camelot-forum.co.uk

Can you believe Yodel can't find us even after 3 days and require more address info. The crossed out bits are our house name.

Attached is taken from their tracking web site this afternoon. The buildings next to the YOUR AREA are us!!!

Isn’t this another example of improving services by deregulation/opening up to the free market ?

For a year or more we had a massive problem with Yodel not delivering. We kept getting messages that they had tried to deliver but we'd not been at home, which was just made up, as we're both retired, so one of us is usually at home. Tracked down the problem in the end. The delivery drivers are deliberately overloaded with deliveries. Their system assumes that some deliveries won't get through, because of people being out, so they allow for that by putting more parcels on each delivery round than can be delivered. If, like us, you happen to live right at the end of a delivery round, then there is a very good chance that your delivery won't arrive as scheduled.

Final straw for me was when we got a photo of someone else's place, showing our parcel. As it happened we knew the farm where they'd dropped the parcel, so collecting it was easy, but I then laid a trap for the driver, tracking the next delivery and seeing the U turn about half a mile from us, when he turned around to go home at the end of his day, with our parcel still on the van. I chased after him, and on the way there got the "we tried to deliver but you weren't in" email.

When I got hold of the driver a fair way down the lane, he did look a bit sheepish, but also explained that he didn't get paid overtime, that he was always given more parcels than he could deliver and he was already over his working hours for the day. TBH I felt a bit sorry for the chap. he was way over retirement age, probably working on the minimum wage, and Yodel obviously didn't give a damn about effectively forcing him to work extra hours for no pay.

Last week we had a parcel just thrown on the bonnet of the car, we were in.

This week;
Day 1 - marked as requiring further address info- (I wasn't tracking). address is correct.
Day 2 - I was following on tracking and they marked it as requiring further information 50 odd stops before us. Customer service said that they had attempted delivery despite him being over 3 miles away.
Day 3 they did come out but obviously didn't bother looking properly.

They only seem to leave the depot mid /late morning and have 140 odd parcels to deliver.

I have actually delivered for the Hermes courier in this area a few years back, over the Christmas period, when she only had a car. I actually lent her a van and also used my van to help her deliver and we both did more than full days for weeks to keep on top of it.

Dare I say, we often have parcels from Amazon and they send a different driver every time and not once, other than a van breakdown, have they failed to deliver to us.

I feel for the delivery drivers... but of course their management and the companies' systems (and the shareholders' demands) are all at fault.

Some time ago we were expecting a "tracked" delivery, not via Yodel. We got an email saying "Out for delivery today: follow your parcel" so we tracked it on and off all day. It went to and fro passing our end of town several times so we gave up. Eventually it was delivered about 6pm! What a waste of our time looking out for it...
Maybe things have got better, we generally get a delivery window nowadays. (Not that we buy much stuff.)
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The chap I spoke to said that he was responsible for sorting parcels at the depot and loading his van, and that he wasn't paid for either the sorting or loading time, they expected drivers to turn up early to do that and do it for no pay, same as if they ran out of time and still had parcels to deliver.

Some of these companies doing the "last mile" deliveries are breaking just about every bit of employment legislation going, and getting away with it as they employ drivers via the "gig" economy, very often with no proper employment contracts, no sick pay, and working at, or below, the minimum wage. Some of the companies really are the scum of the earth, but they stay in business because we, the punters, have an insatiable appetite for delivered goods and because many people really don't give a damn if the delivery driver is being abused by his or her employer.

To be honest we get a lot of parcels and most are pretty good if not excellent. The exceptions are Yodel and Parcelforce.

My friend actually works for DPD now and she loves it, best move she ever made. Decent pay and the use of a new van, fuel and serviced.