UKC

So I love it when the driver goes the extra mile and leaves a card through the door with a note as to where he has put the parcel if I don't happen to be in. The other day I was having a digital slr delivered and was expecting to have to arrange a post office drop or collection as I could not be in. On the tracking I see delivered and a signature of my name (though not my signature). I get home and YES, the driver has hidden the parcel and put the note through my door.
I'm pleased but feel the driver is really putting himself out on a limb for me (for which I'm grateful).

I like trusting and an honest world but it's not always like that.

What are other peoples thoughts about the whole thing?

Cheers

Toby

In reply to Toby_W:

A couple of years ago, within the space of a week, I had two drivers from two different couriers self-sign for my parcels and leave them on the doorstep (the door was the only door around the back of a large house divided into flats). Great...except it was peeing down with rain. I was not happy.

In reply to Toby_W:

So what do you expect him to do? Come back again and again and again until you just happen to be in by accident. He's probably got 80 to 100 other parcels to deliver, give the guy a break.

In reply to Toby_W:

At least they delivered it. We have a regular problem at work with deliveries that are guaranteed by a certain time. If the driver isn't going to make it in time, he just forges the signature of our receptionist and turns up when he feels like it. So not only is our delivery late, but we waste time looking around for it because we've been told it's here.

In reply to tehmarks:

A couple of weeks ago I was passing my neighbours and saw a strange brown mass on their doorstep, so I investigated. It turned out to be an Amazon package that had been there, in the rain, for several days.
The iPad inside had survived unscathed.

In reply to Toby_W:

I find the systems where they drop parcels off at a local shop, for instance, if you are not in work well. You can then collect it when convenient. Also for lower value items the ability to leave a note saying "leave in the shed", or whatever help.

In reply to Toby_W:

DHL have just delivered 4 of these to our work for no clear reason....

http://www.joanallen.co.uk/Minelab-GPZ-7000-Metal-Detector-p/20400.htm

No sensible offers refused.

In reply to Toby_W:
One particular company that regularly delivers to my mother, always signs themselves for and leaves the parcels round the back. They don't have the time to wait for her to get to the door so just adopted this practice as standard!

Relies on trust - all is well as long as there is trust and nothing goes wrong, otherwise the driver could be in trouble.

In reply to Toby_W:

my local postie will just leave parcel infront of the door, and sometime move the bin to try and hide it but always manage to leave it in plain view from the road.
Its all good when the parcel is still there but i also know that when the time comes where its not, it will be a right bloody mess to sort out.

In reply to Chris Harris:

HOW MUCH!!!!!!! Bloody hell!

In reply to Toby_W:

Hermes delivery can range from brilliant to woeful depending on the driver and because of their franchising setup they do not have a depot where you can collect from if you happen to miss the delivery.
I refuse to buy from companies that only offer hermes delivery and when I have problems with them I make sure to complain to the seller about them so that maybe they'll decide to use a proper parcel company in the future.

In reply to OwenM:

I think you have entirely mis-understood my post.

I am delighted he's done this, he's done me a huge favour at considerable risk to himself.

Pros:
He's a wonderful person.
No real benefit to him.

Cons:
I could be an arse and complain.
I could keep it and say it was never delivered.
Someone else could pick it up and keep it.

Would you take these risks for a stranger. It brightened my day but I worried on his behalf if his kindness came back on him at some point in a negative way.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to gethin_allen:

I love DPD the most, where it tells you who the driver is, shows you where he is, how many delivers he has ahead of yours when he'll be with you and he calls ~10min before to say he'll shortly be there. I even emailed the company to tell them how wonderful I think they are.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to Toby_W:


yeah they are the most useful of the bunch. The one mildly weird thing is they cant actually deliver until the time given. Had one of them waiting a few minutes before he was able to hand it over. Apparently they had changed the software so they couldnt even have it in pending state.

Cant remember which other company offered the same approach. Which I was quite impressed by until I realised that delivery slot 10-10:10 am actually meant "some point today. maybe. if you are lucky. will tomorrow do instead?"

In reply to Toby_W:

Usually they chuck stuff over the back fence which works well. Once they left a parcel behind the bin which we didn't discover for 3 days and it was completely sodden. However it was an umbrella so hard to make a case for water damage.

My all time favourite though was the parcel they actually put in the bin which we discovered when puting the rubbish out!

In reply to Oceanrower:


That's what I thought. We've not found any gold at work yet. At that price, I'd expect the things to be made of the stuff.

Someone, somewhere, is probably going mental at DHL because their £34k worth of kit is missing.

In reply to Chris Harris:


how about £50?
Will pay extra if you dont use DHL to deliver.

In reply to Toby_W:

I used to work for a local courier who acted as agent for a few bigger companies (Fedex, TNT, DPD, Hermes and some others).

Owing to parcels being left and then nicked/folk claiming they hadn't received them, we adopted a system where if people wanted us to leave stuff without a signature, they would sign a letter of indemnity which gave us permission to do so and told us exactly where to leave parcels/any exceptions etc.

This worked really well most of the time. On one of the occasions it didn't was where the parcel was left in the coal bunker (as per instructions) shortly before the customer had 1/2 a tonne of coal delivered.

In reply to Toby_W:

I usually get important / large stuff delivered to work for this very reason.

In reply to Fraser:


My work used to be pretty forgiving about this until some muppet got a shed delivered......

In reply to Toby_W:

Had a bit of a run in with Interlink Express last week. Got the email saying they would deliver that morning. As no-one in, I went online to re-arrange the delivery to our neighbour (had already checked they were in) and got confirmation email for change of instructions.

Either the driver didn't get the update, or ignored it, as I got a picture of our front door and no delivery next door. My wife got home 10 mins later

Went online to re-arrange delivery the next day and it had an option to deliver to local Halfords - as I needed to go there to get a tool to fit the part being delivered, I thought great, selected it and got confirmation email.

Following morning, I get another email saying that the parcel cannot be delivered to store so had to re-arrange it again, left gate open and got them to deliver there, which they duely did.

I didn't go for that as the first option, as didn't want £250 of stuff lying around unsecured, but didn't have much choice in the end.

Worst one I've ever had was a delivery a few years ago which hadn't turned up, no note through the door, several phone calls over a few days to the supplier with assurances they had posted it, must be delayed, etc.
Middle of winter, so hadn't been outside much - happened to go into the back garden for something and completely by chance found the package down between a shrub and the wall, where the courier had just lobbed it over the wall! Fortunately, it wasn't breakable and had been well enough wrapped to survive the elements.

In reply to Toby_W:

Couriers can be a frustrating bunch. My local guy is great but he only collects and then delivers to a central depot who take care of the rest.
We had one vital delivery go missing so I nipped in to see him and was there when he rang the depot.
The conversation from him to them went like this.
"yes I appreciate that things sometimes go missing in the warehouse but this item is the size of a small car and weighs 1.5 ton so I suggest you get off your arse and find it before I drive down there and insert it up your anus "

Suffice to say they found it and delivered it and I got a refund on my next day 9am delivery that I had paid for.
I did have a unhappy customer though.

In reply to Toby_W:

The women who delivers parcels in our area has a habit of putting them in the wheelie bin and chucks a card outside the door on the floor, god knows how many parcels have ended up at the tip.

In reply to Wsdconst:

That one happened to us, came home to a card saying parcel is in the bin, sadly it was bin day and we came home to an empty bin!

In reply to Ferret:

I remember a mate got a sofa delivered from Amazon to work. He was chasing them around the building (I'm round the back as well, I can't see you!...) then after about half an hour realised that he'd accidently bought it on one click delivery to his ex missus's place at the QE hospital in Birmingham, 150 miles away. They were very pissed off!

In reply to OwenM:


I'm not saying it's right or wrong but many of these drivers, especially the ones working for companies such as Hermes, have got horrendous working conditions. They have to use their own vehicle, pay for their own fuel/tax/insurance etc and are getting paid around 30p per parcel. On top of that, if they don't successfully manage a delivery first time they don't get paid but still have to come back. You can see why so many of them forge signatures in order to make the first time delivery.

In reply to Toby_W:
We have a regular postie who knows to leave stuff in a wood store in the back garden. When he went on holiday a few years ago his replacement put a parcel of ink cartridges (Gold dust springs to mind) in our recycling bin ........ on recycling day. Doh

In reply to Ferret:

This sounds familiar, our work was fine with the odd small delivery then someone had two sofas delivered (obviously a mistake on their part) and some other fool had their ocado shop delivered which was the last straw and they announced that any non-work related parcels would not be accepted and would be returned with the courier.
Another example of one persons piss taking ruining it for everyone else.

On a positive note, I bought something from E-bay a few days ago and it's just been delivered to Argos for me to collect later, result!

In reply to OwenM:

I expect drivers NOT to sign for my parcels themselves. It's gross misconduct.

They can leave with a neighbour or return to the depot pending my instructions on redelivery. Or read the instructions they have been sent[1] on how to find my back porch to drop them off, something Amazon drivers seem to have real difficulty doing.

[1] For Amazon I put it as the second line of the address.

In reply to MG:

The description field is often too short for this, though. At least you can now do it.

In reply to Toby_W:

DPD are excellent. They are the only courier company I have ever known that fits that description. Every supplier should use them (even if they cost a little more), and every courier should aspire to be like them.

Notably, their name originates as "Deutscher Paketdienst". I guess we shouldn't be surprised at something well-designed and organised being German

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:

Yes I know I have done this type of work in the past.