I think I have found the ultimate in "useless courier", and the worst customer support ever.
Now, last Thursday, it happened that I had 2 parcels for collection, Parcel A was about 20cm cubed, and around 2kg. Parcel B was nearer 50cm cubed, and a hefty 12kg. From this, it'd be fairly difficult to confuse the two.
As they were both to be collected via different couriers, I made sure that I printed the names and addresses of the recipients in nice big writing, along with the web-based label with barcode etc on. Both parcels with label side up. Impossible to confuse???
Anyway, Thursday arrived, and I heard a courier talking to reception. "It's this one, its not a big parcel" he says. I'm currently on the phone with some guy who uses 100 words when 10 will do... I assume that as everything was clearly labelled that things are ok. I mean, they all have bar-codes and stuff they scan to verify what's what, don't they?
Thursday finished, and the large parcel B hadn't been collected. Nothing unusual there. Sometimes they'll be a day late, so if the large parcel was still in the office on Friday, I'd just rebook and that'll be that.
As expected, I needed to rebook. I logged onto parcel-monkey's site and to my amazement it said that parcel B was on the van for delivery that day. Oh dear. Things aren't quite right here...
At this point, I heard in reception our usual MyHermes courier saying - "this isn't one of ours... it's city-link. yeah, look - it's one of their labels". "It won't scan on my system.... look - <beep><buzzzzzzz>"
Oh dear oh dear. Things totally wrong.
"Well, mistakes are mistakes, they sometimes happen" I say to myself. "It'll make this morning such fun". I promptly ring citylink who thoughtfully stopped parcel A being sent to address B, and advise me as I had booked through ParcelMonkey, I would have to contact them to get it sent back to me.
This is where things got messy.
Parcelmonkey has only 4 options to contact them. 3 of them send you to an automatic reply. The 4th one you have to say "my parcel is damaged" which at least opens a ticket... It's not even a live-chat. Just emails held in their own internal system.
Anyway, I very quickly add to the ticket saying the parcel isn't damaged, the courier picked up the wrong parcel.
They respond:
"Thank you for contacting us. We apologize for this inconvenience. We will refer your case to our Claims Team. If you do not find a yellow button for the claim, please let us know."
Followed 10 minutes later with
"Our apologies. But after checking on our system, this parcel PM2****24 is just loaded onto the van today for delivery. "
A few more frantic replies by me saying "please read what I have said", giving my mobile number and other ways for them to contact me... I get:
"We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused. Please be advised that we'll try to chase the delivery of this parcel as soon as possible."
:double:double:double:double
Eventually, they confirm that Parcel A has been stopped, and will be returned to me (Wow, thanks guys!). However, I would need to rebook collection of Parcel B, and pay again for shipping. Apparently, "We only give refunds to cancelled orders and over five working days of delayed services." Having the courier make an arse of collection isn't a cancelled order or a delayed service.
Their judge, jury and executioner have decided against me. I'm out of pocket, both with their collection and the one that they took by mistake. Yes, I suppose I should have put the phone down to spoon-feed the courier, in the off-chance he had left his common sense at home that day.
This is still on-going, but Parcel-monkey's lack of telephone support, or even a basic live-chat system means I cannot argue a point. Even Companies House don't have a record of a telephone or fax number for them.
The old saying about paying peanuts cannot be more apt for this company.
Now, last Thursday, it happened that I had 2 parcels for collection, Parcel A was about 20cm cubed, and around 2kg. Parcel B was nearer 50cm cubed, and a hefty 12kg. From this, it'd be fairly difficult to confuse the two.
As they were both to be collected via different couriers, I made sure that I printed the names and addresses of the recipients in nice big writing, along with the web-based label with barcode etc on. Both parcels with label side up. Impossible to confuse???
Anyway, Thursday arrived, and I heard a courier talking to reception. "It's this one, its not a big parcel" he says. I'm currently on the phone with some guy who uses 100 words when 10 will do... I assume that as everything was clearly labelled that things are ok. I mean, they all have bar-codes and stuff they scan to verify what's what, don't they?
Thursday finished, and the large parcel B hadn't been collected. Nothing unusual there. Sometimes they'll be a day late, so if the large parcel was still in the office on Friday, I'd just rebook and that'll be that.
As expected, I needed to rebook. I logged onto parcel-monkey's site and to my amazement it said that parcel B was on the van for delivery that day. Oh dear. Things aren't quite right here...
At this point, I heard in reception our usual MyHermes courier saying - "this isn't one of ours... it's city-link. yeah, look - it's one of their labels". "It won't scan on my system.... look - <beep><buzzzzzzz>"
Oh dear oh dear. Things totally wrong.
"Well, mistakes are mistakes, they sometimes happen" I say to myself. "It'll make this morning such fun". I promptly ring citylink who thoughtfully stopped parcel A being sent to address B, and advise me as I had booked through ParcelMonkey, I would have to contact them to get it sent back to me.
This is where things got messy.
Parcelmonkey has only 4 options to contact them. 3 of them send you to an automatic reply. The 4th one you have to say "my parcel is damaged" which at least opens a ticket... It's not even a live-chat. Just emails held in their own internal system.
Anyway, I very quickly add to the ticket saying the parcel isn't damaged, the courier picked up the wrong parcel.
They respond:
"Thank you for contacting us. We apologize for this inconvenience. We will refer your case to our Claims Team. If you do not find a yellow button for the claim, please let us know."
Followed 10 minutes later with
"Our apologies. But after checking on our system, this parcel PM2****24 is just loaded onto the van today for delivery. "
A few more frantic replies by me saying "please read what I have said", giving my mobile number and other ways for them to contact me... I get:
"We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused. Please be advised that we'll try to chase the delivery of this parcel as soon as possible."
:double:double:double:double
Eventually, they confirm that Parcel A has been stopped, and will be returned to me (Wow, thanks guys!). However, I would need to rebook collection of Parcel B, and pay again for shipping. Apparently, "We only give refunds to cancelled orders and over five working days of delayed services." Having the courier make an arse of collection isn't a cancelled order or a delayed service.
Their judge, jury and executioner have decided against me. I'm out of pocket, both with their collection and the one that they took by mistake. Yes, I suppose I should have put the phone down to spoon-feed the courier, in the off-chance he had left his common sense at home that day.
This is still on-going, but Parcel-monkey's lack of telephone support, or even a basic live-chat system means I cannot argue a point. Even Companies House don't have a record of a telephone or fax number for them.
The old saying about paying peanuts cannot be more apt for this company.
