A few days ago I wrote about the difficulties of getting a package sent by UKMail delivered on a day convenient for me. I had a confirmation email but no record of the retailer and no easy way to contact UKMail over a bank holiday weekend.
Needless to say they tried to deliver while I was out of the country for two days. Normally I’d expect a delivery company to leave the parcel somewhere safe for instance with a neighbour or simply take it back to the depot and wait for me to collect it at my inconvenience.
That’s doesn’t appear to be UKMail’s style however. I can’t blame them for not knowing I was out of the country, but I can blame them for leaving the parcel behind the green recycling bin. It might be a fairly safe place out of sight of passers by, but it certainly wasn’t sheltered from the torrential rain which fell before I returned home two days later to a wet soggy package.
It’s worth reiterating that the “Can my parcel be delivered to another address?” and “Can you deliver to my neighbour/leave in a safe place?” options on the UKMail website are both answered with “The delivery instructions are provided to us by your sender. If you wish to change the delivery instructions please contact your sender to see if this is possible”. That would have been great if I’d known who the sender was and if it hadn’t been a Bank Holiday weekend.
When will carriers learn that if someone isn’t at home they might not want their parcel today? More importantly if carriers gave consumers the tools to rearrange delivery they wouldn’t have people like me complaining about them twice in the space of a week.