Is this legal under Distance Selling Regs (or any other UK regualations)?

In article ,
, a.k.a Andy Tillbrook says...
says...

What you expect is for the first delivery to fail (as you do not
know when delivery will be attempted) but to then be given the
opportunity to arrange to be available to accept re-delivery and to
arrange with the courier to re-delivery on that date. For the courier
to only attempt one further delivery the next day is, in my opinion,
unreasonable as it does not give the recipient sufficient opportunity
to arrange to be available to accept the re-delivery.

Tosh and piffle! If delivery is that time critical request a before 9
a.m. (or 10 a.m. or 12 a.m.) guaranteed next day delivery.

eh? who said anything about "time critical" ... ?

I'm with the OP on this one ... a courier should attempt 1st delivery,
and then wait for contact from the customer to confirm a 2nd delivery
date if the 1st attempt wasn't possible.

In my business, i get called away at a moments notice, and may not
return for 2 - 3 days.

Royal Mail manage it, why can't City Link?

says...
In article ,
, a.k.a Andy Tillbrook says...

Tosh and piffle! If delivery is that time critical request a before 9
a.m. (or 10 a.m. or 12 a.m.) guaranteed next day delivery.

eh? who said anything about "time critical" ... ?

I'm with the OP on this one ... a courier should attempt 1st delivery,
and then wait for contact from the customer to confirm a 2nd delivery
date if the 1st attempt wasn't possible.

In my business, i get called away at a moments notice, and may not
return for 2 - 3 days.

Royal Mail manage it, why can't City Link?

Fair point! Though the losses RM made (until this quarter, IIRC) may be
the answer to your question.

--
AndyT.

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional!

In article ,
says...
For the courier
to only attempt one further delivery the next day is, in my opinion,
unreasonable as it does not give the recipient sufficient opportunity
to arrange to be available to accept the re-delivery.

Is it ****. What are they supposed to do..store 1000's of parcels in a
depot until you decide you can be arsed to be in?

You ****ing ordered it so you know its coming.

Yet another cluless **** who has no idea how stuff gets to his table
etc.

--
Conor

If you're not on somebody's **** list, you're not doing anything
worthwhile.

In article ,
says...
In article ,
, a.k.a Andy Tillbrook says...
says...

What you expect is for the first delivery to fail (as you do not
know when delivery will be attempted) but to then be given the
opportunity to arrange to be available to accept re-delivery and to
arrange with the courier to re-delivery on that date. For the courier
to only attempt one further delivery the next day is, in my opinion,
unreasonable as it does not give the recipient sufficient opportunity
to arrange to be available to accept the re-delivery.

Tosh and piffle! If delivery is that time critical request a before 9
a.m. (or 10 a.m. or 12 a.m.) guaranteed next day delivery.

eh? who said anything about "time critical" ... ?

I'm with the OP on this one ... a courier should attempt 1st delivery,
and then wait for contact from the customer to confirm a 2nd delivery
date if the 1st attempt wasn't possible.

In my business, i get called away at a moments notice, and may not
return for 2 - 3 days.

Royal Mail manage it, why can't City Link?

because they have small depots processing thousands of parcels a day.
It'd quickly fill the depot with undelivered parcels. Those parcels
WOULD BE STORED INSECURELY in so much that they'd be in the warehouse
and not in a secure cage within that.


--
Conor

If you're not on somebody's **** list, you're not doing anything
worthwhile.

Hi

This is Terry Ferrari (a Director of UKDVDR), I have just been alerted to
this thread by one of our customers.

I would like to make a few things clear here if possible please?

We do NOT insist on delivery to cardholders address, we have plenty of
anti-fraud measures in place to allow us to ship to alternate delivery
address. There is a SHIP TO SEPERATE DELIVERY ADDRESS checkbox on our
checkout page. This was obviously not used with this order.

I was made aware of this problem in an email received at 10.11pm on the
evening of the 1st failed delivery.

Copy of the email received is below:
Just to let you now, I will not be ordering any more items from
yourself. I am extremely unsatisfied with your choice of courier.
(City Link).

They attempted to deliver a parcel today, but nobody was home, I got a
card through the door with very absurd terms. Basically, there are
going to attempt to deliver tommorow (when again nobody will be home),
and that's it. I then have to drive 40 miles to their depot to pick
up
the parcel, before they send it back to you next Monday. What a total
waste of space they are... They will not deliver to an alternative
address, nor will they deliver on a different day when somebody will
be
available to sign for it.

I now why they have got their nickname of SHIITY LINK

I sent the following reply to this email at 10.45 pm (we are one of the few
companies that monitor emails and answer them ASAP in an attempt to resolve
customer issues)

Hi

You are welcome to go back to the slower interlink, but we are always sorry
to lose a customer.

City Link are usuallly fast and reliabe with their deliveries, but you
cannot seriously expect them to attempt delivery on countless occassions.

There are a number of options when placing an order to ensure that you
receive you parcel.

1) You can have it delivered to a work address, where there is usually
always somebody available to receive it
2) You can leave instructions for courier driver at our checkout page on
the
website, ie leave at number 72 if out, or leave with either neighbour if no
reply.
You can even instruct them to leave safe without signature, ie leave in
dog kennel if out, or leave in shed. We always urge caution when
instructiing to leave safe, ie make sure the area is totally safe as city
link will not be held liable for parcels left safe without signature.

It is in everybodys interest for city link to deliver parcels ASAP, it save
customer headaches and it saves city link having to re-attempt delivery.

If you would like me to contact them and add an instruction for the driver,
I will do so.
Please let me know what you decide?

Facts seem to have become very distorted on this thread. There were a number
of solutions open to us at this stage. I offered to contact the courier and
add an instruction for the driver (leave with neighbour etc), but received
no reply to the email.

The next email I received below was at 6.05 pm the following day (after the
2nd failed delivery)
Well CityLink turned up today, failed to look at my redirection request
pinned to the door (the van had left when I phoned at 8AM this morning
to request an alternative delivery address), stuck another card through
the door. This is now the 2nd failed delivery, City Link state (on
their card) My only option is to collect the package in person ( which
is 70 mile round trip to their depot), or it gets sent back. in the next
3 days. Obviously a 70 mile trip to their depot is out of the question.

Is it possible to get a full refund, when the disks finally get back to
you. I am totally horrified that any company that deals in mail order
goods, would trust their companies reputation in the hands of
Initial/City Link, who so far my experiences, are inflexible and best
and incompetent at worst.

I sent the following reply at 8.05 pm
Hi

I did offer to add instruction for driver for you. You have to be a little
fair here, city link have tried on schedule to deliver your goods, usually
people scream they have waited a week or so for their orders when you read
disgruntled reports on other companies on the forums.

City Link drivers are told to ignore notices left on doors etc, this is due
to the fact that city link parcels are fully insured, if they follow a note
on a door and the parcel ends up in the wrong hands, city link have to pay
for it. You can always add instructions at the checkout on our website for
the driver, they must follow such instructions. You can also have goods
delivered to a different address at our checkout page.

We can get this parcel re-delivered to same address for £4 (you can add an
instruction ie leave with neighbour if out etc)

If the goods come back to us, you would be liable for all carriage costs
(which total £19 as city link charge £12 to return the goods). This is in
accordance with the distance selling regulations.


If you wish us to instruct city link to re deliver (with or without an
additional driver instruction), please phone us during office hours with
card details for payment.


Final email received at 8.57pm is below
This is all very well, but I had no choice but to put my home address as
the delivery address, as Creditcard companies insist on the card address
being the same as the delivery address. As someone who works full time,
I am rarely at home during the day, but also cannot get stuff delivered
to work, as the credit card companies reject the order as it differs
from the registered address! All I can do, is order it to home, and
then re-direct stuff each time.. The whole "system" is a total pain in
the butt, all other couriers have flexible systems to re-direction, or
have a local(ish) depot. Having no collection depot for 35 miles is
pretty poor....

There is no way I am paying anything extra either for return delivery or
re-delivery. I will be checking the details of the DSR.


We have tried to assist at all stages. We have been prompt in answering
emails. Customer refuses to pay the £4 re-delivery fee. The goods could have
initially been delivered to a work address, this would not have been a
problem.



I welcome your comments.

Best Regards

Terry Ferrari
UKDVDr
www.ukdvdr.co.uk

Unless I have missed something none of your quoted emails would seem to
me to dispute what I would say was the central failing in this situation.

Citylink in this case were unable to deliver on the first attempt and
left no oppertunity between that attempt and the second (final) attempt
for the customer to make alternative arrangements.

This is not a failing with your company and such but is a failing with
Citylink, who by using them, you endorse.

Citylink was in certain areas be reliable, flexible and helpful but where
I stay (Aberdeenshire) they seem to be anything but that, although they
are not the worst (Securicor having that honour in my experience).

I do not think it is reasonable for citylink to give no time between the
first delivery and the van leaving for the second, they should realise
that in the real world people may not be around until they close and so
cannot phone on the day of the first attempt that being the case it would
surely be simpler for them to just state on the car that you need to
contact them to arrange the second delivery?.

I realise that for some people this may introduce a delay of a day in
receiving the goods but surely that is better than having a second failed
attempt?.

By the way, while I have never used your company and so cannot comment on
your service standards, if I was a customer I would be somewhat concerned
that you are publishing the contents of customer emails in such a public
forum. It surely would be have been simpler to simply summarise the gist
of their contents rather than quote them verbatim and perhaps breach any
applicable privity laws?

They seem to manage to store all those parcels not delivered on the second
attempt quite happily for up to 5 days so why just store them after the
first attempt for the same period with the option of arranging a re-
delivery in the meantime.

The simply fact is that like the royal mail they DO store packages that are
not delivered and like the royal mail they DO have a pre-defined period for
which they will do this before returning them to the sender. Unlike the
royal mail however they are unflexible re the date of the second attempt
which is unreasonable based on the recipient not being able to know in
advance what date the delivery is due.

My 'local' depot almost always delivers the day after the sender claims it
will arrive due to the distances involved. Sometimes they do make it on the
day stated. So to quarantee being in for a non-critical package I would
have to remain at home for up to 48 hours?, this is not reasonable and
certainly not flexible.

On Sat, 8 May 2004 23:24:16 UTC, "ukdvdr" wrote:

Copy of the email received is below:

I would not wish to be a customer of a company that published email
communications without permission. Legally, you may be allowed to do so,
but as far as I'm concerned it stinks.

Citylink seem 'whiter than white' as far as you are concerned. You
should really know better. No courier is perfect, let alone Citylink.

An example....

I had a failed delivery from Citylink (the item was backordered so I had
no idea when it was coming). They left a card, WITHOUT a local contact
number. They had changed their number since the telephone directory was
published, and Directory Enquiries had no idea. So far, just one of
those things. I called Head Office (got that from Directory Enquiries)
and a very aggressive woman eventually answered the phone. She
grudgingly gave me the depot number. I called the depot (well before
closing time) and the phone was answered after 20 minutes, and put down
again. I persisted and eventually someone answered and told me 'tough,
it's on the van already'. Ultimately I arranged redelivery with the
vendor.

--
Bob Eager
begin a new life...dump Windows!

The were distorted facts being quouted on this thread about aour company. I
specially quoted emails verbatim, as I did not want there to be any
confusion. I omitted all customer details.

Our task here is to get parcels dispatched and delivered as quickly as
possible. Over 99% of our customer want to receive their goods ASAP.
Our deliveries are so prompt, we are the only online media company that
offers guaranteed next day delivery. If city link do not deliver (or
attempt to deliver) the goods next day, we refund the delivery charge in
full. (although city link to reufnd us for this, other companies simply
pocket the refund)

Customers are usually frustrated if they miss a delivery. The majority
welcome the fact that parcels are automaticall re-attempted next day. Some
other courier companies will not re-attempt until customer has contacted
them, which can delay deliveries even more.

To Summerise:
Goods good have initially been delivered to a work address without any
problem.
We were still in a position to resolve this between 1st and 2nd delivery
attempt. We offered to contact city link (within 31 winutes of being alerted
to the problem) but this offer was ignored.
City Link have successfully delivered over 60,000 consignments for us in the
past 12 months. This is the first instance of this issue occurring, so it it
an isolated incident. No courier company is perfect. City Link are
currently delivering over 99% of our consignments next working day. This is
a far higher figure than achieved by many other courier companies used by
ourselves in the past.

Terry Ferrari



"Raymond" wrote in message
. 77...
They seem to manage to store all those parcels not delivered on the second
attempt quite happily for up to 5 days so why just store them after the
first attempt for the same period with the option of arranging a re-
delivery in the meantime.

The simply fact is that like the royal mail they DO store packages that
are
not delivered and like the royal mail they DO have a pre-defined period
for
which they will do this before returning them to the sender. Unlike the
royal mail however they are unflexible re the date of the second attempt
which is unreasonable based on the recipient not being able to know in
advance what date the delivery is due.

My 'local' depot almost always delivers the day after the sender claims it
will arrive due to the distances involved. Sometimes they do make it on
the
day stated. So to quarantee being in for a non-critical package I would
have to remain at home for up to 48 hours?, this is not reasonable and
certainly not flexible.

"ukdvdr" wrote in
:

We were still in a position to resolve this between 1st and 2nd
delivery attempt. We offered to contact city link (within 31 winutes
of being alerted to the problem) but this offer was ignored.
City Link have successfully delivered over 60,000 consignments for us
in the past 12 months. This is the first instance of this issue
occurring, so it it an isolated incident. No courier company is
perfect. City Link are currently delivering over 99% of our
consignments next working day. This is a far higher figure than
achieved by many other courier companies used by ourselves in the
past.


Some issues with this.

1. It is certainly not an isolated event with citylink, I had a simular
problem a month of so ago (not with your company but with a competitor
which also guarantees a next day delivery)

2. The OP contacted Citylink it would appear as soon as the opened the
next morning and was told that the van had left and it was to late to
rearrange the second attempt - that was the main problem. I would be
interested to how between 10pm - 8am on the night in question you could
contact citylink and have the second delivery rearranged? If you can do
it then the OP should have been able to and yet citylink said no?

I don't think that the OP was on the whole complaining about your company
as much as he was complaining about citylink and I suspect that if you
think these problems are isolated you are living in a unrealistic world,
the simple fact is that most people would probably have not complained
not least because most probably lived nearer to the depot and so
collecting it themselves would not be a problem. Citylink may very well
attemp delivery the next day on 99% of deliveries but what percentage are
actually received next day?.