Signed, sealed, but not delivered?

You seem to have left things a bit tight, Lauren – do you have a Plan B?

Proving you haven’t had a delivery is one of the problems in these scenarios because the seller is likely to believe their carrier over the customer some of whom possibly tell porkies.

I don’t know what the service like is these days but people living in the Harrods van delivery area never had these problems. The green van and the man in the green uniform were 100% reliable. Even for a set of handkerchieves, no charge.

I think making the seller prove delivery rather than the customer having to assert non-delivery would be a very good move. The seller is responsible for fulfilling the order but, from previous Conversations on this subject, it seems that many of them put up al sorts of defences and tell the customer to deal with the carrier, which is quite wrong. Adopting that rule would make it more likely that companies would employ better carriers who took care to deliver correctly and had a good recording system to provide evidence of delivery. I don’t use my normal signature for signing for deliveries but a very bold and clear version; if the carrier came up with a squiggle I would know at once it was a fake.

That is a great shame, because in many comments here DPD have been regarded as one of the best carriers. They were the first to introduce real-time tracking with map locations and one-hour delivery forecasts. I have always found DPD to be satisfactory and very reliable. I have to say, though, that I have no experience of how they operate when the consignee is absent. It would seem from what you say that they will only deliver to the actual address unless they have received specific on-line instructions from the customer to deliver elsewhere and will take no notice [for obvious reasons] of a message taped to the front door saying take it somewhere else, for example. They also seem to prefer to deliver on a different day if the recipient will not be present to take in the parcel and have a facility on their delivery notification for the consignee to alter the delivery date right up to the time of delivery.

The parcel delivery industry does rather expect people who have ordered goods on-line to be available to receive them on the scheduled date but this is made difficult with companies [like Amazon] who give a delivery window of several days and sometimes deliver in advance of that period – but they tend to use their own logistics operation and not carriers like DPD.

It is possible that your bad experiences are related to a particular DPD depot where some poor customer service practices have taken root. If goods are left in an exposed place, or where they can get wet, then that should always be taken up with the consignor [seller] so they are aware of unsatisfactory deliveries and review their contract with the carrier company. Many on-line retailers will not say which company will be doing the delivery since they use a number and it will depend on the origins and destinations of multiple consignments on the day.

The parcel delivery business is highly competitive and it could be that DPD have lost their edge and slipped down the satisfaction league table recently. Consignors are usually looking for the lowest cost operation which is not particularly good news for their customers – only when the cost and inconvenience of dealing with customer complaints and sending replacements exceeds the marginal cost advantage of using a particular carrier will things change, so it is important to notify the seller of all delivery problems.

We buy quite a lot on-line from John Lewis and they use DPD; JL’s order confirmation notifications are inter-linked with the DPD system which then takes over the delivery notification process so DPD are effectively the delivery arm of John Lewis for small goods. We have never had a problem but always make sure we will be at home when a delivery is due and if necessary choose a specific delivery day. In the run-up to Christmas we managed to take in deliveries from five different suppliers on the same day [plus a Sainsbury’s order]. The hall looked like a parcels depot at one point.

Good morning, Beryl. Try giving them a ring on 0333 014 8000.

I ordered from M&S on 26th December and it arrived 5th January using standard delivery.

As they have not delivered within their original delivery date, you could try and get a free return out of them when the goods arrive.

Or email them at customer.services@marks-and-spencer.com

I suggested that they added this email to their website last time I contacted them, but to no avail. Many companies don’t advertise email addresses even if they have them.

In fairness Beryl I doubt that M&S do this to deliberately hold on to your “cash” and as most will pay with a credit card, they don’t actually pay until at least 30 days after the transaction date. We have dealt fairly often with M&S online and generally find it more convenient to use click and collect. We get an email when the item will be available and delivery has been very prompt.

CRA guide says: 10. 14 day right to cancel for goods bought at a distance or off-premises

If you sell goods to a consumer at a distance….. then the consumer has a 14 calendar day period in which they may change their mind and cancel the contract …..The consumer may use this 14 day cooling off period to cancel without giving a reason, if goods were bought off-premises or at a distance.

The 14 day period starts the day after the consumer, or someone selected by the consumer, receives the goods.

So the 14 days starts from your receipt of the goods.