Unreliable Couriers

[waue1978]

What is it with couriers these days? I remember when a courier had to be reliable or they would go out of business. I bought my SRi interior from a guy in Newcastle on 13/4 & had a courier arranged who was going to pick it up on the Saturday 3 days later. The guy was decent enough to take the Friday off work so that he could remove the interior & get it ready for collection on Saturday. Saturday morning comes & I get a text from the courier saying that he's had a couple of problems & won't be able to pick it up & didn't know when he could.

So I arrange another courier. Cost goes up by £20 & they said they could pick it up on the Monday (which I stressed was very important) as they were local to him, but delivery may not be for a couple of weeks until they could get a decent load coming down this way. I was fine with this, but it needed picking up as it was at the guy's workplace. Wednesday morning & this guy still hadn't even had a phone call from the couriers (despite them telling me Tuesday when I chased them up that they'd be calling & picking it up that day) so I went with a quote that appeared on Shiply as the previous crowd had blown their chance.

The new quote stated collection on 25/4, delivery 26/4 & that the quote would expire at 6pm on 20/4, so I accepted the quote, paid a deposit & called the guy to arrange the details. He said they were going way up North this weekend & he was taking a few jobs that could be done on the way back. Sent him an email requesting that he confirm receipt & let me know how he wanted the balance paid. Still heard nothing back so phoned today & lo & behold, he won't be picking it up on 25th either because it's Easter weekend & he made a mistake. Did mention that it was Easter Monday that he was collecting on when I first phoned him & he said it was fine & now this poor guy with my interior has got it sat in his house because he took it home so that this other a**hole could collect on the bank holiday.

Don't suppose anybody here is doing a trip that takes them via Newcastle & Andover within the next 6 months as the rate these couriers are going, I'll still be waiting at Christmas?

[lozz]

sadly Andover is out of my league or id help,

Newcastle to manchester i couid do
if you couid then find someone to pick up from manchester and pass the parcel is all ican think of

[waue1978]

Cheers for the offer anyway Lozz. At least the seller's been fairly decent up until now, but I honestly wouldn't blame him if he was pi**ed off. Honestly wasn't in that much of a hurry to get it down here, but this guy did need it picked up a bit sharpish.

[lozz]

Have you tried Dhl p2g etc
ive had stuff deliverd by them didnt have any probs,

ionce had a mac pc deliverd from wales by a stupid wankin courrier and they smashed the screen thats the only problem ive had ..ive had a few things arive a day late but never had a none pickup/delivery,
ive rang round a few buddys who are transporters ive asked if any of them are going down south to let us know,
Furthest iget is oxford iwill be up in sunderland peelaw-grange next week -which isnt too far from newcastle so icouid of picked it up no probs its just getting it the rest of theway

[waue1978]

Did contemplate DHL etc, but they all require goods to be packaged & not everybody has access to pallets & shrink wrap. Plus the goods get bounced around a couple of RDCs before they get delivered & that's usually where the damage gets done.

[FarmerPug]

most of the stuff i order comes by royal mail, for a while the postman left them you were not in slips, but its all arranged now for him to put the parcels in the garage, even a pen is provided in the flower pot for signatures.
ive never used any other company, but i suppose royal mail doesnt actually go and collect stuff.

[sirwiggum]

AVOID DHL

I bought a replacement non-rusty door for the 406 and they "delivered" it. Opened up the wrapping and its covered in dents and the door corners are wrapped in like the cover of an old cheap paperback.

Also avoid Home Delivery Network, unless you want your stuff bounced over a 6 foot fence, or left on the doorstep for anyone to nick.

[FarmerPug]

Parcel force is good I sent Jamjars wing and he got it quick and never mentioned any problems

[trem1]

you gotta postcode from where they need picking up from?? might be able to collect and store them in my shed no promises mind,have to have a clear-out first

[waue1978]

3rd courier didn't phone today, as he promised he would, so I phoned him at the end of the working day.

More excuses. Won't be able to collect until next Tuesday now. Had a few choice words with him & told him I would no longer be requiring his services. Have now booked with Palletways - I know it's back to the problem of having to be palletised, but these guys offer to palletise on collection so there's no need for the seller to pi** about with pallets at home. Ironically they're also cheaper than any of the other couriers have quoted so I've decided I'm going to send the price difference to the seller to go towards making up for all the hassle.

[waue1978]

Glendale Transport were brilliant. The service was supposed to be a 48hr economy, but they picked up last Wednesday (the same day as they received payment) & delivery was made Tuesday afternoon (don't forget there was a Friday & Monday bank holiday) so well chuffed with them.

However the Shiply saga is not as great. After sending emails to their Customer Support to try to find out how to go about getting my money back from this f*ckwit of a Mickey Mouse courier I got no response so I opened a Paypal dispute. Still no response, so I escalated to a claim in which they were quick enough to respond by saying that it wasn't for tangible goods & wasn't covered. After doing a bit of checking up, it turns out that services are indeed not covered by Paypal & Shiply themselves seem to have no interest in whether their couriers are reliable or not as they get their fee as soon as the customer accepts the bid.

So the moral of this story is, if you need something delivered or collected, do NOT under any circumstances use Shiply.com. Deal with couriers or pallet companies direct. At least then you know who you are dealing with before you've spent a penny (unlike Shiply which doesn't give any phone numbers or company names until you've paid them their fee).