Couriers

Ave Sodalis

So had three deliveries today... one by DHL (the begruding delivery), one by Fastway (dropped it off at a random house who then had to deliver to us, didnt bother ringing me), and An Post (landed at the door with no problem). As it happens, the An Post delivery is the only one I wouldn't have minded if it was dropped elsewhere because it was for someone else and I've to take it there tomorrow anyway. Typical...

Tigger

i got a pallet today and the courier broke my door with his electrical mini forklift
he said "i didn't mean to"
i don't want him fired but wtf

PizzamanIRL

Shoutout to DPD. On time, all the time.

Del2005

Ally Dick wrote: »

I hate the way they give themselves such a large delivery window and arrive outside it, every time e.g. DPD says the delivery will be between 12 and 4. Wacker is ringing you looking to deliver at 10.30

The company gives the delivery window, most of the time they don't tell the driver. Then our huge amount of houses with no way to find doesn't help unless you're willing to pay thousands to An Post or even more to Eircode, which An Post had a part in designing even though they said that they don't need or want it so they made sure it was of no use to anyone.

Problem with courier services is that the only people making any money are the companies. When you order off most websites the delivery charge doesn't go to the driver, each company takes a cut till the driver maybe gets a couple of Euro. Since our minimum wage is €8.65/hour do you expect anything more from a driver who has to pay for fuel, insurance, tax, maintenance etc when they are maybe getting a couple of Euro to deliver your package. As the saying goes pay peanuts....

Sh1tbag OToole

There is a company in the Youkay called Yodel that are particularly bad. If they are delivering during the daytime they make no attempt to see is there someone in the house to take the parcel off their hands and just leave a note telling you that you weren't home when you were.

FanadMan

sup_dude wrote: »

The randomly delivered parcel to a random shop (or in one case, house) and then not be told at all. /rant

Nearest courier depots are +25 miles away......(yes, I live in the middle of nowhere). I've had DHL deliveries dropped at local shop which is 3 miles away. But they weren't delivered by DHL. They knew a bread van going that direction so they lumped him with loads of parcels and off they went. No phonecalls to say they were delivered. And signatures forged for them all.

Had similar with other couriers except An Post which I have to say have been great. Why the hell am I paying for delivery to my home when I have to travel to collect it myself?

foggy_lad

When you live on top of the mountain or offshore in Donegal yoyu can't expect the same services as us townies or even culchies living close enough to a town.

FanadMan

foggy_lad wrote: »

When you live on top of the mountain or offshore in Donegal yoyu can't expect the same services as us townies or even culchies living close enough to a town.

Why? We pay the same money as you and should get the same service. We pay the same for Sky Tv, same car tax, same water bills and we get the same service. It's just pure laziness on the part of the couriers. That's their bloody job. Next package I have scheduled, woe betide the courier that doesn't knock on my door. There is going to be hell to pay!

An Post can manage it - why not the privates?

foggy_lad

The privates want paying by the mile once you live off the radar and an post will be doing similar soon enough! You will soon have to collect all post from the local sub post office down at the crossroads, then they will be closed and you'll have to go to the nearest village for your post. People who want to live out of the way will have to organise getting their own post and also getting children to and from schools. Why should the rest of the country pay for services for a few grizzly adams types who want to live in the middle of nowhere?

Your electricity gas roads water and everything else costs much more to provide because you live out in the wilds yet you pay the same as everyone else. That is not right!

emigrate2012

An Post can manage it - why not the privates?[/quote]

Because it's a state/semi-state.
Fast way and the like are franchise routes. Very hard for them lad's to make money, all of them will be doing 14/16 hour days from basically now till Christmas for very little money relatively for the hours after costs
It's a poxy job, but somebody's got to do it/some have no choice(mortgage, kids etc)

Most require you to have company branding(some more elaborate than others Admittedly) on your van, out of your pocket, pretty much all require the van to be less than 3-4 years old, 5 max and clean bodywork, or they won't take you on. You're a subcontractor on top of that aswell so no welfare as your self employed so under constant pressure to be earning.
It is a vicious circle once you get into it. Hard job for anyone with kids or a social life of any kind.
There's a very good reason why "white van men" are bombing around the place, they bloody well fcukin have to!

chillin117

I was a Courier once...on a motorbike and indeed most of them( I met ) were wanker's. Especially the ****'s that hung around the base lickin up to the controller. Happen's a lot in Taxi Co's too, Lickarse's. Having said that there is probably Lickarse's in every company.

FanadMan

foggy_lad wrote: »

The privates want paying by the mile once you live off the radar and an post will be doing similar soon enough! You will soon have to collect all post from the local sub post office down at the crossroads, then they will be closed and you'll have to go to the nearest village for your post. People who want to live out of the way will have to organise getting their own post and also getting children to and from schools. Why should the rest of the country pay for services for a few grizzly adams types who want to live in the middle of nowhere?

Your electricity gas roads water and everything else costs much more to provide because you live out in the wilds yet you pay the same as everyone else. That is not right!

As I said I live in the middle of nowhere, but I pay for courier deliveries to my address - not to a shop (which has closed) a few miles away. I don't mind paying for the delivery, as long as it happens.

Where I mentioned the bread van doing the couriers work, it wasn't a one off. I know the guy - he was asked to do this on a regular basis. It's just the couriers being lazy. There's plenty of businesses in the area that get stuff delivered the same way.

Someone else said that stuff was left in a shop and they weren't notified about it, that has happened to me. It was only after chasing up missing packages that I was told that it was in a different shop. The courier said they phoned my mobile - they didn't.

Grab All Association

DPD = excellent grand chap delivered my new laptop in July. Came to my house first thing before everyone else because he didn't like carrying expensive items in the van
DHL = excellent iPhones from Apple very early in the morning.
UPS = excellent though evening delivery. Apple.ie accessories.
Nightline= Excellent delivered stuff I couldn't collect from Parcel motel to my door
GLS = delivered me phonebooks a few years ago. No complaints.
Fastway(and iParcel)= Okay though they did screw up once by letting a neighbour sign for goods.

Ave Sodalis

foggy_lad wrote:

When you live on top of the mountain or offshore in Donegal yoyu can't expect the same services as us townies or even culchies living close enough to a town.

Yes I can.
We can't all live in towns...

foggy_lad wrote:

Why should the rest of the country pay for services for a few grizzly adams types who want to live in the middle of nowhere?

You sound bitter.
Also, I've paid for delivery, the rest of the country don't pay it for me.

emigrate2012 wrote:

Very hard for them lad's to make money

It would be even more difficult when they go out of business, as their couriers don't do their jobs.

I've worked stupid long hours before, I know what it's like. Not once did I blame the client or not do my job when others were affected. The blame lay solely with my employer for breaking the law. Doctors work stupid long hours but you don't see patience dying because doctors weren't bothered treating them. Vets work stupid long hours but animals don't go without just because the vet couldn't be bothered getting up at 2 in the morning. See all those top horses? Most of them got that way on the back of slave labour (or close), yet the animals haven't starved to death because it would take too long to feed them. Yeah, couriers work long hours but that isn't the fault of the person who is essentially paying their wages, and not an excuse not to do their job.

strelok

sup_dude wrote: »

Yes I can.

no you can't

you can't expect taxis to be the same price, you can't expect the internet to be as quick, you can't expect mobile reception to be as good, you can't expect the same level of shops and entertainment and you have to put up with the fact that if someone is pushed for time they're going to try to drop off a cluster of packages in a smaller circle than spending however long travelling off into the wilderness to deliver a package to you and you alone.

you choose to live far away from other people, you have to deal with the consequences of that. lots of people who live in towns and cities would love to live out miles from everything but they recognise the benefits of living around large groups of people so they put up with it.

GLaDOS

Delivery from DPD yesterday. Window of 12 til 1 given, arrives 12.05. Can't ask for much better than that.

The Backwards Man

strelok wrote: »

no you can't

you can't expect taxis to be the same price, you can't expect the internet to be as quick, you can't expect mobile reception to be as good, you can't expect the same level of shops and entertainment and you have to put up with the fact that if someone is pushed for time they're going to try to drop off a cluster of packages in a smaller circle than spending however long travelling off into the wilderness to deliver a package to you and you alone.

you choose to live far away from other people, you have to deal with the consequences of that. lots of people who live in towns and cities would love to live out miles from everything but they recognise the benefits of living around large groups of people so they put up with it.

I'm in the arse of nowhere.

Taxis are cheaper, my internet is most likely quicker than yours, phone reception is A1 and a courier shouldn't take on a contract to deliver to my address if they're not going to fcuking do it.

Ave Sodalis

strelok wrote:

you can't expect taxis to be the same price, you can't expect the internet to be as quick, you can't expect mobile reception to be as good, you can't expect the same level of shops and entertainment and you have to put up with the fact that if someone is pushed for time they're going to try to drop off a cluster of packages in a smaller circle than spending however long travelling off into the wilderness to deliver a package to you and you alone.

I don't expect taxi's to be the same price, I don't expect internet to be quick (although having internet in this day and age would be nice), I don't expect reception to be good (even though it is), I don't expect the same level of shops and entertainment. What I do expect is to get something delivered when paid for. It would be like me paying for aforementioned taxi in advance, but it only goes as far as the nearest roundabout before telling me it would take up too much time from his day... but still keeping the money.

Once or twice, you don't mind but nearly every single time to nearly every single person in the area is a bit much. Also, wilderness is a tad of an exaggerarion...

Tigger

chillin117 wrote: »

I was a Courier once...on a motorbike and indeed most of them( I met ) were wanker's. Especially the ****'s that hung around the base lickin up to the controller. Happen's a lot in Taxi Co's too, Lickarse's. Having said that there is probably Lickarse's in every company.

yeah waiting on the handy ones
dispatching is different tho
who were you with

Del2005

FanadMan wrote: »

Why? We pay the same money as you and should get the same service. We pay the same for Sky Tv, same car tax, same water bills and we get the same service. It's just pure laziness on the part of the couriers. That's their bloody job. Next package I have scheduled, woe betide the courier that doesn't knock on my door. There is going to be hell to pay!

An Post can manage it - why not the privates?

You pay the same as me for a delivery yet I live in a city and you live in the middle of nowhere. Most of my deliveries I don't pay shipping, spend over £25 on Amazon, or never more than €10. So you think that a delivery costing a tenner is enough for at least 4 companies to take a cut and still pay a driver to go 30 minutes out and 30 minutes back to your home? The driver is maybe only getting €1 or €2 to do this. As for Vets and Doctor coming out I don't know many in rural areas but it costs me €55 to see mine in his office, I doubt you'll have much change from €100 to get a doc or vet out to your home.

You can't compare Sky, which is broadcast from space, to a delivery job and car tax goes into a central pool.

Supply of basic services to rural areas is heavily subsidised because every party knows that they will be destroyed if they tried to end the subsidises.

An Post have a proprietary address system which relies heavily on well paid post people having local knowledge and had an active part in sabotaging us getting a useful modern post code, which would have allowed companies easily find addresses and plan delivery routes, to protect their own parcel delivery business. BTW if vested interests didn't have a hand in giving us an expensive useless Eircode the delivery costs to locations could have been correctly calculated at checkout and I'd guarantee that you would stop ordering to your home miles from a town.

The Backwards Man

Del2005 wrote: »

You pay the same as me for a delivery yet I live in a city and you live in the middle of nowhere. Most of my deliveries I don't pay shipping, spend over £25 on Amazon, or never more than €10. So you think that a delivery costing a tenner is enough for at least 4 companies to take a cut and still pay a driver to go 30 minutes out and 30 minutes back to your home? The driver is maybe only getting €1 or €2 to do this. As for Vets and Doctor coming out I don't know many in rural areas but it costs me €55 to see mine in his office, I doubt you'll have much change from €100 to get a doc or vet out to your home.

You can't compare Sky, which is broadcast from space, to a delivery job and car tax goes into a central pool.

Supply of basic services to rural areas is heavily subsidised because every party knows that they will be destroyed if they tried to end the subsidises.

An Post have a proprietary address system which relies heavily on well paid post people having local knowledge and had an active part in sabotaging us getting a useful modern post code, which would have allowed companies easily find addresses and plan delivery routes, to protect their own parcel delivery business. BTW if vested interests didn't have a hand in giving us an expensive useless Eircode the delivery costs to locations could have been correctly calculated at checkout and I'd guarantee that you would stop ordering to your home miles from a town.

Impressive post, but completely irrelevant.

The couriers have already undertaken to do the job, you don't say you're going to do something and then not do it and cry and moan about it into the bargain. Don't want to do it, leave it to someone who will

Duggy747

bluewolf wrote: »

What happened

Not much really, made a friendly call to the company and he came the next morning. The courier was a nice guy so I didn't want to get him in trouble over the delivery of some shítty headphones and USB sticks.

The Backwards Man

I'm a shipping magnate and I have eighty containers of pyjamas and tracksuits destined for Dublin port but sure I'll just fcuk them off here in Europoort because even though I'm already paid for it there's no way I'm going to that insignificant backwater on the edge of Europe.

Lol

markc1184

Had a problem with DPD delivering 4 tyres before. Asked my mam to hang about my house for the day waiting on the driver to arrive and she is a real curtain twitcher in that situation and nothing came. Checked the letterbox that evening and there was a slip saying the time they supposedly called at so I checked my cctv and again no sign of them. Either too lazy to deliver them or the tyres would take up to much space. Their depot was only a few minutes away at the time so not as awkward to collect myself compared to what some people would have to go through.

philstar

foggy_lad wrote: »

When you live on top of the mountain or offshore in Donegal you can't expect the same services as us townies or even culchies living close enough to a town.

well with the onset of postcodes there should be no more excuses for delivering to the wrong address

FrStone

Del2005 wrote: »

You pay the same as me for a delivery yet I live in a city and you live in the middle of nowhere. Most of my deliveries I don't pay shipping, spend over £25 on Amazon, or never more than €10. So you think that a delivery costing a tenner is enough for at least 4 companies to take a cut and still pay a driver to go 30 minutes out and 30 minutes back to your home? The driver is maybe only getting €1 or €2 to do this. As for Vets and Doctor coming out I don't know many in rural areas but it costs me €55 to see mine in his office, I doubt you'll have much change from €100 to get a doc or vet out to your home.

You can't compare Sky, which is broadcast from space, to a delivery job and car tax goes into a central pool.

Supply of basic services to rural areas is heavily subsidised because every party knows that they will be destroyed if they tried to end the subsidises.

An Post have a proprietary address system which relies heavily on well paid post people having local knowledge and had an active part in sabotaging us getting a useful modern post code, which would have allowed companies easily find addresses and plan delivery routes, to protect their own parcel delivery business. BTW if vested interests didn't have a hand in giving us an expensive useless Eircode the delivery costs to locations could have been correctly calculated at checkout and I'd guarantee that you would stop ordering to your home miles from a town.

If they don't want to deliver to a rural area, that's fine. Just don't say you will, and then not carry out your part of the contract.

I've had way to many problems with couriers.. On the rare occasion they do deliver to my house they have to ring for directions... For god sake, I put directions on the instructions.

I actually won't order anything delivered by a courier anymore, an post are the only reliable company. And they never ask for bloody directions either

emigrate2012

sup_dude wrote: »

Yes I can.
We can't all live in towns...



You sound bitter.
Also, I've paid for delivery, the rest of the country don't pay it for me.



It would be even more difficult when they go out of business, as their couriers don't do their jobs.

I've worked stupid long hours before, I know what it's like. Not once did I blame the client or not do my job when others were affected. The blame lay solely with my employer for breaking the law. Doctors work stupid long hours but you don't see patience dying because doctors weren't bothered treating them. Vets work stupid long hours but animals don't go without just because the vet couldn't be bothered getting up at 2 in the morning. See all those top horses? Most of them got that way on the back of slave labour (or close), yet the animals haven't starved to death because it would take too long to feed them. Yeah, couriers work long hours but that isn't the fault of the person who is essentially paying their wages, and not an excuse not to do their job.

Was just trying to give you a bit of insight into a tough industry, there's a massive turnover of lads doing that. You happen to got stuck with a lazy **** in your area. Get yourself a po box and collect your hello kitty ankle warmers and Internet ordered sex toys at your convenience, try not being a whinge bag while you're at it...

Stone Deaf 4evr

FFS, all this talk of living off the radar. The country is tiny, if it was the rural US, you'd see isolated places.

and this fixed rate delivery charge from amazon etc not being enough to cover the cost of getting it to you is a cop out.
for every bit they lose on a delivery to ballygobackwards, they're making it up having 50 odd close together in the urban areas.

Ave Sodalis

emigrate2012 wrote:

Was just trying to give you a bit of insight into a tough industry, there's a massive turnover of lads doing that. You happen to got stuck with a lazy **** in your area. Get yourself a po box and collect your hello kitty ankle warmers and Internet ordered sex toys at your convenience, try not being a whinge bag while you're at it...

Jaysus, wrong side of the bed this morning?!
We had a PO Box, the owner died not long ago. But sure, I'll pop into the PO Box shop at some stage tomorrow and pick one up. That way I can order my Hello Kitty ankle warmers (once I find out what they are), and my sex toys until my heart's content, ammiright?

I understand that it isn't a pleasant job but that's no real excuse not to do it. The pay and hours are not the fault of the customer and therefore it shouldn't be the customer at fault. It's really one of the most basic rules of business. If it's really that bad, quit and find something else...

emigrate2012

Surely the **** if you had a po box before you can find out where to get another?
Trust me, if you were at that job, would you want to be traipsing up a lil boreen 5-6 miles from anywhere remotely on your route to drop off a t-shirt or the like, losing time and money for one poxy drop? I doubt it. Places like that are last on the list, if even on it, probably back to depot for the next sucker. Flat rate delivery rates work in urban areas, if you're in the arsehole of beyond you should be charged more as ultimately it costs more in real terms to deliver it. Or just make sure an Post is the carrier as it's state subsidised and they probably will get ot and won't mind the trip/time involved.
Can't sympathise with your plight at all.