to why . The bigger a commission gets ,the worse the customer service is imho 

[JazzyJ]

Ok, this is Yodel's attempt at delivery to my friends address. Honestly 🙄.

 

 

 

[Lozz196]

Well assuming it’s a bloke he can clearly dispute it seeing as that’s the ladies!

[JazzyJ]

6 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

Well assuming it’s a bloke he can clearly dispute it seeing as that’s the ladies!

Yeah, the gents are out of sight on the r/h side. The customer service advisor was quite apologetic, All is good, t'was a laugh in the pub though 😆.

[attackbass]

I can concur Parcelforce are an absolute joke.

 

I'm waiting for a bass I've bought. Should've arrived yesterday technically, eventually tracking updated last night to say it was in a South Midlands Mail Centre and would be with me tomorrow between 10:30 - 2:30 and that has not changed since.. and now if it does by some miracle arrive tomorrow there won't be anyone around to receive it and probably the same Friday. Absolute shit show! Even more furious that I have paid for this lack of service... argh!

 

 

[Aidan63]

For balance, I won a bass on Ebay auction late Sunday evening [after my bed time] (bit surprised no one else bid on it tbh as there were 40 plus watching it); paid first thing Monday morning, Monday early evening seller sent the tracking info and expressed hope it would ship Tuesday enclosing picture of package and label;  it did get collected, tracking updated on collection and later that evening to show at hub, then this morning email saying delivery today and 12.07 the driver arrived and knocked on next door unit and, as Gary wasn't in, put it in his shed and dropped a note through the door to say in shed. I heard him knock so went round and asked, guitar box, this size ? Yes he confirmed, I said it's for me unit 7, he got the parcel back out of shed and sure enough my name and my Unit number on the label, so he handed it over, but also showed me his delivery app which clearly had the address as Unit 6 - now how does a scanned label correctly addressed end up creating an entry on a drop list with the wrong number on it, that shouldn't be possible, someone somewhere must have done a manual data entry, I guess when they were assigning the parcels to the subcontractor Polish driver who is actually covering half our district, because all the Parcelforce drivers who could left their employ over the last couple of years and they can't recruit new drivers on the new Ts&Cs they are offering now they are owned by some foreign billionaire. We've had 3 new PF drivers who all left inside a week in the last year, one of whom is now a Sainsbury delivery driver, which isn't a well paid job, but less hassle and stress than working for PF as he was happy to tell me last month when he delivered my beanz and muesli 🙃

We are lucky here, the posties do a great job and collect and deliver a lot of the smaller PF items, even though its more work for them for which they get diddly squat for and the Posties' depot is 25 miles from the PF one. It does show sometimes as the stuff collected doesn't always make the trunk run to the regional hub that night, but they do deliver everything they receive as soon as possible, often a day earlier than expected as they like to clear the decks each day as much as possible.

Now we have a regular Evri driver again even they are pretty reliable, the problem with Evri seems to be collections from drop off shops (autogenerated manifests not actually checked against packages I reckon) and theft and kpi driven prioritisation at the central hub - in last year 4 packages lost or delayed by up to a month, in every case fine till supposedly at the hub. The one that arrived after a month had clearly been found on the naughty step at the drop off location a few weeks later.

Parcel companies can all hit a KPI of 99.95+% daily, it's what they do with the 0.05% of a million packages that is the difference between them, and none excel with those, but some seem to take more responsibility than others.

[Linus27]

I've just recently sold a bass and used Parcelforce Express as they had generally been absolutely fine in the past. Booked the collection on Sunday for Monday collection from my work address. This is the safe option as I work in logistics, shipping etc. so we know all the drivers and couriers. No tracking or anything available despite a tracking number so getting a bit worried. Parcelforce turn up at 4.30pm and the driver says he's come to collect the parcel but can't actually take it as head office haven't bothered to print the shipping labels but he thought he'd turn up anyway 🙄 So I make a few phone calls and its picked up the following day and delivered today. Quite bizarre really.