UPS or DHL or Fedex or DPD

I might be very unlucky but every UPS delivery I was due to get over the past year had some sort of an issue. They lost 4 separate packages and they only way I could get anything resolved was by shaming their MD on social media after hours and hours of getting the runaround over the phone.
 
Most drivers are self employed. All of the DPD ones certainly are.


I'll echo the Fastway delivery. An absolute disaster. Had a pair of runners out for delivery for a week with the driver not being able to find my house and never bothering to phone. You can't phone them either and have to email everything to them. I'd bought the runners from Sports Direct, so I should have known they'd use an equally bad courier partner.
 
24601 said:
They lost 4 separate packages
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Did they find them again?

How do they get lost? Surely someone checks every bar coded item and if they find something in the Ukraine with an Irish address on it, it must trigger some action.

They could deliver it to the wrong address. An employee could steal it.

But getting permanently lost seems difficult.

Brendan
 
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I had DPD lose 4 parcels. They weren't really lost, just sitting in a depot and no one bothering to move them on. It's a long long story. Communication between depots and customer service was very poor.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Did you get them eventually? Do you mean that they mislaid them only to find them again?
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This is a summary of the parcel saga.

In December I sent 5 parcels through DPD. Printed the labels, brought the parcels to the local drop off point (local shop). Shop assistant wasn't aware the shop was a drop off point, but called the owner who said to take them, DPD would collect.

Checked on line but no change in status. It was December, so busy time for parcels with Christmas and Brexit. They weren't Christmas gifts so there was no urgency with them. Christmas holidays came and then lockdown. Shop was closed. DPD claimed to not have the parcels and I couldn't contact the shop owner. So I assumed they were never collected.

In March, shop owner returned to shop and called me to say parcels were still there. He claimed DPD should have collected them, but I've a suspicion he needed to inform them. Anyway, I retrieved the parcels and brought them to another drop off point. This one was better organised. Parcels were scanned and I was given a receipt. Within 20 minutes status was updated on line. Two hours later, could see they were collected by driver. One parcel was for Belgium, arrived a few days later without issue. The other 4 were for UK.

After 2 days the online status for the 4 UK parcels was updated to say they were incorrectly routed and were being rerouted. Then the status changed to 'travelling through the DPD network'. After a few days of this I contacted customer services. They said they would contact the depot for an update but it may take a few days. After a few days they replied to say they had found the parcels and closed the ticket. Status never changed online. Contacted customer service again, same as before, will contact depot etc.

One morning I receive a DPD text that I have a delivery. Wasn't expecting one but with all the online shopping during lockdown, maybe I'd forgotten one. Driver arrived with one of the parcels due for the UK. I showed him the UK address, he just shrugged and said to contact Customer service, he just delivers what he's given.

Two days later two of the other packages for the UK arrived back to me. So, went to send them again , not with DPD, and see that other couriers wouldn't deliver to UK for individuals, business customers only. Also true for DPD. This was obviously the issue with the parcels, no UK delivery due to Brexit. But at no point did customer service say this. So, sent the parcels with An Post.

Just waiting on one parcel to come back. Mid April at this stage and no sign of it. Contacted them again, usual reply and asked to provide a description of package. No sign of it so they open a claim for a lost package. A week later they inform me of the good news that they have found the package. Again, no sign of the package going to the recipient or coming back to me. Contact them again,. they contact the depot..... package lost again.

Asked for description again, sent it again. Two days later receive an email asking for the description and if I don't reply within two days, they will close the case. I was pretty sure I had replied, checked Sent Item and saw my reply. I then noticed the original mail was from 'donotreply@dpd.com'. No alternate email was provided, not sure if it was a mistake or a ploy to get rid of me. I emailed the description to customer service, telling them the original mail was from a Do Not Reply address. Two days lat, I receive a mail to say as I hadn't provided a description, they were closing the case.

This was now June. Was considering the small claims court when out of the blue, the package appeared on my doorstep.

They refunded the shipping cost but never gave an explanation for any of it. Communication between depot and customer service seemed poor.

So that's the story of my parcels.
 

OK, I was using lost in the loosest sense of the word, the way you would say you lost your keys. They lost one of the packages altogether (I think it actually showed up a long time after I had received a refund from the sender, which took about 2 months and a half dozen phone calls and emails), they mislaid one which was lying in their depot in Dublin for > 3 weeks (I could see it was in Finglas based on the scanning history), mislaid another one so that I had to initiate their "Lost Package" process which really should be called the "Mislaid Package" process (this was delivered after about 6 weeks), and delivered another one to a random address in another part of the county which happened to have a similar prefix to where I live (e.g. I live in Lakeview Drive and they delivered it to Lakewood Apartments) - this package had to be collected by them after me initiating their Lost Package Process; it was redelivered which took about a month all in all for a package which was advertised as next day or priority delivery. I couldn't even collect this as they had delivered it to a gated apartment complex.

Interestingly the seller of this latter package recalled the order because of the error and re-sent me the item, which arrived via a different courier within a couple of days. They advised that I would have to return the original item if it was ever delivered to me by UPS, which it was after three months, meaning that I had to arrange to have a 40kg package returned because of UPS's incompetence. I actively avoid ordering items from companies that use UPS now, although it's not always possible to know what couriers are used. The support on the phone is next to useless. I found that the phone calls actually made the situation worse with the tracker updated incorrectly on numerous occasions adding further to the delays. The only comparable customer service nightmare I've had has been with Sky TV.

I have had very good experiences with DPD & DHL, though.
 
"Coming from Italy? I assume not."
dependent on what original sender puts on customs declaration and if it is passing through uk .
my own case items coming from europe with original senders country of origin declarations (eu ) ,gets shipped via courier to addresspal uk then on to me directly from there, to me in this case addresspal is eu territory no additional items/imput in parcel from uk ,the guys at addrespal uk cover up the original eu country of origin customs declaration with a uk country of origins custom declaration ,causing delays, customs charges and an addresspal handling fee. happened couple of times now .another time the eu sender sent it out with the wrong courier going elsewhere europe they eventually got it back and sent out with right courier
 
If you have an item going from an EU country into addresspal, it is considered delivered into the UK. It immediately becomes a UK item if it subsequently is delivered to you in Ireland.

Country of origin only comes into play for duty. And items under €150 have no duty.

But vat and customs entry has to be paid even if it originally came from another EU country.

Companies like DPD can transit through the UK as the goods do not stop there. But once delivered, even to reroute to another EU country, it changes form and is vatable again on the vat inclusive price.
 
DHL Express are messing me around.
They were due to deliver yesterday, but changed to today. OK. No problem.
Then yesterday a text looking for VAT. But they charged the wrong rate of VAT. I called and they agreed it was wrong and would fix it.
Then they left a voicemail today without a number to call back. So I went from Billy to Jack to try to pay it .

They could not take payment. They had to ring me to take the payment. (I would have thought it more secure for the customer to initiate the call the make the payment.)

They say that they can't deliver it today as it is on hold so I have asked for the Complaints Manager to call me back and arrange shipment today.

My argument is that as it's their mistake, they should have release it from hold until they sorted it out.

They do have this useful facility which I have also used
 
Brendan Burgess said:
They say that they can't deliver it today as it is on hold so I have asked for the Complaints Manager to call me back and arrange shipment today.
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And they did. I got a call back from the Complaints Manager to apologise and they said they would get it delivered today.

Brendan
 
Reactions: Leo
Back in the day, I got a ticket to the famous Ireland v England rugby match at Croke Park in 2007 as a corporate gift. For some reason, they chose Fastway to deliver it. Despite me chasing it and the people giving me the ticket chasing it, it didn't arrive so I stuck watching the match on tv. The ticket arrived on 21st August 2007 in a crumpled envelope. I have the ticket framed today. So never let anyone say that match was a full house. It was a full house -1.

Anyway, I have been bad mouthing fastways ever since. I find DPD to be by far the best especially how they allow you to manage the delivery. Have had no issues with An Post and UPS either.
 
Sunny said:
The ticket arrived on 21st August 2007 in a crumpled envelope.
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Was it the full ticket (including sub) the you eventually got ? - The ticket might have been used & just passed to you after the game Just to make sure that it was indeed a "full house" that day
 
Are Nightline still in the delivery business? I haven't seen them mentioned at all. As for the self employed drivers being used by courier companies? Is it not the case that they all do this now?
 
noproblem said:
Are Nightline still in the delivery business? I haven't seen them mentioned at all. As for the self employed drivers being used by courier companies? Is it not the case that they all do this now?
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Nightline were acquired by UPS last year.
 
noproblem said:
Are Nightline still in the delivery business? I haven't seen them mentioned at all. As for the self employed drivers being used by courier companies? Is it not the case that they all do this now?
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As above, they are now branded UPS

I know ups, DHL and DPD directly employ many drivers, but also self employed

Fastway is entirely self employed
 
peemac said:
As above, they are now branded UPS

I know ups, DHL and DPD directly employ many drivers, but also self employed

Fastway is entirely self employed
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Are you saying that, DHL, UPS and DPD actually pay their drivers as employees?
 
noproblem said:
Are you saying that, DHL, UPS and DPD actually pay their drivers as employees?
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Well I know DPD have drivers as employees and also use self employed during busy times. I would be surprised if DHL and UPS weren't the same.
 
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