Couriers rant

red_harrington

red_harrington

Well-known member
Running my own business for 30+ years it seems to me the courier companies ie Fedex, UPS, DHL etc are all a law unto themselves and are beholden to nobody.

They can just return/lose/damage your parcel and make no recompense. They ignore your messages, or if do you get through to them, they give you the runaround. Has anybody ever had a refund for a lost parcel?

Hermes were in such a mess and their reputation so bad they literally had to change their name (now Evri)

They can take your package and chuck it in the bin and you can do absolutely nothing apart from next time use one of their competitors instead. Until exactly the same happens again, then you're back to square one.

Can you imagine going into a shop, buying a product and the sales person takes your money, puts your purchase in the bin and then ignores you. That's exactly what happens here.

They're all 1 star on Trustpilot, yet have $100,000,000 turnover. If my business had anything less than 5 stars I'd be livid.

How can they get away with it I just don't get it
 
The main problem is the pittance they pay the courier, forcing them to try and fly round to make the job pay.
Many parcels are wrongly labeled size wise.
You get what you pay for, people seem to want great courier service whilst paying a pittance for delivery
 
jam69 said:
The main problem is the pittance they pay the courier, forcing them to try and fly round to make the job pay.
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Not a courier granted but an Amazon delivery van drove straight into me last year. Pulled out at a junction on Ingleby Barwick. Slip of a lass. She said "I really need to be more careful when I'm driving" which suggests to me it wasn’t the first time for her.
 
Royal Mail are no better. A few years ago they threw a package containing a kilo of chocolate over the fence that should have been signed for…

My dog ate it before I made it home and it nearly killed her.

Took me 6 months and emails to the CEO before I got the vet bills money back
 
red_harrington said:
Running my own business for 30+ years it seems to me the courier companies ie Fedex, UPS, DHL etc are all a law unto themselves and are beholden to nobody.

They can just return/lose/damage your parcel and make no recompense. They ignore your messages, or if do you get through to them, they give you the runaround. Has anybody ever had a refund for a lost parcel?

Hermes were in such a mess and their reputation so bad they literally had to change their name (now Evri)

They can take your package and chuck it in the bin and you can do absolutely nothing apart from next time use one of their competitors instead. Until exactly the same happens again, then you're back to square one.

Can you imagine going into a shop, buying a product and the sales person takes your money, puts your purchase in the bin and then ignores you. That's exactly what happens here.

They're all 1 star on Trustpilot, yet have $100,000,000 turnover. If my business had anything less than 5 stars I'd be livid.

How can they get away with it I just don't get it
Click to expand...
Never go to the courier company over a missing package. Direct to the retailer you made the purchase. It is their responsibility to see the item arrives to you. Never let them fob you off.
 
Anterimus said:
Never go to the courier company over a missing package. Direct to the retailer you made the purchase. It is their responsibility to see the item arrives to you. Never let them fob you off.
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Yep. DPD staff stole a £600 fragrance out of a box and delivered me a box with a load of rubbish in, luckily I'd had it delivered to a Sainsbury's store and got the staff to witness me open it as I could tell something wasn't right

DPD impossible to contact and just said would investigate, took it up with retailer who sorted everything via DPD
 
red_harrington said:
Running my own business for 30+ years it seems to me the courier companies ie Fedex, UPS, DHL etc are all a law unto themselves and are beholden to nobody.

They can just return/lose/damage your parcel and make no recompense. They ignore your messages, or if do you get through to them, they give you the runaround. Has anybody ever had a refund for a lost parcel?

Hermes were in such a mess and their reputation so bad they literally had to change their name (now Evri)

They can take your package and chuck it in the bin and you can do absolutely nothing apart from next time use one of their competitors instead. Until exactly the same happens again, then you're back to square one.

Can you imagine going into a shop, buying a product and the sales person takes your money, puts your purchase in the bin and then ignores you. That's exactly what happens here.

They're all 1 star on Trustpilot, yet have $100,000,000 turnover. If my business had anything less than 5 stars I'd be livid.

How can they get away with it I just don't get it
Click to expand...
It's because of cost, which is a result of time, for both drivers and the companies.

The margins are so tight and the market so competitive, that effectively they have to deliver as much as possible, as fast as possible. The market doesn't want a higher cost, they would rather have the risk and insurance.

Sure, they could spend 5 mins per delivery, instead of 3 minutes, or spend 10 minutes looking for one package or address and still do the rest in 3 minutes, but either way it means halving the delivered parcels they go broke.

The short answer is would you pay double for the delivery, to get slightly better service? You might but most won't so they would get in massive debt whilst they tried it out, and then have no chance of recovering that back.

Then there are the drivers, DPD guys used to be paid ~£3 a drop, as contractors, but they changed the contacts to halve it and I think the Hermes/ evri guys are on quite a bit less than £1, and they're still contractors too, they don't come out with much more than a grand per month, after all costs.

I don't get how you can't recover the cost for a tracked package, or how it woulnd't be insured? Sure, I wouldn't fancy the admin of doing this often mind. I don't send much out mind, but I get over 99% of things which I'm meant to, of all sorts of values. We probably get a delivery a day, and I can't even remember the last thing which didn't make it to us?
 
Anterimus said:
Never go to the courier company over a missing package. Direct to the retailer you made the purchase. It is their responsibility to see the item arrives to you. Never let them fob you off.
Click to expand...

Except I am the retailer meaning I'm the sucker who has to compensate the customer through no fault of my own.

Meanwhile the courier gets paid full whack for doing a &^%%^ job with no comeuppance
 
Andy_W said:
It's because of cost, which is a result of time, for both drivers and the companies.

The margins are so tight and the market so competitive, that effectively they have to deliver as much as possible, as fast as possible. The market doesn't want a higher cost, they would rather have the risk and insurance.

Sure, they could spend 5 mins per delivery, instead of 3 minutes, or spend 10 minutes looking for one package or address and still do the rest in 3 minutes, but either way it means halving the delivered parcels they go broke.

The short answer is would you pay double for the delivery, to get slightly better service? You might but most won't so they would get in massive debt whilst they tried it out, and then have no chance of recovering that back.

Then there are the drivers, DPD guys used to be paid ~£3 a drop, as contractors, but they changed the contacts to halve it and I think the Hermes/ evri guys are on quite a bit less than £1, and they're still contractors too, they don't come out with much more than a grand per month, after all costs.

I don't get how you can't recover the cost for a tracked package, or how it woulnd't be insured? Sure, I wouldn't fancy the admin of doing this often mind. I don't send much out mind, but I get over 99% of things which I'm meant to, of all sorts of values. We probably get a delivery a day, and I can't even remember the last thing which didn't make it to us?
Click to expand...

Fedex made $788million last year, DHL made a record 6.5 billion euros, UPS $13 billion..... not sure how 'tight margins and competition' theory comes into play here :unsure:

I'm not sure how I can't cover the cost of a damaged package either. That's my main point - they just obfuscate or ignore. The runaround. If I did that to my customers word would spread and I'd be out of business in no time but courier companies seem immune to all criticism.
 
red_harrington said:
Except I am the retailer meaning I'm the sucker who has to compensate the customer through no fault of my own.

Meanwhile the courier gets paid full whack for doing a &^%%^ job with no comeuppance
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Apologize, missed that part somehow, even though it was the very first part of your post 😂
It's **** for business's that seem to have no choice but to deal with these companies with no certainty that the goods will reach the customer.
 
red_harrington said:
Fedex made $788million last year, DHL made a record 6.5 billion euros, UPS $13 billion..... not sure how 'tight margins and competition' theory comes into play here :unsure:

I'm not sure how I can't cover the cost of a damaged package either. That's my main point - they just obfuscate or ignore. The runaround. If I did that to my customers word would spread and I'd be out of business in no time but courier companies seem immune to all criticism.
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How much of that is linked to large freight, not parcels?

Yes, they make a lot, but what are they turning over? But for parcels, they make about 5% I think, and that would get eaten instantly if they either paid their drivers properly or they took a lot more time delivering.

The business model doesn't work, it's not possible to be cheap enough, good enough and pay the staff enough, as the customer doesn't want it.

Each business like that ahs shareholders and investors etc, they need to see a profit etc.

There must be a way, some sort of liability? Send a recorded letter of the detail and submit a claim, you could even go through small claims court if you've tried to contact them a couple of times, and you should be entitled to bill them for your time. Most won't bother as they won't do this often, but if you do it a lot, and you don't have your own vehicle fleet then what's your other options? They will rely on people not knowing a process of how to make a claim, this is probably one of the things keeping them in the green. Any sign of a threat, being done with the right procedure, they would get back to you in no time.
 
red_harrington said:
Fedex made $788million last year, DHL made a record 6.5 billion euros, UPS $13 billion..... not sure how 'tight margins and competition' theory comes into play here :unsure:

I'm not sure how I can't cover the cost of a damaged package either. That's my main point - they just obfuscate or ignore. The runaround. If I did that to my customers word would spread and I'd be out of business in no time but courier companies seem immune to all criticism.
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I thought there might be something, this might help:

www.citizensadvice.org.uk

If something you ordered hasn't arrived

What do do if something you've ordered hasn't arrived. Your rights to a refund or another delivery and how to contact the seller.
www.citizensadvice.org.uk www.citizensadvice.org.uk

They won't change their process mind, as most won't do this.
 
BoroFur said:
Not a courier granted but an Amazon delivery van drove straight into me last year. Pulled out at a junction on Ingleby Barwick. Slip of a lass. She said "I really need to be more careful when I'm driving" which suggests to me it wasn’t the first time for her.
Click to expand...
Probably got confused, all the junctions look the same in Ingleby don't they ? Last time I was there I drove past The Teal Arms 67 times before I managed to 'escape' 👍
 
I know this won't come as any consolation, but when you think of the extent of the logistics network then it's no surprise that stuff goes missing.
It only needs the package to be misdirected and end up in the incorrect distribution hub to become "lost". Getting it to the correct destination once this happens is a lengthy enough process if it stays within the carrier's network, but if it gets into a 3rd parties network, it becomes even worse.
Certainly not defending the situation as procedures should be in place to prevent it, but it does happen and it's surprising that it doesn't happen more often.
Absolutely no excuses for thefts though.
 
red_harrington said:
Fedex made $788million last year, DHL made a record 6.5 billion euros, UPS $13 billion..... not sure how 'tight margins and competition' theory comes into play here :unsure:

I'm not sure how I can't cover the cost of a damaged package either............
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More importantly I'm not sure why they can't employ the people who work for them, give them proper employment rights, pay employers National Insurance contributions and pay their employees a living wage.😡
 
chickenrunner said:
More importantly I'm not sure why they can't employ the people who work for them, give them proper employment rights, pay employers National Insurance contributions and pay their employees a living wage.😡
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UPS and DHL (yellow vans) are employed workers. FedEx are mainly 60/40 employed/self employed or visa versa depending on depot.

If a parcel is misdirected to a wrong depot that is not classed as lost and should still be tracked.
 
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Kosovo said:
UPS and DHL (yellow vans) are employed workers. FedEx are mainly 60/40 employed/self employed or visa versa depending on depot.

If a parcel is misdirected to a wrong depot that is not classed as lost and should still be tracked.
Click to expand...
You do get the odd agency drivers, especially around the Christmas peak.
 
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