Friday 23 March 2012

Losing My Lifejacket

As my plans for this year include a trip on the tidal Trent and as my swimming lessons have not proved particularly successful (yet) I thought I had better invest in a lifejacket.
I ordered this one from Marine Warehouse on March 14th and on March 15th got an email to say that their courier, DPD, would deliver it that morning! Unfortunately, I didn't pick up the email until the afternoon and despite having been in all morning I did not see the courier.
DPD's website includes a tracking service from which I could see that my parcel was "delivered" and signed for by a name completely unknown to me. In fact, they had delivered it to a house eight doors down and on the other side of the street!  They left no calling card to tell me this, neither did they email, phone or text. As I said in my subsequent email to Marine Warehouse:


Sally,
I have now retrieved my order from number 55 but I would like to make a few comments on your courier's service.

1. The house opposite mine is number 39. I will leave you to work out how far away number 55 may be. It was not an obvious place to leave a parcel.
2. There was no indication that the parcel had been left there. No card through the door and no email or text to say where it was. 
3. I was at home all morning so I strongly suspect no call was even made at number 98.
4. The email advising me that delivery would be made "between 0958 and 1058" was sent at 0816. This is not very much notice and in any case I didn't pick it up until mid-afternoon.
5. There was no opportunity to specify an alternative delivery point if the courier was unable to deliver to the door. I would have preferred the parcel to be left in the back yard, accessible through a side gate, rather than with a complete stranger half-way down the road.
6. I received only a rather terse and unapologetic response from the courier.

I've also had an email requesting me to review my purchase on their website, but obviously I can only do that if and when I ever have to use it - and then assuming it works!

2 comments:

Alf said...

You should have waited for a few days, then called to say that your item had not been delivered, you would then have a spare !!! ;-)

Jim said...

Alf,
The courier firm was quite dismissive, as far as they were concerned the item had been "delivered" and that was the end of the matter. It was only after I contacted the supplier that I found out where it had been delivered to!
Jim