More Yodel Video Goodies

A couple more Yodel videos available on YouTube here.

This first one shows the care taken when delivering a package! At least it looks like the delivery guy wrote out a card explaining where the parcel is. I hope he wrote, “Parcel thrown over gate so it hit the soaking wet concrete from 6 feet”.

This one is identified by the uploader as being filmed at a Yodel depot. It demonstrates a wonderful way to sort peoples parcels.

Someone at Yodel Likes iPods?

Picture this… you receive a box delivered by Yodel and you find two parcels stuffed inside addresses to other people! The two iPod Nano’s that were supposed to be in there were gone. The only place this curious mix of parcels could have been repackaged is at the delivery depot.

Do you call the Police to inform them of the theft? This lady did but they won’t investigate until the companies who sent the package get in touch to confirm the contents have been stolen. But don’t worry, Yodel say they will look into the possibility of maybe investigating if they see the need. Read the full story so far here.

Quote of the Week: “the most pathetic excuse for a courier on the planet”

Like many companies who expected Yodel to deliver their Christmas orders, Brew Dog were badly let down. It wasn’t only Yodel in their case, but James Watt (co-founder of Brew Dog) sums up their experience brilliantly in his blog: “The first disaster was Yodel. Perhaps the most pathetic excuse for a courier on the planet. Shipments were lost, left in gardens, hidden in sheds, stolen from or damaged more frequently than they were delivered”. They were then of course left to deal with the massive amount of complaints from customers which their own customer services just could not cope with. He adds, “despite the fact we have changed courier have still been dealing with the legacy issues of Yodel’s incompetence“.

Even Royalty (almost) have felt the curse of Yodel. The family run party company ‘Party Pieces’ where Pippa Middleton (sister of Princess Kate) works had to apologise to customers who weren’t receiving their deliveries before Christmas according to an article at the London Evening Standard. They also mention a tweet from Channel 4 newsreader Cathy Newman who said, “Given up on Amazon completely since they started using Yodel. Awful firm“. In another desperate attempt to make the figures sound good, Jonathan Smith (chief executive of Yodel) said that in the week leading up to Xmas 2 million parcels were delivered, with 999 parcels in every 1000 delivered before the end of Christmas Eve. Ignoring the fact that presents which still need to be wrapped and given to their intended recipients arriving last thing on Christmas Eve doesn’t help anyone, this still equates to 20,020 parcels which weren’t delivered when they should have been. Over 20 thousand parcels failed to be delivered in one week! No matter what ‘spin’ Mr. Smith puts on it, that is terrible for any courier.

Yodel made it to the semi-finals of Bitterwallet’s ‘Worst Company 2011‘ competition where they were just pipped at the post by ‘Talk Talk’ (51.6% of the votes compared to 48.4% for Yodel). In the quarter finals they were pitted against Tesco in the public vote where Yodel got an overwhelming 1,313 votes compared to Tesco’s 443.

Yodel Christmas Parcels Lost and Delayed – The Sun

The Sun newspaper featured a story on Xmas Eve about the huge amount of anger Yodel had managed to create from people expecting parcels that just weren’t being delivered.

It seems Yodel were so overrun with complaints and people calling their customer support lines that even some of their biggest customers couldn’t get through. Amazon sent this message to a customer of theirs who was chasing up their missing delivery:

“We can’t get through to Yodel to find out what is happening with your package… This has been happening a lot with them recently.”

Here’s an idea for you Amazon, why not drop Yodel like the steaming waste of space they are and choose an alternative delivery company? The number of customers signatures on those petitions asking you to do just that is growing by the day.

Another nameless company who use Yodel for their deliveries had this to say about them:

“We have an unbelievable amount of parcels going missing, the customer service is non-existent and we have suffered delays in deliveries of up to 11 days…  This isn’t just odd parcels but whole collections (hundreds of parcels).”

The full story is on The Sun website.
Some of the comments are well worth looking at too as readers share their own experiences. Funniest of all are some of the comments from drivers working for Yodel. They really do think that we should be paying delivery charges and then be grateful if our package arrives several days after we have lost a day’s wage waiting in for it. Or better still, pay to have it delivered and then have to go and collect it ourselves from the depot. What are we paying for again?

Yodel on CCTV – Oops!

Just saw this linked on Mr Daz’s site and had to show it here too. It just goes to show the care that Yodel show for their customers property!

Good luck to PaulDRidley and his claim against Yodel.

BEWARE: Collect+ (CollectPlus) Are Part of Yodel!

I am currently in the middle of my first experience with Collect+ (http://www.collectplus.co.uk). I ordered something from an eBay seller who chose to use them to deliver the item. I looked up the Web site and it all looked good. They collect from local shops all over the country and can deliver to them too if necessary for people who work during the day and cannot wait in for 12 hours at a time waiting for a parcel. A great idea… if it worked.

Sadly the parcel didn’t arrive when expected so I contacted the seller asking if they had a tracking number. They checked and the Collect+ system said the parcel had been delivered at 22:50 two days previously! No it hadn’t. This rang alarm bells and I instantly thought ‘are these people Yodel?’. Well it turns out they are. CollectPlus is a joint venture between PayPoint and Yodel so it should be no surprise that the driver had LIED about delivering the parcel on their tracking system.

I have now sent the information to Collect+ and got the eBay seller to also contact them too (after all it was his money they took and he is their direct customer). We are awaiting their response and I will update this story when I get more information. I just hope it isn’t Yodel’s customer service who end up with the contact emails.

Just as a side note, they are breaking the Nominet domain name rules. Their domain is registered to ‘Fiona Wood‘ and says they are trading as ‘Drop and Collect Ltd‘. It also says ‘The registrant is a non-trading individual who has opted to have their address omitted from the WHOIS service‘. This is not true. They are a trading company and so should not hide their domain registration details – unless of course they are trying to disguise who they really are to get away from the bad press. After all, they changed from Home Delivery Network Ltd to Yodel to escape the awful online reviews and horror stories. It hasn’t worked. For those interested, Collect+ is a trading name for ‘Drop and Collect Limited’ who are registered with Companies House as:  DROP & COLLECT LIMITED, 54 CLARENDON ROAD, WATFORD, HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND, WD17 1DU – Company No. 06593233

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Update 5th Dec: Well, it turns out that there is a glitch in the Collect+ system so when a parcel is scanned in at the depot, it flags it as having been delivered. What a great way to cause a panic for your customers. Of course, we didn’t find this out from an emailed reply – we had to phone up, at which point they said the parcel should come on Monday. On Sunday afternoon they tried to deliver it (yes – a Sunday afternoon!) but of course I wasn’t in and wasn’t expecting it. Luckily a neighbour took it in and Yodel actually put a card through my door. You heard me right… I got a card through my door for a failed delivery from Yodel! I also got a reply to my email from Collect+ on Monday (after the parcel had been delivered) but with no explanation of their glitch.

Anyway, I have nice neighbours so I now have my parcel.

How Hard is it to Leave a Card, Yodel?

I ordered something a couple of weeks ago from TheBookPeople who offer some fantastic deals on books. They used to deliver using DHL which were okay (in as far as I hadn’t had a problem with them). Of course, this was before Yodel/HDNL took over the domestic part of DHL. Now Yodel deliver their goods so it looks like I won’t be using them again. A serious shame as their prices are excellent.

Anyway, I got the parcel tracking number in an email from TheBookPeople so I looked up its progress. To my surprise (although I should know better by now) Yodel’s system said they had tried to deliver it but nobody was in so they left a card. There was no card. My house is easy to find on a residential street with a clearly marked number. If I hadn’t been emailed the consignment number by TheBookPeople I would never have been able to look it up or find out they had tried to deliver it (if they actually did). I used the contact form on the Yodel site to send a message to them asking where my parcel was and what I should do next because no card had been left with instructions. I never did get a response. This rediculously poor lack of communication bugs the hell out of me. It wouldn’t have taken someone 2 minutes to drop me an email just updating me on the parcels progress but nobody at Yodel could be bothered.

A couple of days later the parcel was delivered to my neighbour. Still no card through my door explaining this but luckily I have nice neighbours who watched out for my arrival back home and popped the parcel round. Just another Yodel experience to add to the list [sigh].

HDNL Warehouse Staff with Sticky Fingers?

It came to light after a tribunal involving two Birmingham employees and Home Delivery Network that when parcels are returned to the centre damaged, if the contents are chocolates or sweets they can get shared out amongst the warehouse staff! A case of ‘sticky fingers’ or what!? The full details are here.

When a warehouse supervisor and his supervisor were sacked following accusations from fellow employees of taking other items from packages, HDNL failed to perform a proper investigation and the judge for the tribunal had to declare it a case of unfair dismissal. The pair ended up with a combined payout of £64,457 in compensation.

HDNL Lost 77 Bikes in One Day!

We all know the Home Delivery Network lose parcels. Most delivery companies have done on rare occasions but this has to be some sort of record. HDNL lost 77 bicycles from one company… in one day!

The bikes were discovered two weeks later in the corner of their sorting office (that must of been an enormous corner!) but it was the final straw for JE James Cycles based in Yorkshire. They had given HDNL 2 months worth of business sending out 120 parcels a day, before ditching them for their gross mistakes. More info is available here from Mr.Daz.

Yodel Marketing Wants to be Google?!

In a report which I can only describe as laughable, the marketing team for Home Delivery Network want their new Yodel brand name to be used as a verb like Google. See the full story here.

Actually, I think its a brilliant idea. The word with a thousand uses, such as:

• I have just stepped in a huge pile of Yodel
• The smell of Yodel was overpowering
• It was such a bad case of the Yodel’s I almost Yodelled Yodel all over the Yodel house wall