The oddest place you’ve found a delivery

Living in the wilds of Lossiemouth where next day delivery normally means 3 to 5 days except for the Royal Mail who provided the service according to the postage charges.
Delivery quality does vary considerably. I have had a letter box broken because it wasn’t quite large enough for a parcel. I have a working door bell but the door is normally hammered. I must admit the Royal Mail are the preferred service for me.

Cookie says:

Yodel failed to deliver a large TV as agreed on a specific day. After many calls and failure to track where it actually was in their system we cancelled it. The next day we came home from work to find it on the doorstep, in the rain, in plain view…..
So many instances of Yodel doing the ‘unable to deliver’ thing when I had arranged to be in all day – and my home office is three paces from the front door so I always hear a bell or knock.

Karen says:

Oddest place I found a delivery. A house on a different street. Same number as my house, and same first letter for the street. I only discovered where it had gone, as it had been signed for, and from the name, (thinking it may be a neighbour) found through electoral register records the address it had been sent to.
Tried calling, and left a note. Guess what, the occupier never contacted me. The company did reissue once I could prove the address they had delivered to.
Royal mail – the delivery guys know me and my neighbours. Always leave with a neighbour or in my “safe place”, and if I’m in, will knock if they have parcels for neighbours. AND the collection office is fairly local if they do return.

Ellie says:

Hermes are the worst carriers I have ever experienced – it is hard to know how they manage to stay in business. They have an uncaring disrespect for the customer which starts at the top, as my complaints to customer service have been completely disregarded. Consequently, my family no longer deals with ANY firms that use Hermes – that is a stipulation we make with every firm we deal with online or by mail order.

Over a very long period, parcels were either thrown over our gate (often landing on or in front of the bins) or left outside the gate on the pavement. Goods were damaged and frequently soaked through. On one occasion when I complained to Hermes, a pleasant assistant told me that she would note my complaint among the many thousands they receive, but told me that nothing would be done about it – she even said she would never personally use their service!

Like DamnKnitBlast, although I work at home full time in a room close to the front door, and my dog barks long before anyone actually knocks, on several occasions Hermes deliveries failed as, according to their notes when the goods eventually arrived, I was out! However, this was completely untrue and, on all these dates, nobody even stepped through our gate.

The true nature of this Hermes driver reached a peak one day when my husband was gardening just inside the high front gate and was hit on the head by a large package (fortunately soft) which had been thrown over it. He rushed out to speak to the delivery man and asked him why he continuously found it too irksome to open our gate and walk the few yards to the front door (which, incidentally, has a covered porch). The driver retorted that nobody was ever in, also that there was nowhere to leave parcels (which proved he had never tried), then threatened to get out of the van and hit my husband! We suspected on that occasion that a woman passenger was throwing packages over gates without even getting out of the vehicle.

Although yet again we reported this to Hermes, and reported to the company who sent the package, nothing was done and (according to neighbours) the man continued to be employed by Hermes. As previously, despite this more serious complaint, we received no acknowledgement, let alone any apology. We later realised that we should have reported the driver’s threatening behaviour to the police.

dyfnwal says:

21 August 2014

A threat made towards a person may constitute Assault in English Law. An item thrown over the hedge which subsequently lands on a person’s head may be “Battery”. The item could have landed on a sleeping baby or toddler.
A complaint to the Police might have resulted in the alleged assailant being subjected to an interview lasting a few hours at the Police Station. This would certainly annoy or anger his employers.
Should a driver be convicted of Assault &/or Battery, there may be a joint liability with the employer to pay compensation to the victim in the Civil Courts.
Many firms will suffer no consequences from ignoring letters of complaints from members of the public who usually let the matter drop after the first complaint.
They will however, respond to Solicitors letters, calls from the Police or communications from the Courts.
Incidentally, do Delivery Companies permit their drivers to carry passengers? At one time, Royal Mail post vans were not allowed to carry any passengers, possibly for insurance reasons.

Patricia Howard says:

Parcel Post delivered a new computer to me and left it in the bin!

Patricia Howard says:

I came home one day to a note that said a package was “left in Wendy house”. I thought that meant a neighbour’s house, since in the first place, each house in our village had a name so perhaps one of them was Wendy House, or one of our neighbours might be called Wendy. So I went door-to-door asking where Wendy lived until someone enlightened me – I was a newcomer to Britain, and in the US we call them ‘play houses’. This is the way us poor foreigners learn British.

Romulus says:

I heard of a valuable web site ordered ladies coat being left in a fridge in the garden of the owner.
Following complaints by the person who ordered the coat and after some weeks had passed the coat was finally discovered.
In the meantime another coat had been re dispatched to the lady so she now owned two valuable coats. the company refused to take the old one back, saying it had been written off!!.
And we complain about the increase in living costs!!.

Henry says:

Can I give another side to the argument?
The need to be at home to receive a delivery is the bane of online shopping although the timed deliveries some companies now use as standard are a great help. Being fairly busy but living in a semi-rural setting as we do I am more than happy for deliveries to be left on the doorstep where they are surprisingly safe (I appreciate this may not be the case in a city) or under a side porch we have which at least gives some protection from the weather – far preferable to having to phone and reschedule the delivery which only starts the problem over again! All that is needed is a little common sense and consideration on behalf of the delivery driver, and a note through the door to say what they have done with it.

ladygeeke says:

A courier delivered a mattress addressed to my house, but instead of leaving it at no 55 left it at no 5 – when I phoned the sender they insisted it had been delivered and signed for so would not take any action. I found it eventually by calling at random houses up and down the street until the honest tenants at no 5 told me they had it.

Amanda Warner says:

I had a similar experience, a king size mattress left over the road with a neighbour! That was tricky to carry home, especially as she was 8 months pregnant

dave@york says:

The courier DPD has a fantastic tracking system. DPD sends a text and email early on the day specifying a delivery window, with a tracking link.
On my screen I can see “Darren is making delivery 57 and yours is number 81. Estimated delivery time is 1.37pm +/- 30 mins” and I can follow Darren on the map. Because of this, I was at my door as Darren’s van drew up.
Excellent for me and also enables DPD to make a large number od deliveries in a day. Why can’t other couriers do this?

madbovine says:

27 August 2014

The reason is because most of the other couier firms will not spend on new technology
TNT fine there sub contracters for late deliveries late premiums deliveries in fact the sub contractor or self employed driver gets fined for almost anything . You will find that DPD many years ago changed their working practices and spent money on new tech and new working pratices for their drivers in essance makeing it the best courier company in the UK

Will Chegwidden says:

A friend sent me a box of Hotel Chocolate chocolates and the courier must have got in to my neighbours backyard and then decided to hurl it over our communal backyard fence “towards” my backdoor as I found it near the back door, and my own back gate was locked. Unfortunately they managed to hit and break part of my fancy £110 pet flap (it has a microchip sensor and light sensor in it). They promised to look in to it but I’m still chasing them months later.

Amanda Warner says:

Hermes delivered my wedding dress earlier this year & left it in my garden waste wheely bin, luckily not on bin collection day

Barbara says:

A present containing cheese, clearly marked as such on the outside, was put in our greenhouse on a dry hot day and without leaving us any note. Found a day later. My husband is fond of ripe cheese …
Suppliers using Yodel and MyHermes are generally to be avoided – packages have languished at delivery personnel homes for more than a week before being returned to sender.
I really like Collect+, both for receiving and sending, and for their tracking.

Patrick Steen says:

Wow, that delivery takes the (cheese) biscuit!

Niels Thomsen says:

9 January 2017

“Suppliers using Yodel and MyHermes are generally to be avoided…” – but Collect+ IS Yodel!

J says: