Courier problems

I ordered one of the cheap welding trolleys from eBay that were discussed on here a short while ago. It was dispatched by the vendor within a reasonable time and has been marked as delivered, it has been somewhere but not to me. The courier, DHL, first informed me that my address did not exist so I responded with a detailed description and directions for the driver which they assured me had been noted and printed out (the customer service is probably not even in the UK, so how this would help I have no idea). Today, I received an email informing me that the delivery had now been made, they even sent a photograph of a front door but not my front door. They even stated I signed for it, yeah right! They are now telling me that the driver will be sent back tomorrow to where the parcel was delivered but there is no guarantee anyone will be at home or someone may even deny any delivery was made there. Who knows? Anyway, I am spitting feathers about it and we will have to see what happens tomorrow, if anything.

Even Tom Hanks did better than that!

By contrast [and possibly good fortune] I had a small parcel delivered, efficiently and courteously, today … by the oft-maligned Evri

MichaelG.

Chris, just get onto the seller it’s their problem to sort out but yes very annoying!

Tony

"Chris, just get onto the seller it’s their problem to sort out but yes very annoying!"

I have emailed the seller via eBay informing them about the failed delivery and asking if there is anything they can do from their end, but it's a Chinese company so I don't really hold out much hope there.

BTW, Evri/Hermes and every other courier have never failed to find my address which is, perhaps, not as easily found as a town house, being located in a narrow village lane, but sat-nav can always find it. This is the first problem I have had in all the years I have been buying from eBay.

Talking about couriers, is anyone surprised ???

I was told by one some years ago that my address did not exist ! I said in reply, "I know that, you know that, but the Tax Man does not, he keeps sending me demands, and they get here, strange ?"

I advised them to check with the Inland Revenue, which seemed to do the trick. Item arrived two days later.

OK, open a PayPal dispute.

Tony

"OK, open a PayPal dispute."

Tony, I may have been mistaken. Upon re-checking the order it looks like I ordered the item from what I assume to be a distributor with an address in Derby. I had been looking at others from Chinese suppliers but I must have chosen this particular one for some reason. I don't usually give it much thought because all eBay sellers have been 100% with me so far. I haven't had a response yet but we live in hope!

I am having problems with Amazon at the moment, three times in two weeks items were indicated as delivered handed to the customer, definitely not handed to this customer. It appears one item was left on a neighbours doorstep in pouring rain and not found for three days, another was tossed into another’s garden some way from their house and again not found for a few days. The third item disappeared and has not been found. Anyone tried speaking with Amazon about a problem, good luck with that, you get put through to centres located in the US, Africa and India, communication can be extremely difficult if you have hearing problems and find accent’s difficult to deal with. Dave W

Contact your credit card provider or your bank card provider, explain the situation and say you want your money back.

Tony

"Contact your credit card provider or your bank card provider, explain the situation and say you want your money back."

Tony, I appreciate your trying to be helpful. However, the item was bought via PayPal 'pay-in-three' which is linked directly to my bank account not to a debit or credit card. I have contacted DHL by phone and email and the vendor via eBay but no response as yet. I don't know, at this point in time, but I am thinking along the lines that the vendor will say we dispatched the item and entrusted it to a supposedly reputable courier, DHL will tell them it was delivered (it probably was but not to me) and PayPal will say the transaction was handled correctly by the seller. I will have to be patient and wait to see what tomorrow brings. Even if DHL does send its driver back to where the parcel was purportedly delivered, which I doubt, there is no guarantee that the householder will be at home and even if they are they could just say 'what parcel?'. Perhaps I am being a little overly pessimistic and cynical and hope I am wrong.

If the seller has proof of delivery from the courier there is no recourse as far as ebay are concerned- happened to me, workmen in next house signed for it, never to be seen again!

I did quite a bit of research about DHL for a job application, and for what it's worth, DHL are striving to be a good company, and are pouring money into their delivery business Worldwide. A large fleet of Boeing 777 freighters are going into East Midlands to expand their business here.

We had a box thrown over our fence and I took it to the correct address around the corner. Then about 2 weeks later, a DHL chap rang our door and said he had come to collect the errant box. I told him I had already delivered it, and how annoyed we were by someone else's box being thrown over our fence. The DHL guy told me that the other DHL guy who did that had been sacked.

So it might take a while, But I am fairly confident that they will follow this up. They might get things wrong occasionally, but they are not a cheap corner-cutting company.

Good luck.

(I should explain that I didn't get the job - which would have involved flying those freighters - because unfortunately, I screwed up the Simulator test, and you only get one chance. So that's me buggered. But I do respect DHL as a company and I know they are trying to do a good job)

Edited By John Doe 2 on 06/09/2023 15:47:52

My sympathies. I have found DHL satisfactory until this week.

A consignment of wine arrived from Waitrose 4 days late. A dozen bottles were no longer in their cases and the labels are stained. No explanation has been given.

I have rejected the damaged goods today and await a response.

You probably only get one chance in the real thing as well - just be grateful you were in a simulator

Andy

I know it will be a pain chasing it (especially if certain parties fail to respond) but the fact you have a PoD photo showing a property that is not yours puts you in a stronger position than is often the case in these circumstances - just don't go painting your front door any time soon

But, the way I would handle this is to message the seller and then if not resolved raised a case on ebay. I've had to do this in the past and got a refund - albeit the process takes (from memory) about 10 days.

Andy

Well, what d'yuh know? I am writing this having just picked myself up from the bottom of our stairs having been knocked down by the proverbial feather! (only UK contributors will recognise that). I am humbled, apologise profusely for being so cynical and had my faith in human nature restored. The parcel was collected by the DHL driver from the incorrect address and I was offered a personal apology for his error when he delivered it to me. He had left it at a bungalow on the opposite side of the lane no more than 30 yards from my address. If I had been the householder concerned I would have at least have tried to inform a neighbour of the error as the package was emblazoned with my name and address, not theirs, but there's "now't so queer as folk" as they say.

Anyway, full marks to DHL customer services and their driver. I am now a very happy bunny!

Having once been in a role that involved delivering notices through people's letterboxes, often after dark because I still had a day job, can I put in a plea to have a house number prominently displayed, many houses don't, so if the poor guy is working off a postcode, it then becomes guesswork, or counting up/down from the nearest house which has a number

Unfortunately, the newer properties in the village lane, one of which is mine, have never been numbered. There is a small older terrace at the other end of the lane that is numbered 1 to 4 but that's about all. When I bought the property it had a different name and the vendor wanted to take it with him to another property in the village because it had a family significance. I arbitrarily chose a new name for the house but this was then not recognised by Royal Mail and caused me some difficulty in obtaining insurance and credit until the new name had filtered through their data-base. Whether the district council will ever allocate numbers to these properties, if that is part of their role, I have no idea but I have been here twenty-seven years and there is no sign of that happening any time soon.

I understood that every property, private and business, is supposed to display prominently, their street number, allocated by the local council, I think. Seems like every other house doesn't comply and try playing I-spy for numbers along any major shopping street occupied by large shops. Western Road, Brighton, e.g.

Blame councils with dodgy priorities like being nasty to householders with bushes and trees overhanging pavements. Surely, if they have time and money to waste like that, it must be better to concentrate on property numbers to aid locating addresses? Or am I missing something, perhaps employees with crap uni degrees?