Backstory: we sold off some of the stuff we had laying around and we had no use for it, a person won it on eBay and we decided to send it via city-link. When it was attempted to be delivered, first time round they supposedly left a card 3 times, but the buyer is in his house at all times and said they had not attempted delivery on either of the occasions they attempted to deliver and didnt have a card. We resent the parcel and hoped it would get there, these are the cliffnotes of the buyers experience after I gave him the tracking number as he wanted to communicate with City-Link on the delivery day. 10AMish on the day of delivery - Phoned City-Link to confirm delivery time, lady on phone confirmed and said she would call at 12:30 to check 12:40 - No delivery, No Phone call, recalled, informed of "problems beyond control, driver running late etc but will never be delivered today" 15:40 - Still no delivery, phoned again, lady on phone consulted depot, came back and said Depot tried to get hold of driver but phone on voicemail, she took number again and said would call when talked to driver 17:15 No phone call, no delivery, phoned again and new person checked notes, apologized for problems and said they checked the GPS system and that it hadn't been anywhere close to the location because "he couldn't find it", fun to note at this point tracking page is stating "A signature is required for this consignment but no one was available when we called." Which is complete and utter bs since he hasnt been close to the location!
Sounds like a courier service here called Toll. They never re-attempt delivery if you don't call, and better yet they charge you a fee for it.
Man, what a shitty service. I use Yamato Kuroneko a lot here in Japan. In fact at least 3 times a week they come to my place. Always leave a note and always redeliver without me even having to call them.
Apparently the item eventually arrived, unfortunately it did take multiple attempts and him having to nag city-link constantly. I think they just drive around and hope they end up close to where the item goes, am i to understand a delivery driver doesnt have some form of a gps, be it a proper satnav or even something as basic as maps on his phone?
It's all BS mate. In this day and age there's no reason why he couldn't find the place unless the diver was some thick shit. I mean, even basic Google maps on a smart phone will do the job for you.
Ultimately, it's your funeral for choosing CityLink. You pay a premium for UPS, DHL etc. for a reason. Most of the several day economy services (Hermes, Yodel etc.) are poor. I'd say the best is DPD. Their tracking system is amazing. It tells you what the delivery window is, what number in the round you are, what number the driver is currently on and gives you a map showing where he is.
I have used UPS twice (for sending) and have had nothing but problems with them, they didnt pick up parcels when they were supposed to, never contacted me to tell me they wouldnt be picking up that day etc. and the overall service wasnt worth the money they were charging Hermes, Yodel, Collect+ i have had nothing but great service from DHL is the best one out of that list tho
Hermes hehe, we have a running joke where that company is one bloke called Hermes chucking stuff in the boot of his car and driving around, they generally get it to you on the day they say but if they provide a time you can guarantee they'll miss it by hours. Collect+ is good, obviously you have to walk to where its deliver but the few deliveries I've got through them where really good. Yodel leave parcels at neighbors if you're not in which isn't great because they never seem to leave the number of the neighbor so I have to go round and have a guess at which one they left it at if the neighbor hasn't brought it round. there's always Parcelfarce which is just incredibly expensive. Parcelfarce for a package was £16, ipostparcels was £8, ridiculous!!!
This is the problem with the western work ethic. You pay for a service so it should be carried out. Plain and simple. If the company advertise a delivery date then that should be kept no matter how much the service cost. Over here all services deliver the day they say no matter what they charge. Of course next day cost more than standard but they'll still deliver when they say they will.
USPS is usually pretty good about delivery dates. Often the package arrives before the delivery date, and almost always arrives by the delivery date. I've only had a few packages that came after the delivery date, and it was usually the next day. They'll very often leave packages even if you're not there, but if they can't it's easy to schedule a redelivery. You can also just go to the post office and pick it up yourself.
I have never had any problems with City Link myself sending or receiving, I guess you where just unlucky and got the Frank Spencer of delivery drivers. ParcelForce on the other hand are a ripoff. A little off topic To you guys in Japan do the post office pack your items for you, just asking because when ever I buy from Japan even multiple items from a individual seller not a big company they always have a new box just the perfect size for all my items. My local post office only stock 3 small size box's (and charge 3 quid for a cardboard box) and even Staples they seem to only have a small range of sizes.
i guess it all depends on the driver then really because i have never had those problems with any of them
No, the post office doesn't pack your stuff or not normally they don't. They do sell boxes though. Personally I just reuse any box that I have in the house, mostly Amazon boxes. The post office will place all your letters and small parcels in to plastic sealed bags when it's raining heavily though. That's really cool I think and quality customer service.
City link are terrible around here too, from what I've found they seem to have far less depots than other delivery firms meaning their delivery routes tend to be longer. Which in my case the depot is almost 20 miles away and they never get here before 5pm which is the very end of the route and on more than a few occasions they haven't bothered trying to deliver and have faked the tracking to say otherwise.
City-link are just useless. I can see their depot in the distance from an upstairs window in my home and it's within 5 minutes walking distance - but they couldn't locate my address to deliver my parcel. Idiots. When I asked if I could just come and pick up the parcel they refused and just returned my laptop to amazon. Still not as bad as Yodel though.
According to City Link our company doesn't exist... we've only been trading there for 10 years and have other couriers delivering/collecting parcels day long. The final straw came when I booked them to collect a parcel and they never turned up. I called the local office and get the drivers number and called him to ask him why. He replied 'I called to the office at around 10:00 and the parcel wasn't ready for me'. Quite odd when I was the only person in the office the entire day. I'll never use them again and discourage other people when I can.
No. Hermes etc. are cheap, shitty delivery services NOT guaranteed services. Yodel, for example, will deliver any time between 7am and 9pm - there is NO before 9am or before 12pm option. And people use it as a cheap, shitty service - they don't go for their next day delivery, they pay for the cheap service. Hermes offers "typical 3-5 day" service. There IS no date guarantee. In fact, I've even known them to not bother loading a parcel on a van that day because it was only day 3! It's effectively the Royal Mail of carriers - cheap and it gets there when it gets there. People also think they're couriers when they're not - couriers are express delivery service. They're a carrier. If you want to be pedantic, a courier is usually someone on a motorbike who rushes something urgent for same-day delivery. That said, City Link SHOULD be better, so yes the original issue mentioned was poor. They're basically a cheap good service, if you see what I mean. Another thing - I wish people would stop complaining about the price of Parcelforce compared to services they can get from a) cheap, shitty carriers or b) DISCOUNT middlemen. Parcelforce are a reasonable price for an express delivery service. Try going to UPS, DHL etc. and getting a cheap price as an individual. They only offer cheap prices to companies who send thousands of parcels every day. This is how middlemen operate - they get lots of us to send a collective thousands of parcels, then pass the bulk savings on to us. Yakumo - here are examples from Interparcel, a middleman. This is for a 2kg parcel, 30cm x 20cm x 20cm. Hermes UK Economy: £3.32 + VAT. Delivered in approx. 3-5 days. No signature taken. May be left unattended if out. No compensation. Collect+ Economy (Yodel): £4.75 + VAT. Must drop off at local collection point (a corner shop probably). Everything else as Hermes. Parcelforce 48 dropoff: £7.75 + VAT. Must drop off at local depot. Delivered within 2 working days. £50 compensation. UPS Economy: £7.99 + VAT. Delivered within 1-2 working days. £50 compensation. Incidentally, Royal Mail 2nd Class is £8 (all in). The delivery aim is 3 days, no guarantee. No tracking and £20 compensation. £8.90 gets you 1st Class with delivery aim of 1 day. Signed for is an extra £1.10 and bumps compensation up to £50. So... if Royal Mail, once the cheapest way to send items, deliver a parcel for £8 hopefully within 3 days with £20 compensation or for £10 (or slightly less from UPS) you can get it hopefully delivered next day, why do people go with the £3.99 Hermes option with no guarantees? Because they're cheap. Of course, the delivery drivers don't get paid much, either. In fact, some of those cheap services are largely foreigners I find, so they're probably paying them a terrible wage. And consequently, they don't give a damn about your parcel. Throw it in the back of the van, drive like a lunatic to the depot so you can sign off, then your colleagues throw it onto a conveyor belt then into another van. Like I said, you get what you pay for and I'd never use a cheap service, especially without insurance. And I'd never use a company that would leave my parcel on the doorstep.
