Sorry you’ve had such a sh*t experience.

I had a similar problem with DPD a while back. Package was returned to depot with no attempt to deliver. I emailed the retailer directly instead of DPD and it seemed to work better.

I told them about my dissatisfaction with DPD and as a consequence I wouldn’t buy from them again as I didn’t trust their courier service and would advise others to do so.

They replied in good time apologising and offered to send via alternative courier, saying that If I didn’t claim my package from DPD it would return to sender so they were covered.

They were thankful I’d told them of our my issues directly instead of the courier and said they’d be looking at procurement in the near future. I guess unless people do that the retailers won’t know of the problems people are having.

Maybe its worth a punt.

I wish this comment surprised me, but it really does not sadly… It seems to me at the moment that neither the retailer or the courier care that much about this, hence me wanting to vent my frustrations here.

Re a site for who delivers for who, I guess it would need to be balanced, as plenty of them use multiple couriers.

No further updates just yet – I’m going to continue hounding them until I get my goods (retailer and courier now!) 

I wish I could find a phone number or they would call me as I requested to discuss this further… I am getting so pissed off with just getting fobbed off with stock responses, hollow apologies and still no fricking ETA on when these items will turn up!

true – the problem for me, particularly at the cheaper end of the market, is that is can be quite difficult to see who is going to be delivering these products.

If this delivery had been messed up by Royal Mail, I could go to the local depot and collect them. However Yodel don’t publicise the location of their “local” centre and even more frustratingly, even if they did its in another nearby city.

The more things move online, the better distribution networks are going to have to be to cope with these, and I don’t think the mechanisms are there at the moment!

LOL, that made me laugh… if only I had a choice, I wouldn’t *have* to expect anything… but it seems that most retailers that distribute with Yodel are wise enough not to mention that before you purchase anything! 

I’m having the same problems.  All I get from Yodel is that they are experiencing Operational problems and they will deliver my parcel as soon as possible.  When asked what the ‘Operational Difficulties’ are, they can’t tell me.  My parcel has been stuck at their Southampton depot since Wednesday 28th March and they can’t reassure me today that I will receive it any time soon.  I do wonder whether all their staff are on strike or whether all their vans have been repossessed, what other explanation could there be for non-delivery?  What a mess!.  This is the telephone number I’ve been using for Yodel 0845 602 8086 (given to me by the ‘up market’ retailer where I purchased my goods), but its not direct to the Southampton Depot. 

I have only had problems with Yodel – have paid for next day delivery and not got it etc. However my favourite is coming home to a card telling us they have left a parcel in our back garden. We live in an upstairs flat with no garden. Turned out they had wandered to the back of the building and thrown the package over a 2 metre high fence. They must have thrown it as there isn’t space to put something underneath and the neighbour the garden belonged to was on holiday and had left it securely locked! Amazon had to send a replacement. 

They have also left parcels in our recycling box outside the front door. On one occasion they left a 1 meter high parcel under our upturned box, which is only 40cm deep (looked ridiculous, so wish I’d taken a photo) and also just in the recycling box, clearly visible to anyone who comes to the front door.

The only positive thing I would say is that Amazon have been helpful about it – on the last occasion they contacted Yodel for me to sort it out and arranged for the parcel to be returned to them and refunded my money so I could buy from another website. (Worth noting that it took nearly 2 weeks for Yodel to get round to moving the parcel from their delivery office back to Amazon as well.)

I am increasingly reluctant to use Amazon because of the risk that something will be delivered through Yodel. They always reply to complaints with a standard response that they can’t let customers choose the carrier, and that they constantly review contracts with carriers based on feedback from customers, but I don’t suppose anything will change unless it affects their profits as Yodel’s selling point must be its low cost.

I’m not that keen on the idea of giving out my email address to a forum I know nothing about. 

To be honest with you, I don’t know anything about the drivers, and have sympathy for the customer service staff. I guess that extends to the drivers too, who are no doubt overworked to keep the service on cost.

Frankly though, this is a HDNL/yodel Corporate Organisational problem – I am most frustrated at the lack of communication over these issues than the things not being
delivered – and the complete lack of anything useful in terms of a timeframe for when I can expect to receive these goods, that I have paid for.

If they’d told me that there were problems and delays, I likely wouldn’t have been
happy but wouldnt have written this post.

I would quite like my parcel though

Thanks for the comment Dave – I’ve removed some of the details you gave, as I wasnt sure you wanted to really be giving away your home and email address so openly.

I know you’re not surprised, but you’re not the only one. Brewdog had something similar – http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/online-shop-statement

As a member of a  Customer Services team for a small Educational Supplies Mail Order Company who uses Yodel, I completely sympathise with all people who use Yodel (whether they are the retailer or the customers). I have NO END of trouble contacting Yodel.

We do have some Depot Numbers but they never answer (I left it ringing and holding for 3/4 hr not long ago just to see how long it took someone to answer! I think it would have gone on longer if I hadn’t had to go home.). We have ways of contacting depots via E-mail, all you get is the automated “Thank you for contacting Yodel” e-mail and no more. You call the customer services number, they have no idea what is going on, you try to complain and you have to e-mail them, to which they do not respond. Drivers do not call customers to advise delivery times (as they don’t have company mobiles so won’t spend their own money), they say they attempt deliveries and don’t, they say they leave cards and they don’t, they leave parcels in unsecure porches, they throw parcels over fences and walls, they mis-deliver parcels then take nearly 2 months to collect it (that was a nightmare!). When you file a claim for a lost parcel, the process last time took me 6 months and then refused to pay because of delay in logging the original claim (which was Yodels fault but I had lost the will to keep fighting at that point!) In the last 6 months our areas sales manager has changed 7 times!!

Unfortunately, the only way the retailers know of problems with their couriers is when customers complain. In this current economic climate, price is everything. For our small company, changing to a more expensive courier, would mean the price of our goods would have to be increased (we work on such tight margins) which means we may price ourselves out of business. However, if our courier is so bad and customer don’t come back, we loose business that way! It is a very fine line and luckily the decision about couriers isn’t mine!

The thing is, they were much better when they were DHL so I think this is just that Yodel (as a company) are crap! We tried UPS a while ago, and they were much better but about 3x as expensive so unfortunately we couldn’t go with them. We will soon be trying out DPD and FedEx but again, I think their prices will be too high. I think we will be stuck with Yodel for a while.

i ordered a pair of jeans from my catalogue on Sunday which was to be delivered by today 12/04/2012 by the latest date, it says on the tracking that my item was recieved at yodel southampton 10/04/2012 but I have not recieved my parcel today, usually I recieve parcels on the next working day from my catalogue ~ Littlewoods.

after reading your blog I do not hold out much hope on receiving my parcel tomorrow either

I placed an order for cricket shoes from Amazon on March 28, the seller was Sports Direct. Delivery was promised on 4 April, the parcel tracking says delivery was ‘attempted’ on April 5. Well if it was, surely a card would have left for me to rearrange delivery? It’s now April 13 and after two emails to the seller and Yodel I still haven’t received my order. Utter garbage, how difficult can it be to bring a parcel from Fareham to Southsea?

 It’s not entirely clear that they have completely changed the name – the exact use of “HDNL” and “Yodel” leaves me confused, but the HDNL side of things is definitely still visible. And frankly that compounds their mess – if you’re going to call your company “Home Delivery” then it should have a decent strategy for delivering to homes – to name just two they need to be better at delivering to flats, and they should open their depots at weekends, when people are most able to collect missed parcels. (I’m particularly annoyed as my most recent purchase that came via them had shipping options that implied Royal Mail, so I selected those on that basis because RM always either get the goods into my hands or leave a card to be taken to a depot literally just round the corner. HDNL/Yodel frequently don’t bother attempting entry to the building, and their depot is not within walking distance.)

i am going throught this same process right now , and im discusted , are there any numbers i could call sick of this email crap

Well looks like they have not changed their ways it’s happening to me, my parcel is out with driver since yesterday. Yodel given me drivers number to contact him. Wow

I am right now having a horrendous Yodel experience. I bought an item from The Guardian newspaper’s offers department. I have told Yodel that I will be contacting the Guardian’s consumer department and giving them some bad publicity. I also asked them for a refund for the 10p per minute phone calls, where they keep you waiting for ages. Maybe that’s how they make their money?

Yes Yodel are the pits.

Yodels website tracking info

Delivery on or before Friday 15th June 2012
Parcel loaded on van at 8.39
Parcel in Depot 16.52

No attempt had been made to deliver the package, the driver simply took it back to the depot.
Saturday 16th June I turn up at the customer service desk (seriuosly they call it customer service) only to be told the driver attempted to deliver it but there was no one to receive the parcel.
NO this is a business address and I was there personally from 07.30
Well the drivers logs states NO ACCESS
Realy, well would you like to come and view our CCTV system which records 24//7
Here is our head office number if you want to raise a complaint 0151-477-2705
I tried calling but no one available please leave a message
The YODEL/HDN depot is withing walkin distance of my office.

Searching yodel complaints, your blog popped up…

I’ve been having major problems with them in the last few weeks too. Ordered a canvas from Photobox as they were doing a special offer. Yodel tries to deliver, I’m not in, they leave a card outside of my flats upon which it says the parcel has been left in a “safe place”, I go all round the outside of the building looking for it, even checking the wheelie bins in the bin cupboard out the back…no joy. Start to panic thinking it’s been stolen, phone yodel (£3 on mobile) to be told it’s been sent back to the supplier….after one delivery attempt!

Contacted Photobox who said they would send it straight back out…they didn’t. Re-contacted them and they finally sent it back out, only to come home today (only got the email from photobox late last night!) to find another yodel card outside with “please call me to redeliver your parcel” ticked on the front and where the number should be on the back….”Gone back”, so I assume they have yet again sent it back to photobox after only one delivery attempt.

I’m livid, photobox can either use RM to send it out again or just refund me and I will be avoiding anyone that uses Yodel now. What annoys me even more is they have always been fine in the past, I’m guessing my area driver has left as he used to be great.

YODEL –  AMATEURS AND LIARS , Avoid at all costs.

I am expecting a delivery from DPD today, earlier on between 11am and 12 am I noticed a Yodel van draw up outside my house in Cosham. Anticipating a knock I opened the door but the van driver pulled away. What was he up to??

Yodel, absolute rubbish, bought a Mattress of Amazon 7 days ago still not got it, Tried to get in touch with Yodel cost me £9.50 on my mobile, same old story when you ring, due to high volume of calls it will be 10mins till we answer, doesn’t matter when you ring same old 10mins, promised to send goods out, stayed in all day, nothing, e-mail complaint, nothing back, phone again, promise to send goods out, stay in all day, nothing. Phoned the company I bought the mattress off and told them to cancel the order and asked for full re-fund all due to rubbish service Yodel provide. I will never order anything again if Yodel are the courier provider, they must cost their clients thousands of pounds due to cancelled orders

Just sent this to littlewoods> 
Hi,I would like to thank you for your email today stating that i have £7387.17 left to spend on my account. At the moment we are in no need of making an order. However if i was and perhaps in the future to make orders i have decided not to shop with business that use yodel as there delivery company. There for i would like to ask if in future i was willing to make an order would it be possible to request for an alternative courier company? I believe at moment there are many people who are concerned with yodel making delivery’s and have heard that a list being formed of company’s that use yodel and customers are  being advised to steer clear of company’s that use them. As you will see i have been a long sanding customer with littlewoods and this is a shame if i have to shop else where.That said its better to shop with companies that care about there customers delivery’s don’t you think.Kind Regardskevin

Perhaps if there customers take notice then they might sort the company out. I wouldn’t want to loose customers would you.

I am the proud owner of a free blouse thanks to Yodel. I ordered it from Littlewoods, who deliver by Yodel now. It arrived rather late, delivered by a Yodel driver who was yammering to a mate while she came to my door. At 9 PM that evening I received an automated call from Littlewoods acknowledging the return of my parcel. By that point I was wearing the blouse. I logged in to my Littlewoods account, and surely enough, the blouse had been marked as returned. My account balance had been corrected to zero.

Thanks, Yodel!

I as a yodel courier am disappointed that this as happened, I collect my deliveries Monday to Saturday and do my upmost to deliver every parcel. If the customer is out I try a neighbour or two or three. Generally my customers are very happy with the deliveries telling me that they had only ordered them the evening before. I do feels that we generally only complain it would be nice for people to give us some good reviews, people where are you who are satisfied with our overall service give us a big shout cheers Sharon