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Wednesday 13 August 2014

Signing for a delivery

A lot of the deliveries I get, I sign for. That assures the seller that the parcel arrived, and that I have the goods. So if some bad person were to try to claim that they hadn't received the goods when actually they had, and demanded a refund, they'd have proof of delivery.

But it doesn't work.

I bought a rear carrier for the bike, cost about £12. Not a high value item, not really worth stealing, because what would you do with it?

It was sent by the vendor, with Yodel as the carrier. I bought it at the end of July. On August 8, I checked Yodel's web site, they had the item, but it was still in transit. I checked it again two days later; now it was saying that the parcel had been delivered on August 1st. Strange.

I contacted the seller. They asked me to contact Yodel (really, it's them that should do this, because it's them that are paying Yodel, not me). But I did as they asked.

Yodel said that the parcel had been signed for, signature "Alan".  And the whole point of this system is that there's proof of delivery.

But.

No-one here would sign for a parcel using my name. And when I sign for a parcel, I don't use my first name. It wasn't me that signed for this, and it wasn't ladysolly, or anyone else here.
So how come there's a signature that says "Alan"?

This is where the system breaks down. The parcel is addressed to me by name, so if someone wanted to pretend to be me, my name is right there in front of them, written on the parcel.

So, for example, someone could be waiting by my front gate, intercept the parcel, sign it "Alan", and waltz off with the proceeds of their crime. Which I could understand if it were a packet of diamonds, or a wodge of cash. But it's a rear bike rack, only useful to you if you have a bike without a rack, and often not even then.

OK, the miscreant wouldn't know ahead of time that he was stealing something pretty useless. But I'd guess that most such parcels are pretty valueless. A pair of size 11 boots, three XL t-shirts, a second hand pannier - that's the sort of thing I buy.

So what happened here? Yodel are investigating, and the driver came round here today, and we had a discussion. He has no idea what happened, and why would he remember the details of what happened during a delivery that happened two weeks ago, one of hundreds?

It's a mystery. The Mystery of the Missing Carrier.

6 comments:

  1. yes, but, have you got your new carrier?

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  2. I can tell you what happened as Yodel drivers have signed on my behalf on numerous occasions when I haven't been in to receive the package, and then normally find it lobbed over the back gate! Common practice by Yodel if you ask me, a shoddy company that I hate hearing companies using for delivery, Tesco included! :(

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  3. In this case, lobbing it over the gate would have worked. But they didn't.

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  4. I can echo the "lobbing over the gate" scenario, I've had that. Two disk drives! Fortunately Amazon had packaged them very well and they survived their trauma.
    Most (perhaps all?) Yodel drivers are self-employed, and the rates are not good. Can't deliver? Dump it in a hedge somewhere after forging the receipt signature; no comeback, and you still get paid. If it's a non-delivery, you have to try again - which costs you fuel and time.
    I tried complaining on Yodel's website about my lobbed disk drives; I didn't get a reply.

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  5. I don't work for yodel but another company and we have sacked drivers for falsifying pods (proof of delivery). I'm all for drivers to wear cameras to film delivery to prove when a parcel has been delivered or if in your case not Recieved they could then view the evidence and see what went wrong. Do you have security camera you could make a copy of and send to them showing no one delivered it?

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