Thanks to Matt in particular for maintaining teh forum so that I can log on and let off steam.

OK - City Link.

So Amazon (yes, the lesser Satan no doubt) used City Link for my parcel and of course I was out. So I phoned Amazon and they agreed to contact City Link and ask them to leave the parcel out of site in my garden - which I was quite happy with. They ccd me on the email and suggested that I also contact City Link to confirm that the instruction had gone through.

I did. It hadn't. So I went through the request again and the lad on the other end of the phone said 'fine - that's on our system now.'

Today I get a card - 'sorry we missed you...'

So I phone again. 'Oh yes, it's on the system but of course, sometimes the driver won't see that.'
'Of course,' I agreed, 'How foolish of me to think that it would be a good idea to tell the driver.'

My question is - How do they stay in business?

Presumably, like Yodel (formerly home delivery network I think), by being so much cheaper than a reliable company that the likes of Amazon think it's worth it.

I've been reasonably lucky with all of them for years, keep feeling I must be due some nightmare as I hear of so many kafkaesque tales.

I've been lucky with them in the past and I actually know one of the drivers who lives locally - he's kept stuff on his van for me when I've been out in the past and dropped it round later!

It just struck me as bizarre that they have a system open until 23:00 for varying next day delivery, but then whether the diver is notified of the changes is a matter of chance. The way the girl told me that 'of course, the driver won't always see the change' reminded me of the the moment in Groundhog day when Phil Connors complains about the lack of hot water and the landlady tells him 'There wouldn't be any today.' as though it should be obvious.

Amazon are clearly miffed at not getting their own crack at fucking up. Even though City Link's tracking correctly records a failure to deliver with the goods still 'in our network', Amazon record them as 'Delivered'.

Hoorah for all round incompetence!

Reminds me of when I got a camera lens for delivery by canpar (CANadian PARcel). I got a notice that I wasn't home when they tried to deliver, but I could go pick it up at their depot in town. Fine, I work in town. After work I go down to their depot: "it's out on the truck but he'll be back any minute". Two hours later, I get them to agree to deliver it to my office next day, and had to get really irate for them to back down on charging me 10 bucks extra.

It doesn't surprise me.

There's a certain rough and ready approach prevalent amongst delivery firms: most stuff delivered most of the time - nearly always to the right address - usually for the right price - that's near enough.

Mainly because the drivers are overworked and treated like shit.

Not City Link (only because I haven't looked inside one), but I have seen inside many delivery vans where the boxes are literally thrown around by the driver, parcels that are marked at fragile thrown out of the way to look for others underneath.

No special problem with the drivers who I'm sure are as good or bad as anybody else. But there's a chronic lack of imagination and investment from the delivery firms most of which are doing exactly what they were doing 30 years ago - just desperately trying to undercut each other and the Post Office (oh yeah -I forgot they're just another delivery firm now).

City Link make no effort to negotiate the initial delivery. They offer a second delivery, if you miss the first one, from a limited selection of days (with no time slots or anything) and if you miss that then that's it. They expect you to pick the goods up from their depot. I think that's pitiful.

Amazon may be the worst employer on God's earth, but they certainly have some interesting ideas about delivery.

They have some bad ones too - like using City Link.

But I like the idea of being able to collect my stuff from the paper shop around the corner, or from a local deposit box. That's precisely why I've always preferred delivery by the Post Office, because if I'm out it ends up in the local Post Office, not 40 miles away in somebody's 'hub'.

A guy I'm working with used to work for [courier]. He'd leave the depot at 7am, get back at 8pm and then get a bollocking for not having gone back after his shift (in his own time) with the parcels for people who weren't in the first time he called.

best courier firm I know of is DPD, if you get offered a choice and they are available that's the one to go for

the vans have GPS, accessible by customers online, and they'll txt you with a 1 hour delivery window on the day

They are good but I did have one not turn up but claim they had.

Then when the package was delivered on a before 10am thing the next day the driver said "this must have cost you a lot to get this delivery time" he wasn't too happy to be told that I didn't pay a penny because it was actually a day late and whoever (probably him) was supposed to deliver the day before didn't bother to call my flat.

I think a standard part of each delivery company is to squeeze the driver as much as possible no matter how un fair it may be or how dangerous it can be.

Did a driver for one of these companies a month or so ago for a blatant and dangerous red light and he all but broke down in the back of the car saying how the pressure was intense and he was going to have to quit before he had a crash. Really unfair how these guys just trying to feed their families are pushed to drive like demons. Also really unfair if they scone a kid or crash into something else whist racing mind you...

If you were in the UK, and it was a "small van" (as in, less than 7.5 tons) you would almost never get a tacho. They only happen in 7.5 tons and up.

As an ex-agency driver, I always really enjoyed doing multi-drop jobs. Turning up at a depot and then being sent out to an area you've never been to before (this was before GPS, by the way) and trying to make 80 deliveries in a day was always the best was to earn 50 quid. I don't know how many times I got back to the depot with forty or fifty parcels still on board, simply because it was an hour's drive to my area, and then I wasnt able to find anywhere.

I hate Shittylink with a passion. Lying and lazy drivers, crappy service and overall incompetence has made them enemy number one.

4 times now in the last 5 months they have not even bothered to try and deliver to our office and each time they say they have left a note which they did not. Give them a call, oh the driver left a note its in his notes that he did. GAH

I have no idea how they are still in business either.

I think certain couriers now rate alongside lettings agents on my "how the fuck are they still in business" list.

Everyone I know who runs their own business is adamant that if they performed like some of these do they'd be out of business within 12 months.

It seems the industry average is so shit and the lack of better alternatives means they can get along just fine and turn a nice profit. Sounds a bit like the government.

We have a local firm called Swift that have always been top notch and better priced than shittylink and I know for a fact the family that run it are dodgy as hell.

We had to ship 20 servers from Glasgow back to our Newbury office earlier this year and was quoted over £3000 by a professional mover, Swift done it for £350 all in and on the same day!


Grrr Shittylink.

I like DPD as well. After the first failed delivery, I was able to arrange for them to pop the parcel in the wheely bin in my back garden (and I knew it'd be safe there). Following day, there it was!

City Link are awful. Even Yodel do Saturday delivery and 3 attempts. I would have happily paid City Link recently (it was a Friday) to deliver my parcel on the Saturday, but there is absolutely nothing you can do to schedule a safe place/neighbour, or upgrade the delivery, or anything. They knock twice on your empty house, then dump the parcel half an hours drive away at their depot.

Hopeless!

Yodel round my way are quite good. we have the number of the delivery lady so if no one is in the first time she comes back in the evening.