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Tuesday 20 August 2013

Drop the box and run

Three deliveries today, the 16gb CF cards (small box), the 12 4tb hard drives (medium sized box, fragile) and the books from Amazon (big box, quite heavy, maybe 20 pounds).

I don't know who delivered the CF cards, someone else answered the door, but all was well. UPS delivered the 4tb hard drives, he was very careful with it, got a signature, and went on his merry way. Well done Bluepoint, delivery next day, perfect!

The Amazon delivery was dropped over the gate (a height of about four feet) onto wet grass. The rather flimsy box split open and the books spilled out. I noticed them a while later - fortunately, it hadn't rained. The driver didn't ring the bell, because we were in all morning. Books aren't harmed by a four foot drop, but other things that one can buy from Amazon can be fragile.

I made a severe complaint to Amazon, who assured me that good delivery was a high priority.

I've built up the two replacement computers, with six 4tb drives in each, loaded Linux Fedora core 17, and I'm now loading terabytes of data onto them. That'll take a few days, then I can go install them at Cheltenham.

I'm also going to try to repair the computer that died there. It's just stone dead; I suspect it's a failed power supply, so I'll take a few with me, and maybe I can repair it on-site. Another computer has a duff hard drive, so I'll just swap it out for one of these nifty 4tb drives.

2 comments:

  1. hi Dr.

    I'm guessing this was part of a large delivery chain organisation that begins with a certain letter of the alphabet!

    This is no defence of either Amazon or delivery agents, but in my work i am exposed to this problem too, but from the other side. Although totaly unconnected, the delivery company we use is a reflection of my service/company, in fact its a big one because, its the only bit the customer actually gets to see face to face, we haven't started skyping in Customer service yet!

    And time and time again we get complaints about people having damaged goods which we then replace at our expense, we get a token return from the delivery company. So whilst you must keep complaining to Amazon and whoever, please don't expect the service to change overnight. Actually you may find Amazon use different companies for different delivery schedules, so if you go for a slower delivery, you may get a nice person, knocking on your door enquiring about your welfare and giving you your ordered item.

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  2. See if the goods have a consignment number and enquire if it was a signed for consignment you could then claim fraud by the delivery company.

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