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.

FedEx have impressed me today ~

16Kg parcel of xmas goodies for daughter in Canada

Collected from me at 1pm on Tue 17th
and delivered to her at 3.42pm (10.42pm our time) today (Thur 19th)

so, 45 hours from my door to hers in Alberta