Another Simple Delivery Tracking Farce...

[dls-online]

So, today I encountered a weird situation with Simple Delivery. I'd purchased a book which was due to be delivered today. At 11:13am I received an email stating Royal Mail had delivered the parcel to my Safeplace. I was at home, but not a problem, so I went outside to investigate where they might have left the parcel. No parcel was found.

I checked Royal Mail tracking, input my postcode, and was presented with a photo of an Amazon style package as the supposed "Proof of delivery" (see attached photo - although I've coloured in the address details). Upon closer inspection of this photo, I could see that the name and address on the parcel wasn't mine (including postcode being someone else's). However, remember that in order for me to view this proof of delivery, I needed to input my postcode, so this was weird as the two didn't tally.

Anyway, I reached out to Royal Mail who said I had to wait 24hrs, then I spoke with ebay CS, who were fab but just as baffled as I was. They had no idea what was going on, but said if I opened an "Item not received" case then it would be automatically closed in the favour of the seller as the tracking showed it was delivered. However, Royal Mail had delivered the item to the address on the label - so not really RM's fault as well...or so it seemed.

The ebay CS rep said she was going to personally look into the matter (as I said, she was great). She kindly opened up an "Item not received" case on my behalf and I left it at that (well, I'd also been dropping the seller a few messages to keep them in the loop).

Then, 2 hours later, at 1:09pm my friendly postie rocks up with the actual parcel with my book in it (i.e. a totally different parcel to the one shown in the tracking photo). He duly scanned the SD label and when we checked the online system, the Tracking History had subsequently been updated.

With this now updated, I can see that the ebay CS rep has also now closed the case in the Sellers favour (correctly so). But what an odd scenario! Thank god the item arrived in the end, because I have no idea if I would have gotten my money back if the parcel hadn't arrived. But just goes to show once again that Simple Delivery really is far from simple and if there's any issues with the tracking etc, as a buyer or seller, you might not actually be covered. Weird!

[style_wise]

Crikey! Normally RM is a bit dodgy from now until NYE as there is more demand, more temp staff handling it, and our 2nd Class gets shunted to the side as they deal with it all. Who knows what it will be like this year with the added SD demand. Still the best alternative. What EVRI logged as my 'safe place' last week was even more farcical.

[dottytheduck]

This happened to me a few weeks ago when the tracking showed it had been delivered but the item was no where to be found. A few hours later the postie turned up with it, so I showed them the tracking and the reply was "it was it must have been scanned in the van by error when I was delivering another parcel" and the label can only be scanned once.

This may have been the case, but it does make me wonder how many more item are scanned in error in the postie van.

[tommystrezures]

ON occasion when items arrive at the sorting office they may get a pre scan or be incorrectly scanned. I suspect thats the case here.

[gjalp]

I had a bit of a ‘oh no!’ moment with an Evri parcel coming to me as I was after a particular item and only a private seller was selling it (I tend to avoid private sellers unless I have enquired if they have turned off Evri as their deliveries in my area are notoriously bad). I suddenly had an ebay email telling me delivery had been attempted despite me being in and having a safe place. I followed the tracking on Evri and I spotted an oddity. Parcel was scanned at the parcel shop, then was said to be at my hub, then there was ‘delivery attempted - courier will try 3 times’ (or words similar), then it showed the parcel at the senders hub and stated it was on its way to the sender. I was all 😳 as I knew if I had to do INR, ebay would find in the seller’s favour and I definitely didn’t have the item. Fast forward 2 days and I get the ‘your item is out for delivery’ and this afternoon, it was left in my safe space. The tracking just makes no sense at all. It looks like my parcel was pootling around the country for a few days!