So after taking up the PSA on the CRC Shimano Zee brakes last week I had a not so great experience with Hermes.

The usual ‘we delivered it, you signed for it’ but no sign of the parcel…
The online signature was a squiggle and underneath it said ‘Son’ – who was in at the time it was allegedly delivered.
He obviously had no recollection of anyone trying to deliver anything and he certainly hadn’t signed for anything.
The GPS location for the signature put it about 4 streets over but in between 2 apartment blocks.
I tried to contact Hermes who just kept coming back that the parcel had been delivered and signed for – job done…. even though I didn’t have the parcel.
So I got on to CRC via the live chat on Sunday afternoon, they were quite helpful in the respect of we’ll contact Hermes but you’ll need to wait 10 days before we can do anything – just in case it turns up…
Anyway, whilst I’m on the live chat the door bell rings – it’s a women form one of the apartment blocks 4 streets over with my parcel….
So I thank her profusely and tell the live chat dude that all is well and I have my parcel – Result!!

That is until today – when waiting for another CRC delivery from the weekend – had the usual Hermes have your parcel blah blah – all good.
Checked yesterday and there’s a ‘sorry for the delay we’ll have it moving again in 24 hours’ – great no worries I’ll have it Tuesday/Wednesday.
Just checked again and now for some reason its now ‘on it’s way back to the sender’???
No missed delivery notices or anything.

Are they just completely incompetent??
Will try and get CRC on live chat again and see what’s going on.

My experience with Parcel Force has been about as useful this week

Many posts on previous threads about parcel delivery companies cowboys.
Consensus is they are incompetent at best.

Are they just completely incompetent??

Yes

Our Hermes delivery driver drops things on the doorstep. Its a terrace and the door step is about 5m away from the pavement. We’ve had a couple of things go missing recently…

Consensus is they are incompetent at best.

Consensus is that it varies massively and the most critical factor is the local person who does the final stage of delivery.

Round my way, I have issues with our Yodel man. I keep on having parcels chucked over a fence in to the back garden and being left as “back porch” 🤦‍♂️

Consensus is that it varies massively and the most critical factor is the local person who does the final stage of delivery.

Yup, our guy Stewart is really good and helpful too when I was sorting a pick up.

OTOH, Amazon’s person recently chucked a harddrive over the fence in the pissing rain. Royal Mail have also now gone from being happy to leave stuff tucked away, to sending everything to the sorting office

Got my Yodel/Hermes/Amazon guys all trained to not even knock and just leave parcel in the shed, saves us all hassle 😀

Are they just completely incompetent??

Erm… yes and no.

For my sins I’m responsible for buying in our little firm so I arrange about 4 or 5 deliveries a day for us. We also sub-let parts of our office to people who also take lots of deliveries so I’ve got a fairly good idea of couriers.

I’d stick my neck out and say that Royal Mail / Parcelforce are pretty good, they’ve got a massive infrastructure and 99% of the time it works really well, 1% of the time however your stuff falls into a deep black hole never to be seen again.

DPD are about the best courier we use, they use staff not subbies who we’ve got to know.

The rest are all a level below, every has a least favourite courier – Yodel used to come in for a lot of hate, but Hermes are bad too, DX really annoy me because their Secure Post service is the most reliable service I’ve ever used, for anything.

Frankly though, from the 3rd week in Nov until Xmas all bets are off. AFAIK no courier has a facility to stop accepting work because they can’t handle it, and if they did, I don’t think they’d want to. Their workforce is supplemented by an army of seasonal workers who don’t give a flying one (I doubt I would either, the work is hard, the hours long and the pay terrible) and they’re all over-worked. I know drivers who’ve got a 150 drops scheduled in an 8 hour shift, they can got 2 hours over (and be paid) but after that it’s unpaid – if you’re working flat out 10 hours a day and being moaned at, are you really going to drive around for a few more hours for free? Sod that.

I’d stick my neck out and say that Royal Mail / Parcelforce are pretty good

Agree. I only send stuff using them and had one issue in 2,000 items sent, which I got a refund for.
I must have received 20,000, 30,000 ? things via them in the last few decades and can’t remember the last time I had any problem.

In my recent moan about Amazon delivery I received peak STW advice suggesting that if I cared about the items I wanted I should get them from a local shop 👍😉

They’re just awful

is there a site that catalogues which retailers use them? So I can avoid ever dealing with them? CRC wont be getting my money as long as they use them.

Spoke to CRC – nothing they can do until it’s returned – they don’t know why it’s been returned either.
I should get a refund once they have it back.

DX really annoy me because their Secure Post service is the most reliable service I’ve ever used, for anything.

DX secure post returned our children’s new passports to the wrong address and postcode.We emailed them immediately to complain.They then did exactly the same thing the next day too with all their ID documents and expired passports.

Consensus is that it varies massively and the most critical factor is the local person who does the final stage of delivery.

This.

I’ve never had a problem personally with Hermes. Yodel on the other hand think “delivered to a safe and secure location” and “abandoned on the street somewhere in the same postcode” are synonymous.

Last week I ordered some things from SIS,just a few hydration tabs while they were on offer so no biggie but on sunday I saw an email from Hermes saying my parcel had been delivered and a pic of where it was left,its just one of those plastic recycling bins you put newspapers in but this one looks to be filled with a big chunk of dried plaster some beer cans and some branches,no clue whatsoever where it is,bizarre company:),SIS ignored me too which was nice 🙂

Hermes? Excellent service as mentioned on numerous threads on here.

Potluck.

Our local Hermes persons is good – currently.

Our local Parcelfarce regular regularly leaves a “sorry we missed you” card, at times when we are sat in the lounge and can see them not knock, not bother to get the signature, and just sod off back to the depot with the parcel.

Other experiences are available.

I had Parcelfarce leave a very, very expensive electronic item on a bedroom window cill.
Yes
an upstairs window cill
Card through door stated “on upstairs window”
They’d thrown it up onto the cill two floors up.
However it hadn’t stayed there due to the high winds and rain
We found it (ruined) under a neighbours car.
Needless to say the sender had to provide another – delivered by DPD who as they knew us, delivered it properly, handing it over.

My current bottom of the heap choice are TNT. Now on my 3rd day of promised delivery by 18:00. Each time cancelled due to issues shortly after the deadline passed with no explanation. Just over 1 hour to go until today is missed too. I am not hopeful..

is there a site that catalogues which retailers use them? So I can avoid ever dealing with them?

problem is so many places use and list multiple delivery companies.

Only time I’ve ever used Hermes was when I used a site that specifically showed they used DHL, selected the DHL 48hr service or whatever, then had to return it under warranty, which instantly gave me a Hermes pre-paid return label.  Fortunatley there’s a Hermes pickup/dropoff shop 100 paces from my place of abode, and the guy was already trying to scan the barcode on the box before I’d even fully stepped inside the store! I guess they get a lot of Hermes trade.

It’s Amazon I’m ranting about recently. Seems “signed for by recipient” and “left on first step of communal floor of a multi-use office/residential building on a work day” are the same thing.  Fortunately I was in, spotted the GPS tracker showing the amazon guy in my street (he was… in a shonky 20 year old transit, not a fancy branded posh new van like they show on amazon prime adverts), and I managed to rescue the parcel within 2 minutes of the shonky old van boogering off.

And last week it seems I’ve now got the special amazon 7 day prime free delivery service. Half “delivered to me” (I wasn’t there) and half “delivered to neighbour” (all left on my doorstep, but not possible to tell if a neighbour took delivery, or neighbour moved the parcel from communal area to my doorstep).

Might have to check out the amazon locker that’s 5mins walk away.

I worked in a giant amazon warehouse for years so don’t get too annoyed as I understand what pressuse these terrible slave drivers give out but Hermes are other level crap,DPD on the other hand are great,guessing Hermes charge customers a lot less to use?

Yup, wife had a parcel ‘delivered’ at 9pm last night. We were in and of course there was no sign of it.

However this morning the ‘Nextdoor’ website had about 5 people asking if anyone had recieved a Hermes delivery supposedly delivered at 9pm last night!

So it seems Mr Hermes decided to clock off last night at 9 and mark everything delivered!

So my wife spends 40 mins on online chat customer support explaining the issue and pointing out that there are at least 5 other parcels gone missing in the very local area.

Then at about 3pm today the Hermes man decides to deliver it.

So I do Inventories for rental houses for a living so see a lot of properties on a daily basis,

Just last week saw a large Amazon parcel left perched on the door step of a terraced house that face right on to the street, no front garden or anything,  another one recently(Amazon again) parcel left in the communal lobby of a apartment complex, which might not be so bad if it had secure access and CCTV this had neither.

In both cases neither are classed as left in secure location and literally anyone could walk off with either parcel.

Good job Bezo is minted.

Well the update on my TNT delivery is that for the 3rd day of promised delivery by 18:00 it is now back at the local depot. No explanation, no-one available to ask, no forewarning that they might not deliver today after all. I’ve had the odd glitch with other carriers, but nothing like this. They are now the worst I have ever dealt with by miles

And Hermes strike again……

After my ‘lost in the depots’ and ‘sent back to CRC’ I re-ordered the item so that I could get it before the price went back up.
So I got confirmation that it was out for delivery yesterday – weather by us was rubbish, rained pretty much all day and I was working on site and the wife was out.
Thought they’d deliver to a neighbour – oh no far to simple to think of….
They threw the parcel over the back gate – luckily it was in a plastic bag.
Unfortunately the plastic bag sat out in the rain for several hours and took on water…. yes, when I opened it a fair bit of water ran out….
Luckily the top I’d ordered was in another bag inside – this was only wet on the outside and hadn’t leeched through to the material.

You really couldn’t make this up.

Seriously reconsidering using CRC in the future.