DPD Poor Service

It all started when I won an item on eBay and regrettably the seller decided to use DPD / Shutl a partner of eBay to send the parcel. The seller must have gone on the DPD website to purchase the postage. This triggered an email at 22:04 on Tuesday 22nd January 2019, saying the parcel would be delivered the next day. This seemed remarkable and raised my suspicions, had they really collected it from the seller? The answer turned out to be NO. This email was a complete misrepresentation of the facts, they didn't have the parcel until three days after the time this message was sent.

Wednesday 23rd January came and went but no parcel arrived.

Due to a family member being admitted to Hospital via Accident and Emergency, I diverted delivery to a local pickup shop rather than my home address, so I would not miss its delivery. Choosing a shop that was open both Saturday and Sunday seemed a good option.

The DPD tracking service shows the seller did not drop off the parcel at a DPD Pickup Shop until Thursday, 24th January at 15:24, a day after DPD claimed to be delivering it. But it was not collected from the drop off point until 11:16 on Friday, 25th January.

Things seemed to be moving, when my package arrived at the Birmingham Hub 3 at 02:10 on the morning of Saturday 26th January and was transferred to the Oldbury distribution depot at 04:18 that day. Hopefully it would be delivered to my local Pickup shop that same day. I waited all Saturday for the email to confirm it was ready for pick up, but nothing happened.

This is so frustrating as the parcel was residing just 4.9 km (3.05 miles) away from my home but I couldn't get my hands on it. It remained there on Sunday too. On Monday 28th, I was expecting an email to say I could pick it up when I got this instead at 12:40.

Yet again more nonsense from DPD / Shutl saying it has been delayed due to an unexpected delay. What kind of company sends a stupid message like this, they are hopeless. To add insult to my injury, seventeen minutes later there was a DPD van delivering to a neighbour.

This next screen shot illustrates the company is no more than a bunch of cowboys. My parcel left Oldbury and was sent back to the Birmingham Hub 3. Then they sent it back to Oldbury for a second time.

I was amazed to find this is not really a chat but an automated reply system, unlike any decent company where you get to chat to a human representative. This is an appalling way for DPD to deal with customers. As soon as you press SEND it replies with a completely unhelpful message. My text is shown on a black background. Typing "Is the a human there" and it suggests an alternative way to contact them. - Good I thought - but no, just another level of frustration with DPD - How do they do it?

On calling the telephone number given as 0121 275 9222, you get a recorded message with an invitation to enter your parcel number. Before I was able to key the whole of the 15 digit number in on my phone, the voice said "Sorry not recognised" after four attempts I gave up.

Looking around on their website, I find a well hidden page https://www.dpd.co.uk/content/how-can-we-help/make-it-right.jsp This gives make an option to send a message to DPD.

It is becoming difficult to be civil with this disgusting incompetent company, but I managed to refrain from abuse, writing:

My parcel has been going around in circles between your depots in Birmingham and Oldbury since 02:10 on Saturday morning, it is now Tuesday 09:30

Can you assure me it will be sent to the collection point (a shop in Harborne) today?

Explain why it has gone around in circles please?

Just over half an hour later back comes a reply

At 10:28 on 29th January 2019, three hours short of a week since winning the auction, I received a message to say I could collect my parcel, which I did at 11:18. Got it at last, through no help from the Grossly Incompetent DPD who do not seem to understand good customer relations, and accessibility to their service. It was not my choice of carrier, cheap prices for awfully terrible service, you don't even get what you pay for with these cowboys.

A disgusted as I feel towards DPD, there is no need to take it out on the complaints staff, hence: