Each day, one or other of us was outside our house, which is on the roadside and unable to be missed.
I nearly threw myself under the wheels of a DPD lorry as it went slowly through the village… but he wasn’t looking for my address…
On the monday, when it did arrive… OH was tracking it and watching with bated breath as is came closer then went off in completely the wrong direction… then it finally came to us and was “on time” as per their latest SMS.
If we can plot it (OH took screen shots) surely Chronopost can see that their vehicle does NOT actually go to an address, even if the Driver likes to pretend he/she did.
It wouldn’t have made any difference to us if we were standing there, he took the road behind the farm and the river, DPD use Here maps and we are clearly marked on them so he should have been able to see us
DPD, Colis Prive and Chronopost are basically just crap at delivering.
Our La Poste lady is somewhat scornful about them, muttering “monkeys driving vans” the last time
I don’t seem to have any problems at all with Amazon deliveries but when M&S send things via Colis Privé it is always an unmitigated mess.
Today I have been notified that my winter tights, instead of being delivered to the Tabac address within walking distance of my home, have been taken a 30 minute drive from here to some shop in another town. Why oh why?! When there are several other drop off points within a 10 minute drive away?
I am awaiting a reply to my message early this morning to M&S and rather regretting not having chosen something stretchy from Amazon.
I don’t know how delivery drivers get to our addresses but I assume it’s by GPS. The chemin I live on is always shown on GPS as being the next chemin along, but deliveries never have failed me.
I also assume that some of the drivers, judging from the state of their vans, are not fully committed to their jobs and give up too easily if they can’t find an address.
I put the GPS coordinates of my house into a line of my address when I trialled Amazon Prime in France. Never any delivery problem.
These days I include an email in my address lines. Has helped especially getting advance notice of delivery from La Poste/Colissimo. And if I think the paid deliverer will subcontract, often a phone number in address line as well. As subcontractors sometimes don’t have the same system access or equipment, and may not receive (or look at) any info that’s not actually printed on the parcel label.
The Google maps link is in the delivery instructions including a picture of the top of our drive with sign, this is how close he got to our farm Le Domaine, it clearly marked on their maps.
I’m just back from the nearby town after picking up a registered letter which was my ‘new to me van’ carte grise. What a story. On 29/9 I received the little slip in the letterbox saying unable to deliver, but I was here that day, and that it would be available in our village laposte on 2/10. Went there on the 2/10 and nothing, then went each subsequent day, until one of the kind ladies there did some investigation work yesterday and she discovered it had been returned to the post office in the local town. Never happened before, but the lady traced it - I could have hugged her, as it would’ve been a pain to reapply. Then when I went to the town post office, the guy said they wouldn’t have it if it was from 29/9, so I had to convince him to check, and there it was I learnt a long time ago not to take ‘no’ for an answer
Success! My delivery, 2 parcels, arrived in a smart looking van, a dapper young man stepped out and he was gone 20 seconds later. That’s the way to do it!
Mind you, you get no time to check if said items are undamaged. But Amazon covers that with their return policy. Mine arrived undamaged and in working order.
In an effort to reduce consumption I’ve significantly reduced my buying on Amazon over the past year. That said, during Black Friday, or what appears to be now Black Month, I saw a replacement Braun shaver head offered with a pretty reasonable discount so made the purchase. The ad showed photos of the authentic Braun head in the authentic Braun packaging, unlike alot of the Chinese copies out there. Great I thought, until it arrived yesterday and I opened it today. The shaver head came in a small packet that was absolutely nothing like the Braun packaging, so I looked closer and on the packaging it actually said ‘this is not a Braun product’, which very clearly contradicted the ad which not only showed photos of the authentic product, but also mentioned the marque as Braun. So there is this company out there selling Chinese heads at Braun prices!
Next step, let’s get a refund, as I remember it was a ‘free returns’ item. Stepped through the Amazon online process, only to end up with a label with this companies address in Monaco on the 8th floor of some building, and to add insult to injury, the label was also not prepaid. Things like this do get to me as I find it so unfair that companies should get away with this type of behaviour. Many folks would probably just shrug and put it down to a bad experience, meanwhile the company goes on making a tidy fortune. Certainly not the camp I’m in, so immediately contacted Amazon customer services, explained the problem and they sent a mail to the company. Now Amazon will wait for a response from the company, and if they don’t get one in 48 hours, they will give me a prepaid label and pursue with the seller. Online is great, and I’ve certainly benefited immensely over the years, but this type of experience is a gentle reminder of how easily it is to still be duped. For this reason I usually use paypal to make online purchases as their protection in the past has been great, but unfortunately I’m not aware of a means of using paypal for Amazon purchases.
This is exactly what happened to me and my new computer last year that came from Madrid. It packed up working after a couple of weeks and Amazon told me to send it back for a refund - to Madrid, no prepaid labels supplied. Nevertheless I did send it at my own expense, €40 and no recompense because they said I hadn’t contacted them direct first so that they could collect it. I was furious and had a right go at Amazon, all to no avail, but since then I avoid if at all possible anything from a 3rd party seller and never, ever, if it is not sent by Amazon France.
Does Amazon work differently in France? I never seem to have this kind of hassle in the UK. Bought a shirt last week, Amazon recommended large, but it was too big. Re-wrapped it, organised the return and dropped it at a post office on Saturday morning. I didn’t even need external packaging or to print labels.
As @Griffin36 and @David_Spardo observe you have to differentiate Amazon as a seller (generally good consumer service) with Amazon as a storefront - as previously discussed, if you look back up the thread
With the latter you are dealing with a 3rd party who simply use Amazon’s website to advertise/showcase their goods, sometimes these companies also use Amazon to do the logistics as well in which case the delivery experience is usually the same as for Amazon themselves but either way after sales service is variable.
While I *have* bought from vendors other than Amazon I would echo the comments above - it is better to stick to goods actually sold by Amazon themselves.
