BOLLOCKING SHITBAGS!

Ok, hi...I'm currently unable to attend knit night due to a FUCKING BOLLOCKING BITCHBAG TITARSEFACE HANDJOB CRACKWIPE COCK UP (ahem) with the delivery of my new (and expensive!) camera.

Home Delivery Network, who Amazon now use to deliver things (at least when Royal Mail is on strike and for some Super Saver Items, I asked for First Class delivery you see, before I knew about the strike...)said (via their tracking service on their website, becuase they have no posted phone number) that my parcel was loaded onto the van in Woodford (that's Essex) at 9:17 am. It should've been delivered yesterday, but it wasn't. This morning I get in and the tracking page said it was delivered at 8:30 last night. Which is impossible because the office shut at 7 last night.

HDNL have NO policy for being contacted directly. They require you to contact the parcel originator (in this case Amazon) who can then raise an electronic query. Bollocks to that. But I did it at 9:30 this morning. Amazon sent their standard "We'll look into this" reply at 12:00 and despite several more e-mails (most of which saying "this isn't good enough, and stressing that I NEEDED the item for this weekend, and that I didn't authorise the item to be left with a neighbour or a safe place) Amazon have kept quiet. So I did a bit of googling and found a complaints website (I may have extended the truth a bit when I told Amazon WHY I needed the camera for this weekend. I didn't think they'd think Ally Pally and Larissa's sweater was a good enough reason...so you know...if you find that link don't judge me...desperate times...) ANYway, they gave the customer service number on the website and a commenter posted how to find the depot number. Since I knew which depot the item was dispatched from I got the number and called it. A very helpful young man called Javid took my details and called the driver. He rang me back to let me know that the driver (a young man called Alex) had delivered to a neighbour but couldn't remember the house number. Javid said Alex was in the areaand that he'd drive down and get the parcel from the neighbour's house (he'd remember when he saw it) and hand it to me at my office address. I gave them more specific details on exactly how to find the office and said I'd be popping outside to look out for him. So he should be arriving any minute now. (Should be, I expect he'll be a bit late...) So I'm off outside. Still HUGE potential for things to go wrong, but at least I'm taking names. This will help with the kicking ass should it come to that. I hope it won't. It's been 30 minutes now...and nothing.

If you ask me no company has any business leaving the parcel with a neighbour without the recipients permission. Furthermore they didn't deliver a "we came by" card like their website suggests they do...so I'm angry even if I do get my hands on it today.

Who could've predicted such a shite day? I mean, nothing else much has happened but this has really got my knickers in a twist!



UPDATE- 20:00, 10/10/07: I'm home now and it's just gone 8:00. I waited until 7 (That's an hour and a half...after they said he'd be there in 30 minutes...) and nothing. The guy at the depot said that the delivery man had shut his phone off and he was pretty sure he'd flaked out and decided not to turn up. I went around knocking on doors to see if any of the neighbours had the camera but none knew anything about it. The guy at the depot (Javid) said the delivery driver hadn't even filled out the internal paperwork you need to fill out if you leave the parcel with a neighbour. He expressed doubts that the item was delivered at all, though he said it must have been for the item to be recorded. He said that when the driver got back to the depot around 8-9pm the manager would "interrogate" him and try to find out what he'd done with the parcel. Javid promised to phone me back tomorrow afternoon with an update.

I'm not hopeful. What's worse is that if the company(or the driver at least) swears he delivered it and I don't have it I'm worried Amazon won't replace the item...I'm seriously upset.


UPDATE- 13:20 11/10/07:

The parcel has arrived no thanks to Amazon's customer service. At the same time as the man handed me the parcel I got a letter in my inbox saying they were still waiting to hear back from HDNL. Obviously by calling them last night and dealing with Javid I got the answers I needed. Amazon SHOULD have done this on my behalf,or at least given me the phone numbers to do it myself. No such luck. Instead using saynto0870.co.uk I found the depot number and phoned them myself. (Woodford, and I spoke to Javid, who actually helped me to get a result.) Amazon provided a poor service. I don't blame the staff at HDNL either. Javid was very helpful, and the delivery guy was very nice (if a bit miserable, not like grumpy just seemed downtrodden) when he arrived. Still I've submitted a complaint to Amazon. And I'm about to call Javid to thank him.

So, I have my camera, but it was a huge palaver. Remember how Javid said that the driver might not even have delivered the parcel as no paperwork was filled out? This was obviously the case as there was no other signature on the delivery slip. I don't have a problem with him taking teh parcel to the depot if he didn't have time to deliver it or he tried ater 5:30 when I went home. I do have problems with him lying. So you know...I told Amazon. We'll see what happens. :)