Courier Woes

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115 posts

Master Geek

#196397 17-Feb-2009 21:44

In my previous job I was the person who did up all the packages for the couriers. We mainly used Courierpost, and they were fantastic.

In my current job, most of our stuff comes through Mainfreight, and they're good for bigger stuff. We did however have something recently sent to us through Fastway. My work's offices are only open between 9.30am and midday (unless the courier really feels the need to come between 5 and 6am, or 9.30pm and midnight...), but Fastway just left a card at the door stating "Can't do these times". Funny, because every other company who stuff gets sent through can.

Ezzie

51 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#196617 18-Feb-2009 22:53

Ive had issues with most of the major courier companies...they all seem incompetent.
My mum and I own a business together which has our main product being shipped from Europe then from Auckland to Wellington.
We use Walker Logistics as our "middle man" who have tried using NZ couriers, TNT, Courier Post/ DHL and some other one I cant remember. We pay specifically to have the items signature required as there is expensive items in the parcels.
The busines operates from home ... and we have been extremely aggravated that 90% (or more) of the time, even when somone is at "home" as thats where they work...parcels were misteriously delivered at 12noon but no one answered.
We have had times when they tried delivering at 6am! Talk about early.

We have also had the same problem that even upon redelivery they do the same thing! I have complained over and over again...even to Walker Logistics who have given them all earfuls but nothing seems to work.
Quite often we end up having to drive 12kms into the city to pick it up from the depot, which is stupid because thats not what we paid for.

Once we even had a situation where we changed addresses, everyhting was clearly updated to our new address , parcel labelled to the new address, but the courier company who had us on file, thought they would be clever and send it to our old address. it took me 2 days for them to understand no one was there anymore and where to redeliver it. It was redelivered to our old address 3 times :(

I think it depends what area you are in also as to what service you get!
I give up on couriers :P

kiwitrc

4123 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#196631 19-Feb-2009 06:20

stevenz:
Whenever we used to get people that insisted on using Fastway, we knew we'd be waiting at least 3 days for it, rather than overnight as it was supposed to be. Maybe it's just the Wellington guys but without fail they'd take at least a day longer than they were supposed to.

As for informing Ascent, they don't ship anything, they get things shipped directly to you from their suppliers, which is why they don't charge for shipping. Good outfit to deal with IMO.

Amen to that! Fastway in Wellington are crap! I always ask sellers on trademe first before agreeing to pay for a courier, then if its Farceway I send up NZCouriers tickets. We get lots of courier stuff at work daily and dont have a problem with Courier Post, I rate them up with NZ Couriers, but as has been said it depends on the local driver, although Farceway seem to be consistent in how they operate, sadly.

Grae

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#196642 19-Feb-2009 08:42

My experience with Courier Post has overwhelmingly been very positive, both for private and business use. Can't say the same about a recent experience with Post Haste (not!) - delivery to me was required to be signed for by me, found the item in my letter box and the on-line tracking information showed that it had been signed for, but it had to have been the courier driver who did not even attempt to deliver it to my door. I was home waiting for it.

AndrewTD

292 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#196652 19-Feb-2009 09:15

I too have had several bad experiences with couriers over the years. Although haven't had much cause to use them in recent months.
Seems to be a pretty consistent story here, and I would suggest that the underlying cause is "pay peanuts, get monkeys". As I understand it, the courier drivers don't get paid much - and the companies they work for are responding to the public's primary concern of paying as little as possible.
Mind you, I think that perhaps there could be a case for the commerce commission to investigate as it does seem to be a widespread industry practice that very often, couriers don't check to see if anyone is home before leaving the card in the letterbox. (And often don't get signatuires when they should.) That seems to me to be a clear case of false advertising.
Perhaps if people who have had several instances of this happen to them lately complained to the commerce commission (or maybe even Fair Go) that we might be able to get some sort of groundswell going to get the courier companies to lift their game in this regard. Might of course mean in the end that freight costs go up, and/or stated delivery performance targets get reduced!

kind regards Andrew TD

DarthKermit

5346 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#848343 2-Jul-2013 17:14

Got home today to find a courier parcel on the doorstep, delivered by Fastway Couriers. It has a 'Signature required' sticker on it, which was obviously ignored by the driver.

The parcel was addressed to my address (#23), but is actually for a woman who lives a couple of houses up (#26). Luckily for her, her cellphone number was on her parcel so I could phone her.

Whatifthespacekeyhadneverbeeninvented?

mattwnz

20164 posts

Uber Geek

#848346 2-Jul-2013 17:20

I sent a parcel last week by passtheparcel, and was contacted by the receiver that they never got it. I told them that the track and trace showed it had been signed for by them person, as it had a scanned copy of the persons handwritten name. However they had never signed for it. In the end it turned out that the courier appears to have written the name of the person in the 'sign' field, and put the item in their letter box. First time of have come across that, and not that impressed.

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Abo

78 posts

Master Geek

#848368 2-Jul-2013 17:56

mattwnz: I sent a parcel last week by passtheparcel, and was contacted by the receiver that they never got it. I told them that the track and trace showed it had been signed for by them person, as it had a scanned copy of the persons handwritten name. However they had never signed for it. In the end it turned out that the courier appears to have written the name of the person in the 'sign' field, and put the item in their letter box. First time of have come across that, and not that impressed.

I had that happen to me once, except the courier just signed for it himself then dumped it on the doorstep.
The worst part was that he spelt my name wrong even though it was about 5 cm above on the box lol..

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#848372 2-Jul-2013 18:13

Quidam:If any of you guys are like me, you often buy electronic gadgetry online, normally meaning to-the-door courier delivery.

My recent experience with CourierPost has me feeling less than impressed.

I've had many issues with courierpost since they started using posties to deliver .

Issues similar to what you just had, but a few more.

But, I've generally had issues with most couriers at one time or another. My preference would be to collect from the postshop as home deliveries get screwed up so often. But, they don't allow that.

mattwnz

20164 posts

Uber Geek

#848374 2-Jul-2013 18:20

Abo:
mattwnz: I sent a parcel last week by passtheparcel, and was contacted by the receiver that they never got it. I told them that the track and trace showed it had been signed for by them person, as it had a scanned copy of the persons handwritten name. However they had never signed for it. In the end it turned out that the courier appears to have written the name of the person in the 'sign' field, and put the item in their letter box. First time of have come across that, and not that impressed.

I had that happen to me once, except the courier just signed for it himself then dumped it on the doorstep.
The worst part was that he spelt my name wrong even though it was about 5 cm above on the box lol..

I am guessing that the courier didn't legally 'sign it'. I presume the courier just wrote the name of the person in the signature field, as though it was the person who received it, so they didn't have to redeliver it later. I was going to call the courier about it, as it was supposed to be signature required, and I don't think they should be doing that, but it wasn't worth wasting my time over.

JohnnyDrama

30 posts

Geek

#848402 2-Jul-2013 20:33

I ordered 3 Galaxy S4 handsets from Clove and tracked the item while I was at work 1.5 weeks ago which stated it was delivered at 8:30am.. Exciting right?
Imagine my disappointment when i got home with my anticipation fully built up to find the item nowhere to be seen.

Called NZ Post International, the rep didnt seem to overly care and said they need to make contact with the driver and could take 72hours (!)
After 3 hours or so, I called CourierPost who advised me of the NZ tracking number which i used to track on the CourierPost website which shows the area that the driver delivered my item on Google Maps based on the GPS of their handsets.
He delivered it to a street 5mins drive down the road to a street that is neither spelt nor sounds anything like my street name.

I took a drive down as I didnt want to leave my almost $3000 item at a random house while waiting for CourierPost to get their act together. The lady who had it was super nice and was nice enough to not open my package for the whole day that it was with her.

I called CourierPost back to advise them I have the item but was not happy.

Fast forward 12 days.. Received a voicemail to say they are still investigating...

Loismustdye

927 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#848418 2-Jul-2013 21:30

Our courier post guy here in palmy is awesome, always brings my toys to the door and never had him miss a beat yet. The previous guy was just as good, I was home one day from work and went outside after hearing our westie cross dog barking and then go quiet....... The courier driver was throwing her ball/chew toy to her as he was leaving down the driveway! Classic

wasabi2k

2096 posts

Uber Geek

#848433 2-Jul-2013 22:06

Having read the numerous horror stories here and elsewhere I must be super lucky, never had issues in Massey with CourierPost, Fastway or any of the majors.

CourierPost guy even knows our names and has caught a few parcels with the wrong address on (but our name and phone number) and got them sorted.

Guess it depends entirely on your local guy.

Kyanar

4089 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

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#848491 3-Jul-2013 07:13

surfisup1000: I've had many issues with courierpost since they started using posties to deliver .

Issues similar to what you just had, but a few more.

But, I've generally had issues with most couriers at one time or another. My preference would be to collect from the postshop as home deliveries get screwed up so often. But, they don't allow that.

With Courierpost, if that's the carrier the sender is using, you can have the package sent to a PO Box where the "host" post shop will sign for the package. Perhaps that's an option?

Unfortunately if it's not Courierpost, the post shop will reject the package even if the courier did actually attempt delivery.

michaelmurfy

meow
13256 posts

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#848555 3-Jul-2013 09:18

I had a Fastway driver literally bang on my door at 6am, waking me and the rest of the house up, the first time I said "it's too early for this dude" he said meh and left. I still had 4 other packages to arrive. He banged on my door this time at 5:30am the next day with another package, I gave him a piece of my mind so he proceeded to call me a jerk and left.

I set up a camera at the door to record the next courier packages that arrive through him. This time 5:20am, banging on my door. I turned around and said "see that camera there? It timestamps recordings and can see you no problems" he didn't say anything and left.

I emailed a photo to their complaints service with the timestamp. They responded that day with "This is under investigation"

Next day, at 9am received a gentle knock on the door, got up, new courier driver, friendly service so I asked him "what happened to the other courier driver that used to do this area?" the guy said he lost his contract so you'll never be seeing him again.

He was right, I never saw that other courier driver again.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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