Deliveries - all broken it seems…

Had 4-5 parcels this week with no problems.

Even Evri.

I thought it was just me. One blind lost by courier company had to despatch another should have taken 5 days ended up 3 weeks.

Also this month 3 parcels despatched a fortnight ago Parcelforce. Smallest package arrived within 48hours (last Tuesday). Other 2 stuck at depot. Chased again today and a replacement 2 parcels have now been despatched should arrive by Friday. 2 weeks for a 48ht delivery 🫤

Have had several Evri parcels disappear down the "there has been a delay" hole in the last week. One is supposedly with the local courier but also inexplicably missing. Parcelfarce / Royal Snail are slower than usual, but at least things are getting through.

Everything has been arriving on schedule (or even early!)

Amazon stuff seems OK and I have had the odd RM delivery actually, but most of my stuff is MIA currently.. 🤷‍♂️

Literally as I type UPS sent an email saying my delivery which was expected between 3 and 5 today has been rescheduled...

2 evri deliveries,on time
2 royal mail deliveries, on time
1 royal mail collection, on time.

There’s a combination of things at play at once:
RM strike, so Amazon and others passing deliveries onto other couriers, some with no experience of areas/routes.
Driver shortages - this hasn’t gone away and with peak season, the poor payers are going to be short.
On Monday morning my local PO was queued out the door with folks posting parcels - we haven’t hit the peak yet.
As a postie, we’ve been just about able to cope clearing the backlog up to now but with extra coming through from Black Friday, I can see it starting to back-up from today and tomorrow’s strike - we have no depot/local storage so we have to send it back.
We’ve also been told there’s no overtime available to clear the backlog- only to work our contracted hours.

Three in the last week, all with evri, all have "unexpected delays. Annoyingly resent with another courier with sender saying refuse delivery or you'll have to pay for both. I'll be explaining to CRC that they can arrange pick up at a time convenient to me

Dhle global seems to be stalled at Cincinnati for me 🙁

UPS has been a horror story for a few years now. The courier business has been a race to the bottom for a while and the pressure on staff numbers and brexit hasn't helped at all. UPS had given up all pretence of providing a premier service, has stopped offering compensation for late deliveries and stopped express altogether IIRC. They pick an excuse from their standard list according to mood. We've tried the other operators and they're worse. 🙄

Having said that everything I've ordered in recent months had I think been delivered by evri without problems. 🙂

I've just been sticking to Amazon and making sure it was being delivered by their vans, haven't had a problem. I did have to order one thing that could only come via Royal Mail though, even with 2 strike days just after I ordered it arrived within 4 days and was literally handed to me as I walked out the door to go to the party it was needed for!

Driver shortages – this hasn’t gone away and with peak season, the poor payers are going to be short.

Is a major issue right now. Drivers looking for short term work can pick where they work so they only do the easy routes for maximum coin, the tough routes and poor payers are really struggling. The DPD depot just outside Bristol is usually devoid of vans during the day but the last week or two it's had half of them just sat there with other couriers on the loading bays, picking up the work they want and presumably charging a high price to do it.

Amazon is good, even had 'next day' stuff turn up first thing in the morning recently. Evri a bit hit and miss but that's the tracking system and depot's. Once it's with our local delivery lass it gets here pronto. They lost part of a bit order for us last year.

Asda fluffed up an order for a Nintendo Switch last week - order cancelled by them a couple of hours before delivery, driver then turns up with 'delivery' but can't find the item, checks again on his tablet and the order has then gone (he wouldn't have got to me without an order). To top that off I've been charged twice for it. Still showing as 'pending' on my account.

I've got one stuck with Evri 'expecting it' and one that Yodel(🙄) say they've delivered through the letter box but haven't!!

I'm not blaming Evri for the company not giving it to them yet. 4 days thought and £5.50 delivery for a T shirt.

One of my deliveries was dispatched and Evri just said expecting it for 3 days before I contacted the supplier who without question just said looks like it’s lost so we’ll send another via next day DPD. Got a dispatch email notification to that effect promptly followed by an email from DPD saying it will take at least an extra day which might change so check back later….

Still not got my stuff - payment was effective immediately though….🙄

Awaiting a postal delivery that's now a week late, no one wants to say how long I have to wait before getting a refund... not the end of the world.

Ordered a load of Christmas presents last week and they have all arrived, some earlier than advised, amazon again.

Have one package at customs as we speak...

Lost an order from Europe in the summer, got a refund and parcel never did arrive.  Nervous at the moment as I have a bike frame coming into the country from Europe... though I can wait on this as its mine and not a present for anyone but me 😉

Rats, that'll explain why my wheelset from Merlin didn't turn up. More than 24hrs to deliver a wheelset with free postage? What an outrage!

Everything still arriving at oab_towers just fine at present.

No problems with delivery's. Always get stuff delivered to work.
The Yodel guy is a bit of a pain though as we haven't got a designated place and he still leaves parcels by the cardboard bin.
His answer is that if we won't pick a designated place then he will rather than try and rearrange a delivery

DPD out of the Rhumney depot seem to be having major issues currently. I am on good terms with the regular driver on our round but he is only doing a couple of days a week and you can guarantee if he's not on then there is an "unexpected delay". The last package took a week of delays before Majiec delivered it. If the DPD delivery comes from the Hereford depot then no issues.
To be honest, I would much rather they say there was an unexpected delay (code for we have too many parcels to even contemplate delivering to you out in the sticks until we get a few more in the area to make it worth while doing a drop), than have the message saying they called but no-one was home (there is always someone home, it is a working farm!)

I have had quite a few issues with both Hermes and Amazon deliveries over the last couple of weeks, still waiting to be resolved, parcels lost or just simply not being delivered.

I guess we are into silly season for deliveries etc.

DPD wound me up a couple of days ago, had notification on Monday that a parcel would be delivered Tuesday and I'd get a 1 hour time slot usually by 11am. At 7pm I get a notification it will be delivered in the next hour so start tracking the van, it was on 4 of 14 when next refresh was "sorry we missed you" and a grainy photo taken nowhere near my house (and I have cctv so they def didn't attempt delivery). I would have been ok with "sorry, driver had a problem so can't deliver today" rather than implying I wasn't in - I then found out it's seemingly impossible to complain via the DPD web-site which wound me up even more. Fortunately it got delivered the following day anyway :p

Don’t know about the couriers, but there’s only limited options on the RM PDA for failed deliveries such as “inaccessible” or “addressee gone away” rather than “There’s too many deliveries for me to cope” or “my van’s too small to deal with all the 💩 you order” or “why not go down the local shops you lazy ****er”

3 parcels expected yesterday. 2 with DPD unexpected delays and a RM that didn't turn up. Hope today brings better luck.

Had a new frame delivered from South Africa yesterday, four days via FedEx. No complaints.

DPD are brilliant, or our local driver is. Ordered 3 days ago, nominated safe place, just had photo sent confirming. I m in Spain, delivery in uk.

Here in Spain I organise collection where poss from local depots, they are all on same estate. Batch all collections till I m next there and so them in 1 go.

Evri have just proudly sent me an email announcing that the £300 Garmin gps I ordered last week from wiggle was delivered at 11.30 this morning, attached was a photo showing the box sitting atop the recycling bin surrounded by empty cans and milk cartons in full view of anyone passing and likely to get piss wet through. What is up with these people? How can I make wiggle aware of thjs?

I was speaking to our regular and very helpful DPD man yesterday.

They are absolutely flat out, very short staffed. DPD changed the contracts a few months ago and a lot of them just walked out. He has a number of contracts with them and subs the work out. He was going to pack them all in, then DPD offered improved conditions.

I think I'm due my new morticer today. Just checked the DX delivery site and it looks like it though hasn't given any definites or express times of delivery, but I'm hopeful.

Parcel is coming from Axminster in Devon, overnight and the company is usually very good so I'm hopeful.

UPS - 1 day early

DHL - On time

Amazon - 1 day early

Evri  - about 3 or so delivered on time  including 1 that was delivered 18 hours after the wife placed an Oasis order - how???

Ordered something yesterday, paid extra for DPD next day.

Got an email confirming delivery today.

Just received another telling me that it's delayed, due to "unexpected issue".

Bugger. Can't remember the last time DPD let me down?

'Phil' from Parcelforce is delivering my bike frame in the next 25 minutes according to the online tracker 🙂

3 parcels expected yesterday. 2 with DPD unexpected delays and a RM that didn’t turn up. Hope today brings better luck.

RM were on strike yesterday, and today, so you'd need more than luck for them to arrive.

Hmm, CR package which vanished into the Evri Oubliette a week ago finally got delivered an hour ago - to the greenhouse of the old guy who lives round the corner....

As an online store the couriers have been a nightmare recently. RM has always been very good until the strikes but the strike days and the knock on effects mean that we had to change to Amazon shipping (via 3rd party fulfillment), they lost more in a few weeks that 5 years of RM!. Fair dues it's very easy to make a claim, but they must be trying to do the others out of business as that level of loss is not sustainable.

It sounds like STWers are very understanding with retailers, unfortunately not customers is...

So if tracking says it's delivered but it hasn't been delivered, what can I actually do? Its not an expensive item but I don't wnt to lose money. Just some hydraulic hose bought from ebay? I've raised it with ebay and the seller has just said "tracking says delivered". Am I shafted now?

This is Yodel btw, who I have contacted. They may well have delivered it through a letterbox, just not my letterbox....

That's still the seller's problem- they can claim it with their courier

Cool, I'll see what happens over the next few days....

"That’s still the seller’s problem- they can claim it with their courier"

yeah, as a shop, let alone an ebay seller  I can tell you that is easier said than done - we usually end up writing off anything lost by a courier - obvs the customer always gets a refund/replacement though.

DHL, for 2nd week appear to have failed to deliver our Aktar frozen food deliveries on the right day. Got a replacement sent out because the food had defrosted and couldn't be refrozen and the replacements are also delayed. Hopefully the fact the weather is awful should mean it stays frozen until tomorrow this time.

I had three I was waiting for. One delivered on time today by Evri. Can’t say I’ve had a problem with them even when they were Herpes. Our local delivery man is pretty decent also.
Just waiting one from Royal Mail and another from Chronopost which is part of DPD I think. That’s currently leaving Paris!

Other half is waiting for three also one DPD and two Royal Mail none arrived yet.

Broken - or outright lying barstards

Been waiting in all day. Im on the ground floor and sit facing the window and nope no van has stopped 🙁

Im checking through the day for updates on the tracking, said put on van 9am this morning.

About 5:50pm(last delivery time 6pm) i check tracking again to find it updated with HOUSE- CARD LEFT. And no it wasnt, no card left, no van stopped. Nothing,nowt,zilch, a clear falsehood.

I can understand it might be busy, or a parcel delayed, but i cant and wont understand a complete outright lie, because by saying that a missed delivery card was left, it puts the emphasis on me to rearrange delivery, and if i dont they they return it to source and it costs to have it all rearranged with me having to pay it.

So I've informed the delivery company they're driver is talking bollocks. No card was left, no van stopped and what are they going to do about it, and I'll email axminster tools and tell them the same thing.

I ordered something on Friday, confirmation said delivery 2 to 3 days, got home Tuesday to find a ‘we missed you’ note from DPD, which surprised me, as I hadn’t had a delivery notification. Had an email to say it would be delivered between 2pm to 3pm Wednesday, but I was going to be out. Left a note to the driver to leave the parcel in a black kitchen bin I bought especially for the purpose, (I’ve drawn a white envelope on the lid with a white paint pen and it sits just around the side of the house). Had a delivery notification while I was in town having a coffee, parcel was in the bin when I got home.
I have used the Amazon system with a pick-up at a local shop as well, which works just fine.

I can understand it might be busy, or a parcel delayed, but i cant and wont understand a complete outright lie,

I've had this several times.  I assume its about the driver getting paid.  they do only get paid peanuts per parcel.  When I questioned the courier company they said the driver did attempt to deliver and left a card.

Sometimes it's down to the driver running out of time. Maybe traffic, hard to find places, van breaking down. Could be anything.

Drivers have a specific time window to deliver each parcel. They get penalised if too many are late so might be better for them to skip a couple to get back on track. They don't have a 'ran out of time' option on their pod system so they might say 'no one in' and get back on track.

Annoying for sure but it's kind of side effect of driver having to game the system to not loose out rather than anything aimed at you personally.

So, UPS delivery today….. I have a login for the app so I have set my “Not in” preferences to be leave in my shed which is in the back behind a 6ft fence with a locked,  solid, gate - I unlock it when I know I’m going to be out and am expecting a delivery. Anyhow, today I am in and car is on the drive so gate is locked. Mid afternoon I get an email saying my parcel has been delivered and sure enough there is a calling card in the letterbox saying my parcel is in the shed. I go out to the shed and my parcel is there. The gate is locked.

So I look on the CCTV as I definitely didn’t hear the bell or any knocking on the front door.

UPS driver turns up - not in a UPS van/uniform so a contractor of some sort. Anyway he doesn’t ring the bell but straight away goes for the gate, finds it locked. Comes back to the front, checks the number on the house - still doesn’t knock. Goes back to the road checks his pod device looks at the house again and then goes back to the gate. Climbs over the 6 foot fence and leaves parcel in shed then comes to front door and puts note in….

I guess it was his first day on the job and he misunderstood the “not in “ preference as a default…

It's worth bearing in mind that often at this peak time of year, some couriers reach capacity and the excess items end up diverted into the Royal Mail system. Obviously with the current RM strike action, that isn't happening.
A current example heard through the grapevine regarding DPD: "71,000 items came into the Liverpool depot this morning but over 20,000 was left today as can’t cope".

If the backlogs caused by strike action aren't bad enough, you then have Royal Mail management currently slashing overtime (and in some offices banning OT completely) - the result is much of the delayed workload sitting in the delivery office being further delayed.

The whole system is a bit of a shitshow at the moment.

I think we've had it too good for too long with retailers and their "free delivery". It's not free and factored into the cost of goods. Courier costs have increased massively so retailers moving to the cheaper options - Yodel/Hermes etc to ensure they can still offer free delivery

The UK staffing crisis, cost of living, and fuel costs are hitting all these companies hard so hardly a surprise the service has gone downhill.

I work in specialist retail and we run two vans. Trying to find p/t staff to work in store or drive a van is a nightmare.

Put it all into perspective and remember a time before Amazon Prime and the delivery culture we've become accustomed to.

I'm sure none of it has anything to do with Brexit of course..........

Our local postie is brilliant. We have a parcel box at the end of the drive but really big ones won’t fit and he will always make the effort to hop the fence and hide them behind the wheelie bins.

Amazon Prime is frighteningly effective. Looked at Lego store etc for some stuff off the boys Christmas list and cheaper on Amazon and delivery is faultless including Sundays.

DPD and DHL for others recently were ok but if it doesn’t fit in the parcel box it has to be re delivered to a collection point or to work. Can be a challenge as will only allow redirection within certain areas and can be a pain.

Local Evri lady is great too but just far too random when it actually gets to her for her to deliver.

Yodel randomly leaves the Gousto order somewhere each week but it does get delivered

Seems other than Amazon the end point delivery is very dependent on who the local delivery driver is.

Been quite painful, just waiting for a brake hose, last thing needed to finish my dream hardtail. Delivery taking ages. waaaaa!

I just received a new frame from a the Bike Stable in Grimsby, took five days for them to ship but it was free postage and they use a local guy who delivers motorbikes around the Uk, he picked it up from the shop the previous night and delivered it straight to me in Berkshire for 9am the following morning, non of this processing hub or tracking number malarky, just straight from shop to van to me, with a text from the driver telling me what time he'd drop it off, its definitely the way to go....

What are people doing about eBay deliverys not turning up. Like when is it okay to say it hasn't turned up if it was sent 2nd class on the 18th?

A current example heard through the grapevine regarding DPD: “71,000 items came into the Liverpool depot this morning but over 20,000 was left today as can’t cope”.

Had a phone due to arrive Wednesday this week via this depot. Delayed till Thursday by them. I'm not in, so I delay delivery till Monday coming. Came home, and found a card from dpd with handwritten note from driver saying "I'm on till 7. Let me know when you're in".

Rang him. 10 mins later and he's back with the phone! Proper amazeballs.

He said anytime you've got a dpd delivery and aren't in, just leave a note on your door and they'll try to come back.

RM will be gone inside a year. Unless government stands behind it.

Just read my reply on the other delivery post , you'll get an insight then .