Courier Companies

dee4life2005

I had to send my Mio Cyclo 100 (competition prize) back for a warranty repair, and the repair company kindly put the wrong name on the delivery address label, although the address was correct. It was being shipped by DPD, whom I have had nothing by excellent service from in the past so I was glad when I saw they were the courier. I wasn't in when the tried to deliver and I had the card through the door. Fine so far. I go on to their website and re-arrange for delivery instructing them to leave it in the garage, and I left the "sorry we missed you" card with my signature for them to complete the delivery - as instructed.

I checked the tracking and it said it had been delivered, but when I got home it was nowhere to be seen, and the card was still at the door ... hmmm, odd.

Turns out they had seen the wrong name on the delivery address, realised that that name doesn't live at the address given and decided to play detective and delivered to the first person they found in the street with that surname. Thankfully it was a trustworthy person who recognised my name from the Job Sheet INSIDE the parcel.

Personally I think this is shocking, but has anyone else had this happen to them ?

I feel like writing them an email asking them WTF ...

spasypaddy

at least its not shittylink and wiggle

Tricycleboy

Yep. DPD left a rather expensive new bass guitar with the shop below my flat. I'd much rather have gone to pick it up from them another day, than they leave it at the wrong address with somebody they hoped would give me the package.

Every other time i've had things delivered by them they've been great. Must just be the odd lazy driver who doesn't want to go back the next day.

mroli

"Shocking"? Really? I reckon they thought that they were probably trying to do the person a favour - you could have quite easily come on here and said the name was right, but the address was wrong. They made a mistake, but no harm done?

dee4life2005

Sorry, but I just don't see it. If someone had been in and said to the delivery driver "sorry, no person of that name here" then fair enough to try to determine who the intended recipient may have been, but to do this on a whim when no-one was in at the address as stated on the label is bang out of order in my book.

veronese68

Sounds like a classic case of damned if you do damned if you don't. We send hundreds of parcels out every day and often get complaints that a parcel wasn't left with a neighbour.
Had DPD had the right name and the wrong house number another person may have complained that they'd had deliveries from them before and they should have known where to deliver it to.
The parcel never got lost, it was traceable to the address delivered to so had that person decided to be difficult processing a claim wouldn't be very hard to do.

dee4life2005

maybe I just need to get out on the bike and chill out.

tiny_pens

Guy at work had a vacuum he ordered left in the empty recycling bin at the side of the house - on bin day. The bin men came and emptied the bins even though they weren't put out the front that day. Fortunately it wasn't the recycling bin that day but he could have been a very distressed person the next day. No harm done and still the easiest result all round (parcel delivered, bins emptied)

Ber Nard

dee4life2005 wrote:

Turns out they had seen the wrong name on the delivery address, realised that that name doesn't live at the address given and decided to play detective and delivered to the first person they found in the street with that surname. Thankfully it was a trustworthy person who recognised my name from the Job Sheet INSIDE the parcel.

Maybe I'm missing something but how would they know it was the wrong name? They deliver to a specific address not a specific person.

Rob

veronese68

dee4life2005 wrote:

maybe I just need to get out on the bike and chill out.

Rarely a bad idea.

dee4life2005

Ber Nard wrote:

Maybe I'm missing something but how would they know it was the wrong name? They deliver to a specific address not a specific person.

Rob

That's kind of what I was getting at, as there was nobody in to tell them "sorry, nobody by that name here". It seems that they've somehow determined themselves that the name on the address label is wrong, perhaps because I've had parcels delivered using them before so they've checked their records and found this discrepancy in their database.

They're detailed tracking history (not available online) shows:

Driver let "sorry we missed you" card but since found out customer does not live at address. Have found a number for a Mr Bloggs, have called it and waiting a call back from the customer to confirm address

So at this point they've decided to change the delivery address to something completely different to the one from which they were contracted to delivery the parcel to. This was done solely by them, without any authorisation from the repair company who requested the parcel delivered. Surely this is somehow a breach of contract.

I'm not overly bothered, now I've had a chance to chill, as I got the parcel with no harm done.

Leaving a parcel in a bin, or with a neighbour is one thing, and they usually still put a card through your door to tell you where they've put it. In this case I had no idea where the parcel had been delivered, and I only received it due to the un-intended recipient opening the parcel and recognising my name from the Job Sheet that thankfully was inside.

Corporate Camper

I would imagine he might have spoken to one of your neighbours who said that the name on the paperwork wasn't the guy that lives in your house (that's you) it would explain finding this out after leaving the note.

If it really had been "right person, wrong address" then the courier would probably have received some praise for his detective work...

Doesn't sound like a big deal to me.

Big_Paul

This is a timely thread because I have a card through the door from Yodel for a parcel I had arranged to be delivered to my work, pretty crap from the ebay seller and crap from Yodel as the tracking number on the card isn't recognized by the system. In the days before Amazon etc, I worked for a courier company and if nobody was in, the parcel went back to the depot, no leaving it anywhere as a bloke had left a very expensive home PC system with a neighbour who denied everything, but these days stuff is usually chucked under fences, left on the doorstep etc.

Of course if the courier companies actually had a human you could speak to, the problem would be easier to sort out, not some automatic system that doesn't recognize the tracking number.

spen666

Several issues come to mind here, but part of this problem is chickens coming home to roost for consumers

We demand everything as cheap as possible and how do companies cut costs, to compete with rivals? By reducing quality of service.

veronese68

spen666 wrote:

Several issues come to mind here, but part of this problem is chickens coming home to roost for consumers

We demand everything as cheap as possible and how do companies cut costs, to compete with rivals? By reducing quality of service.

So true about so many things. Why has the whole horse meat thing happened? I spend every day battling with people who moan about quality, but buy on price.

Edited because the profanity filter doesn't like female dogs.

redvee

One possible reason for parcels being left in bins, with neighbours etc is that some of the drivers are self employed but work for DPD, DHL etc and are only paid on successful deliveries.