i’m getting a bit miffed with this lot to be honest so looking for opinions please. Story is a few months ago i ordered a new set or Revelation RCT3s and they took 3 weeks to arrive despite the 2-7 days mentioned on their website. I got the track and trace number and watched them as we all do waiting for them to hit my doorstep. Took a few days to get the tracking number and for the forks to leave Germany leaving the window of around 4 days for the forks to get travelling to Scotland. A week goes by and tracking says

“Due to missing recipient details, the transport process has been delayed. The sender will be contacted.”

followed by

“The shipment is being stored and is waiting for the sender’s instructions on further processing. The sender has been contacted.”

I sent a couple of emails and was told that they hadnt heard from the courier company yet. This obviously went on for a couple of weeks before the forks arrived.

So i go to order another pair of forks a couple of weeks back and despite being shown that they were instock and available on the website i get an email a few days later saying, “Fork unavailable at present we’ll email you when it is”. Now ive paid my money and i’m not happy so i explain this is the second time ive received bad service and on their website it says 2-7 days delivery. So he eventually cuts me a deal on a different set of forks. fair enough i say. Same day i decide i NEED a reverb so off i go and place my order thinking this cant happen again and the reverb makes it across the channel in 4 days and then i get the same messages on the tracking as above. Its in Glasgow but on hold as with previous Revelations.

Now the alternate forks are on their way and after a few days lo and behold

“Due to missing recipient details, the transport process has been delayed. The sender will be contacted.”

followed by

“The shipment is being stored and is waiting for the sender’s instructions on further processing. The sender has been contacted.”

Now i realise my goods are in the hands of DHL and not the seller but still, 3 times on the trot ive been hit with this. Surely they are responsible for getting me my goods in good time as advertised on their site?

almost makes it worth buying from your local bike shop, eh? 🙄

*awaits impending debate of LBS vs Online/International retailers*

Personally, I’d rather have the item in my hands before forking out the money for it.

I’ve had good experiences, delivery in a few days, a couple of friends similarly so. RMAing faulty goods could be messy though, so I’m thinking twice before buying a Reverb from them

Anything I have had through German DHL has been delivered this end by Parcelforce.

So you’ve ordered from them 3 times despite having a bad experience on each occasion?

Other online retailers are available.

Sounds like you’ve been unlucky there. I’ve used them three of four times without any issues. Delivery within a week, and the parcel tracking has worked well.

Sounds awfy like they have an issue with the address they’re trying to ship to.

As others have said, nowt but good service here for several purchases, druidh may have it, whats the common denominator?

I have the same problem with German sites. They don’t like my address. I just get them to send it to my parent’s house instead, never had a problem since.

I’ve had a few things from them and my only complaint is that they send via “German” DHL – for want of a better description – that appears to be their version or our Parcelforce rather than what we get here for (UK) DHL which seems pretty good – domestically.

The snag is – and it is a royal PITA when it goes wrong / slow – is that this “German” DHL seems to ship stuff to the UK Parcelforce HQ / distribution centre – where there is no tracking / tracing with the sender – totally zero – once its marked as leaving Germany – and when you enquire / complain they each say “contact the sender” / thats not a valid tracking number (despite Parcelforce turning up with it eventually with said number plastered all over).

So I sympathise with the OP. I’d guess there’s some IT bobbins going on too with no postcode or something once the parcelforcemonkeys get their scanners warmed up.

I had a bit of weirdness with some tyres I bought – they were (or rather weren’t) delivered by DPD.

After waiting a week, I emailed them to query why I hadn’t got them. They send me an email with a refund. I emailed back saying that I didn’t really want a refund, I just wanted some tyres. I think something got lost in translation, because they got a supervisor to email me stating that I had been given a refund because I’d returned the tyres. Eh??

Anyway, I ordered them again and I got them 2 days later. I just put it down to a courier cock up. Didn’t realise the problem was more common.

Dave

I’ve had quite a lot from them, always delivered fine.

I do however think I may know what the problem with the addresses may be…
When you enter your address on the site, they then swap it around and put the number after the street name on the address shown for shipping, eg. Downing Street 10
There is another box where you can add another line to the address, so I put it the right way round in there.
My parcels are then addressed:
mr. smith
Downing Street 10
10 Downing Street
yadayadayada

If you don’t add the extra line, they may well think your house number is missing?

(I’m not really called mr.smith and i don’t really live at 10 Downing Street).

one might be said to be receiving value comparable to what you paid….

Online stuff is good when it works hopeless when it doesn’t. If you want it in the week go to a shop.

I’ve just ordered some pedals from them and they are being shipped by DPD, don’t know if that’s any better. I think it was the cheapest of the 2 options being offered.

they send via “German” DHL – for want of a better description – that appears to be their version or our Parcelforce

Kind of. DHL own/operate Deutsche Post. Handy when peoeple send parcels via DHL, since the parcel ends up at the local Post Office.

The snag is – – is that this “German” DHL seems to ship stuff to the UK Parcelforce HQ / distribution centre – where there is no tracking / tracing with the sender – totally zero – once its marked as leaving Germany

Exactly the same in reverse. Parcelforce or RM tracked shipment to germany just gets a “this parcel has been loaded on the the plane to Germany”. Except for CRC packages which are totally untracked Royal Mail postage, and takes anything from 3 to 15 working days to appear.
But the “German” DHL is usually so good that if you see the “loaded on the plan to Germany (actually Maastricht-Aachen I think?)”, it will fly overnight and the DHL bloke will leave a calling card at 10:30 the next weekday morning.

Oh and expect either DP/DHL or TNT (who iirc run the Dutch Postal service) to be the ones buying Royal Mail when it gets properly privatised.

Odd about the OP’s delivery issues though.

It’s been a little while, but in my last few dealings with international shipments being passed on to Parcel Force they had applied their own address label and ID-number when it came to them. The problem then being that the majority of PF employees seem, at best, to be dyslexic and transpose all kinds of important address-related info. When I finally recieved a packages I peeled off the PF label and found my address perfectly printed on the original DPD/DHL label.

Just a thought: since the package is with the couriers, have you tried contacting them (unless I missed the bit where you said you’d done this)?

So far only used them the once and delivery was spot on, ordered very late Thursday and delivered Tuesday.

I had this mess with CRC as I live in France. They decided on the shipping information to leave out my straat name ok that happens the town is only 150 people big so most know me. Then they decided to probably tap the first option when postcode choice. Europe has postcodes per town so my package got send with no street name omitted the contact number I had given and the name of a town at least 5 miles away suprise the delivery boy didn’t find me. Other times they do manage to get it right.