In the wheelie bin

[tobyaw]

A parcel arrived at home today. kateaw was out, so the courier, Yodel, put a card through the door, and put the parcel in one of our wheelie bins.

How insane is that?

We live on a road where we often put wheelie bins out for our neighbours, as they as only here at weekends. Likewise, qidane puts our bins out for us when we are away. It would be so easy for a parcel delivered to a wheelie bin to be taken away with the rubbish.

I’ve noticed several couriers doing this, over a number of years. I assume they must deliver to a bin as a matter of policy, and I’m not sure how one would opt out, other than perhaps to place stickers on the bins saying “No hawkers! No circulars! No courier deliveries!”

When Kate got back, she retrieved the parcel from the bottom of the bin, which was a bit of a struggle with the combination of the weight of the parcel and her frozen shoulder. I suppose it is my fault for ordering tinned tomatoes, tinned sweetcorn, and pasta, online. Isn’t it the modern thing, to buy one’s groceries with Amazon subscriptions?

Comments

[vivdunstan.livejournal.com]

I've had a series of parcels left in our green garden waste bin (with garden waste in it!) by the local posties. I complained to Royal Mail, it happened again the next week, I complained again, it still happened. I think that postie doesn't do our round now though :) I had a right job trying to get each parcel out of the bin, with my MS-like illness. And it was important to get it out before it got any more damaged by the bin's contents ...

However Yodel are appalling, and the bane of Amazon orders for me. I tried Amazon Prime for a while, but after HDNL (later renamed Yodel) failed to find and deliver to a university address repeatedly, and didn't even try very hard, I complained to Amazon, and also eventually cancelled the Prime membership. For a while Amazon stopped sending us parcels by Yodel - yay! - but they've started again. If it's coming by Yodel I despair. It puts me off ordering from anyone who uses them.

There are several threads on Amazon's customer discussion boards discussing how appalling Yodel are, with terrible tales of lost parcels, parcels thrown over fences, suspected stolen parcels, and so on. Yes all couriers have problems, but Yodel seem to be in a class of their own. Avoid like the plague, and they're not getting any better.

I like Hermes though. They deliver for an online clothing shop I buy from, and the couriers follow instructions to leave parcels (if no answer - there won't be if it's me asleep at home) in the green bunker round the back of our house. They've never left a parcel in a bin, and they've never taken the parcel away undelivered. Maybe we're lucky with the local Hermes staff, but I've been impressed. But Yodel - no!

[tobyaw]

We have Amazon Prime, which is pretty good value for the number of orders that we make, but it seems quite random which courier they use. Yodel are the worst — odd times of the day and evening, and always feeling that delivering parcels is just too much bother for them.