I know everybody has occasional problems but my heart sinks when I get a DHL delivery notification.
The last 2 DHL deliveries have been messy - they've missed the expected dates by more than a day, notified me that it "wasn't possible to access the premises" when there has been no known problem and I have been sitting at home in a place in sight of the window next to the front door, and so on.
I should have had one yesterday, when herself stayed in all day (it's some timber thresholds I need) but I have just been notified that it will be 18.24-19.24 today. Looking at the tracking, it has been out since 07.03, and I am drop number 158! what a nightmare of a job that must be. No wonder they don't turn up.
I predict this one will be delayed too.
In contrast I'm finding DPD very dependable now.
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We have very few delivery problems in my small town. DHL delivery slot estimates are wayward though. Hermes seem especially good locally. Both their drivers have been with the a while and are arguably better known than our posties. They even pop up on our local community Facebook pages if someone had a problem with a delivery.
Recently the Hermes driver waited at his own initiative for me to check contents of a parcel that looked a bit battered. It was fine.
In contrast my worst experience this year was a DHL delivery guy who couldn’t get off my drive fast enough. I found out why when I opened my tinkling parcel and found the WC pan it contained in a hundred pieces……
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>> In contrast I'm finding DPD very dependable now.
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....judging by the speed the DPD van has just gone past my house, the driver is determined not to be behind schedule.....
....unless he is already behind schedule, of course.
(I have had a (slightly early) DPD driver refuse to hand over a parcel until the prescribed time slot was reached, as apparently the system wouldn't let him book delivery earlier than that!)
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For a while I had a multi-drop round of 50 stops in a hundred odd miles. That would take a working day. How anyone manages 150 is beyond me.
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There is DPD, who are really rather good, and the SoS's that make up the rest.
The worse, by a considerable margin, are UPS who are utterly dire.
For the 9 months I was dependent on medical devices, my NHS trust had contracted out delivery to a major medical manufacturer, who used UPS.
Stuff would never arrive on the day promised, if it ever arrived at all. After 4 months I discovered that a pile of the stuff was being dropped at an empty house on a road that had the first letter in common with mine.
Some strong words with a member of the board of the Trust allowed to me to involve the chemist who would get the stuff in 48 hours without fail and ring me to ask what time I wanted it delivered.
UPS Lost a large (6 foot long) wicker chest in Tamworth depot, tracking says it went in and never came out.
I heard a rumour (on good authority) that UPS ordered a large (think half container size) UPS for the Tamworth site, a company delivered it into the correct place in the car park ready for installation, then a UPS artic arrived and took it away never to be seen again.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 4 Nov 21 at 13:02
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For a while I had a multi-drop round of 50 stops in a hundred odd miles. That would take a working day. How anyone manages 150 is beyond me.
Same for me when I worked for the NHS - One route was exaclty 90 miles with 40 drops/collections. 7 hours (with a break), one of drivers was an ex-DHL driver (self employed, although they have staff drivers) and he said it was awful.
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All this talk of couriers has made me a trifle concerned about my £800 Nikon camera I *sent to Nikon's DHL supply chain in West Yorkshire 2 weeks ago, and I haven't heard anything since.
*Firmware update.
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They're all as good or as bad as the actual driver. If you've got a good one local to you, then you'll have a much better experience.
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>> I haven't heard anything since.
Same thing happened to my neighbour who sent his hearing aids off for repair.
;0)
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T%he dragon has been waiting for a while for a parcel connected with her hobby. It always takes a few weeks but this was overdue. Opening the front door a week ago she spied something white behind the blue bin, thought it was litter, and went to pick it up. It was her stuff, soaking wet although it hadn't rained for a few days. Luckily it was wrapped inside the Jiffy bag in a sealed placky bag. No note in the letterbox, no indication of who or when it was put there and in view of the road.
Ted
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>>Same thing happened to my neighbour who sent his hearing aids off for repair.
You remember Swampy, he's had a heart attack, apparently he refused a bypass.
:o}
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The poor devil is "on the way to stop number 100" with an hour to go to the delivery window, and only another 57 drops before me.
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He's given up by the look of it at after 111 drops, 46 away from my turn. Hope it's not the driver who's dropped.
Par for DHL.
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Another day, another ETA. 13.38-14.38.
I am stop number 97. The driver is on the way to stop number 1. Given it's already 10.40 I wouldn't say that bodes well.
I had already contacted them to ask where it is and if, were I to collect it, it would be quicker. They promised an answer within 3 days.
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To quote a line from a Dirty Harry film
"I'se gots to know"
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Incredibly, they delivered it at 12:59. I wasn't following the tracking so whether the driver really did 97 drops in just over 2 hours I couldn't say! It seems unlikely he could keep up one every 2 minutes or so. Maybe there was a polling delay and he had already done most of them when I looked the first time.
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....maybe you've got 74 other parcels hidden behind your bins....?
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I wonder how the tracker / app treys multiple deliveries to one address…? Might account for the apparently speedy delivery rate of near,y one a minute!
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It might include a single drop of several individually recorded parcels at a pick up point?
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I used to drive for a living, but now I run a despatch department sending out 30-60 parcels a day, so I can see things from both sides of the fence. We do have customers who specifically request that we don't use such-and-such parcel co, because their local round driver is hopeless.
Parcel delivery companies are mostly the same as one another, only the colour of their polo shirts varies. They're all just people driving vans with a list of addresses to visit, it's unfair to tar a whole company based on one particularly hapless driver. Except Yodel, they really are awful from start to finish.
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Stuff dispatched by via DPD to my place yesterday. While I am outside cleaning the CCV Dianne arrives in her van, three minutes early. So we have a little chinwag outside while her tracking app ticks over to delivery slot, and she hands me the parcel and takes the photo of it in my hand.
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DHL parcel delivery, am I just unlucky? - martin aston
