Damn City Link, useless shower of muppets!!!!

Bought a bike off here at the end of last week. The very kind seller sent it via City Link and paid extra for Saturday morning delivery.

So I wait in Saturday. No delivery. Definitely Monday they say. Monday comes, Monday goes. No delivery. Definitely Tuesday they say. Tracking info on Tuesday shows it’s gone nowhere since Friday. “Oh”, they say! It’s been misrouted to Inverness. We’ll get it sent to Edinburgh for delivery tomorrow (Wednesday, i.e. today). I check the tracking info this morning and it’s showing as being in transit to delivery depot. So I ring them up. “Oh”, they say! It was sent from Glasgow to Inverness last night, so will be with you tomorrow. But I thought it was in Inverness yesterday morning, I ask. Oh no, it was in Glasgow, they say. So why wasn’t it sent to Edinburgh? Cos it was sent to Inverness.

Argggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

I thought this rant would help calm me down, but it hasn’t.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

You do know your bike has gone nowhere.
They built ramps using other peoples parcels and a foam Pit out of bubble rap and have been taking it in turns to do back flips on your bike.

To be honest, I’m half expecting the next update to be along the lines of “Oh, we’re not sure where it is now”.

I’ve now told them to return to sender as won’t be around now to sign for it. Fortunately the seller is a top bloke. Just wondering how many more cock ups there will be before it eventually gets back to him

All couriers can be like this. Best excuse I had was Nightspeed – the conversation with the local depot went like this:

“We’re afraid your bike has completely disappeared”
“Disappeared how?”
“Well, one minute it was in the depot, and then it wasn’t”
“So it was stolen?”
“We don’t know”
“Well, did you have a break-in?”
“No, it went missing during the day”
“And no-one noticed?”
“Well, the depot was pretty busy so we did what we usually do, we opened the fire exit and put a pile of parcels outside, and when we looked later they’d gone!”

🙄

Its a strange world the courier world. Glossing over the reasons why it had to be posted and the fact it was actually sent to my billing address, not shipping address, my purchase this week had to travel 3 miles from the warehouse to my work address. To do this it travelled 50 miles to, and 50 miles from the ‘hub’, passing through exactly the same ‘service centre’ on its way to the hub, and to me to be delivered!

Given how much extra they charge to send to an IV postcode I’d have thought they’d be much more careful shipping stuff.

Couriers never fail to amaze me.

I tracked a parcel with APC couriers earlier this week, website said it was delivered and signed for so I called them to ask where it was delivered to as I hadn’t had it. The lady said there was a comment that said I wasn’t home so it was left in the porch. She asked me to go and check again that I hadn’t missed it in the porch. I am fairly sure it wasn’t in the porch because I don’t have one! 2 hours later the parcel arrives.

My only guess is the driver got a call, went to the other house, took it out the porch and delivered it to the correct address.

The other favourite is “We left the parcel in a safe place outside”.

A wheelie bin on bin day isn’t a particularly safe place…

Or Royal Mail… I was told the new SSD for my laptop would be with me Saturday morning. Nope. Looking at the tracking website and it shows as delivered. Security downstairs have not seen it and have said that it is basically updated as “Delivered” as soon as it goes on the wagon for delivery.

So, essentially, the tracking status (it didn’t arrive till Tuesday) is bollox.

had this for a company i use to work for had all our spare parts sent by tnt or dhl when it was signed for we use to get an email back at the depot saying so,was not unheard of to go to site to fit said parts to find they weren’t there yet!!! driver behind on time signs electronic palm unit as soon as he left depot so quite often would turn up at site about 2hrs after we had left.

Many are useless showers, however in all the years of buying and selling second hand things I’ve only lost two items and both turned up in the end. Fortunately I had used an old CRC paddy bag and despite the address being correct and printed in large font it somehow ended up back with CRC and they traced me by part-peeling off the label and checking the order ref code. I had a phone call from CRC asking me about an old Yeti jersey in a paddy bag. I said yes that’s mine and they sent it back to me free. This was 5 weeks after sending it so Royal Mail had paid compensation for it and I had refunded the ebay buyer. Win.

The other occasion was ParcelFarce. A mate had sent me express am delivery a set of Z1s. I was due to go on holiday the day after and needed them for my bike to go with me. Sure enough tracking claimed delivered. This was pre online proof being available so they said over the phone it had been signed ‘porch’ despite me waiting in all day and jumping at every sound of a vehicle near the house. As above we didn’t have a porch. So I phoned the local depot and ranted at the manager who got all defensive about people accusing drivers about not ringing the bell etc.

Strangely enough the parcel was left on the doorstep unannounced the next morning. Now I can only speculate, however it seems pretty clear to me. A box with ‘Marzocchi’ written all over it (my mate did pack it pretty badly) to anyone with half a clue could figure out there’s probably something expensive in it. I suspect the box was ‘liberated’ from the system signed ‘porch’ to cover any tracks but when the 5-0 started the heat the ‘assailant’ had a change of heart and gave them back. Speculation of course.

Moral of the story, ensure everything is always insured and conforms to their T&Cs and is packed in plain packaging hiding any brand names or descriptions on the box itself. It’s always hassle but if it goes missing you can claim for it, and if it’s something new from a large shop they don’t care and will probably send you out a new one straight away. After the horror stories of RM ‘stealing’ and ‘disposing’ of peoples’ air shocks I won’t use them to send suspension items any more. Use a courier. Ironically air shocks don’t seem to be covered by Parcel Force’s exclusions list, but Royal Mail’s new lists are so vague and wide reaching practically anything can be deemed ‘dangerous’.

Longest I’ve ever had something missing was with TNT – sent a Rohloff wheel to Australia and it went missing. TNT eventually paid out on the insurance.

Three years later, a very dusty parcel turned up from TNT – it hadn’t got any further than Milton Keynes 😉

They all seem to have good and bad days although our local parcel farce and Royal Mail seem to be pretty good (jinx)

HOWEVER without fail city link have ballsed up everything single thing they have ever tried to send me over 10 years and 3 different areas so its not just a rogue depot. At best its been a week long faff, Several have been stressful nightmares lasting weeks. If I get an inkling shops use city link now I go elsewhere.

DPD is the Daddy of couriers. Real time GPS tracking, accurate estimates of time, easy ability to change options like deliver to neighbour and photos of the parcel in the safe place once left there. All done via text and website. It makes waiting for a parcel almost exciting.