Parcel Force are fucking shite.

Fortunately, I have little cause to use them, but in this case I had no choice. I had won a bid on eBay for a super secret item in the US of A, and once in the UK (and after being briefly impounded by HM Revenue & Customs), it was up to Parcel Force to deliver it.

I had paid the VAT and clearance fee, and was informed online that deliver would take place on Monday.

At 3pm on Monday it had still not arrived so I decided to call the Parcel Force Depot. First, you have to navigate the voice recognition menu, which provides no option whatsoever to speak to a real person. Having spent a few minutes reading out my tracking number again and again, I was eventually offered the chance to speak to a human being.

“Hello, how can I help?”

“Hello, I was expecting a delivery this morning, and it has not arrived, can you tell me where it is.”

Despite reading it out loud three times already, I gave him the tracking number and he tippety-tapped it into his computer.

“Ah. It appears the driver attempted delivery this morning.”

“It appears so.”

We confirmed they had the correct address, which they did, and he said he would try and get the driver to deliver it that afternoon. I left my mobile number with them, in case he could not find it again, and went back about my business.

At 5pm no delivery had taken place.

I called again, and once more had to navigate the voice command menu for several minutes before working my way to a real person. She then told me that they had no record of my earlier conversation and that my parcel was on its way back to the depot. They would however deliver it tomorrow. I took her name and left it at that.

The following day I decided to call mid-morning, to check that my delivery was indeed to take place. I selected the “Other services” option from the telephone menu, thinking, somewhat foolishly, that it would be a shortcut to a real person. It was not. Instead, I listened for three minutes to adverts for various international delivery services, without a single selection option, before hanging up and starting again.

After seven minutes, I was finally given the option of selecting a real person. I pressed the button, only to be informed by the computer lady that I was now in a queue. As the minutes dragged by I totted up that I had so far spent approximately twenty minutes on the phone to these incompetent shysters.

Eventually, a nice lady who identified herself as Natasha answered the phone. I explained my previous two calls to her colleagues.

“There appears to be no record of that conversation, apart from an attempted delivery yesterday. But your parcel is out for delivery with the courier today.”

“As it was yesterday, Natasha. I believe you. What I do not have any confidence in however, is the drivers ability to locate a big office block in the middle of a town. He has the address, he has my phone number, I have given you landmarks, yet despite all this, I still did not receive my parcel yesterday. Do you understand my dilemma here?”

“Yes, but it is a different driver. And I have messaged your details to him, but they don’t have company phones so sometimes they don’t call the recipients.”

“OK, give me your number and I will call you this afternoon to confirm delivery or let you know if there is a problem.”

I went back to work with my fingers crossed that my super secret item would arrive in time.

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