XDP couriers

[Deleted member 199956]

Just checking whether anyone else uses XDP couriers? If so, have you ever had any success with making a claim for a damaged delivery?

Generally their service is really good, but I've now tried to make 3 separate claims for goods clearly damaged in transit, and they've all been rejected with fairly tenuous reasons.

Starting to wonder if they ever accept any claims or if it's just a front to make it appear as if they have a claims department?

 

[Evelyn Feng]

We haven't used XDP couriers before, so won't be able to give any ideas about this particular company. But we had a damaged product with UPS (potentially another one today, but won't know until the customer opens the box to check), and they refused to compensate, for the reason that the packaging wasn't in line with the ISTA guidelines.

A reasonable person can see that the damage was due to violent handling, and even our customer stood by us, but UPS just used the packaging guidelines to reject compensation.

Reading your post, I'm thinking has anyone had ever received compensation from courier companies for damaged goods at all, or they just tried to get away with it all the time. Maybe we should take them to Trading Standards, or Small Claim Court?

 

[Deleted member 199956]

The trouble is, XDP give pretty good service on all other fronts, so I don't want to leave them only to find that I have exactly the same problem with any other courier.

I think I'm just going to assume from now on that they're not going to honour any claim and build that assumption in to my pricing structure. I'm also going to try educate my customers to not accept any packages that have any damage to them and to double check them before accepting.

 

[AndyP]

I tend to think that they are all pretty much the same. We use Interlink/DPD and generally speaking I really like their service and efficiency until you have to deal with their accounts department who, in my opinion, are anal in the extreme. For me, they are the one weak link in their armour. Unless it's really to our advantage we have given up trying to make any claims as the sheer amount of effort involved makes it not worthwhile. I guess it's a strategy. It seems to work. They even had a van stolen. I appreciate that it wasn't their fault but it certainly wasn't ours and the number of hoops that they expected us to jump through to make a relatively small claim was quite unbelievable.

So, if you are generally happy with your courier I would tend to suggest that you factor in potential damages and just suck it up. It's not right of course but life isn't always fair....

 

[P4D | Parcels4Delivery]

I'm also going to try educate my customers to not accept any packages that have any damage to them and to double check them before accepting.

Hi,

This is a really good strategy. Invest in your packaging, tighten up your Terms and understand thoroughly those presented by the courier networks re insurance and claims - if you can educate buyers on this process too, the better for everyone involved. It's particularly tricky when people are buying something in, say from eBay, where the person booking the courier would be the person making the claim, but they also need to make sure the seller understands what is required.

Claims do get settled all the time, but the evidence must be strong and if you know what they're looking for you can usually provide it for a swift settlement. They can become very complex and time-consuming depending on the circumstances, but persevere to the end or use a reseller to handle all of that for you.

I hope this helps.

Nat

 

[Deleted member 199956]

Thanks Nat, good to have insight from the couriers' side.

Does anyone have any knowledge about how the distance selling regulations fit in to this? What if the customer does accept a damaged parcel, are retailers obliged to take it back anyway? One could argue that as they didn't say that the parcel was damaged upon delivery, they could have caused the damage themselves? Are retailers still obliged to send a replacement?

(in reality we send out replacements without much questioning as it makes for better customer service, but it's interesting to know what the law says)

 

[MBE1]

You should also ask your courier for advice on packaging to reduce damages, and help in a potential future claim, if you pack as requested for instance it is one less obstacle in obtaining a successful claim.

 

[Bill1954]

We have had a few successful claims with UK mail but they usually come out with some garbage like "we'll pay this time but don't send one of those again"
On one momentous occasion a driver managed to drop and damage 3 high value combi boilers before he managed a successful delivery. We now tend to palletise all of our heavy and fragile goods.

 

[CAEDAN]

To be fair, they are ALL the same! You won't get much out of any of them - and they can break ANYTHING -no matter how strong, or well packaged!

If you look in the terms of ALL of the couriers, they all state that whatever the damage, they will not be held responsible. There are so many loopholes they give themselves to jump through and pass the buck, that you may as well just accept it and price it into the goods. This won't cover you rear though - so do choose the best courier you can based on performance. An Oak furniture company down here had 90% damage rate on all deliveries this time last year on solid oak furniture that cost them thousands.

Watch how the goods are loaded and look in the van - it says alot about the way it is treated. I have watched driver go into vans with packages strewn all over, standing on boxes that then split open showing car speakers etc. I have seen drivers load vans by throwing boxes of glasses in from above their head - the smash was heard and witnessed. It is wrong, a scam of the highest order - but they have you over a barrel.

One well known company (one of the top names) was sold for a pound....says it all really!

Advising your customers is a good thing - I know many customers have complained to a friend of mine, that drivers will not allow them to check the item - or sometimes even see the box until they have signed for it - stating they are not allowed to. This is a dilemma, as if they refuse it - you get charged again and sometimes a higher rate. If it is returned to you damaged, then they still get away with it.

The drivers state that it is time constraints - but I am sure if the customer were to call the company on refusal to check the item, they would allow it to be checked as it would be faster than waiting for the call to be answered. Maybe supply the customer with this information?

Another thing I have noticed is this; When using any old courier through parcel sites or the couriers own websites, you pay the fee , it gets delivered. When you are signed up to a courier, suddenly you get emails with pictures of the front door, stating they were not in 2 or 3 times and charged £10 for every extra delivery??? Odd! I wonder if this is a subsidising tactic? Were parcels delivered 3 times, every time before? Why not charged extra then? Seems strange....

 

[Josh @ Ruby UK]

Have had many a claim rejected. The people working the claims department are quite frankly infuriating. But I've had a few go through unsuccessful.

One hint I have is as follows, when something is returned as a damaged item, sign for it as damaged, even though they already know there's damage! I had one claim, where the item was damaged en route to customer, so returned to myself. I signed for it as normal expecting it to be a fairly straight forward claim process, and it was rejected because I'd signed for it without writing 'damaged'.

In my experience they will reject every claim, for any possible reason they can find. Just dispute this with either them, your local depot, or the area manager and you'll find success. We previously had our local depot put a weeks worth of deliveries through their own account, this saved us £250+ to compensate for a rejected claim against a lost Husqvarna lawnmower. (They somehow managed to deliver a Honda one - No Joke)

The other 2 couriers we use, City-Link & MyHermes are no better when it comes to claims.

XDP are a good company, stick with them.

 

[SamStones]

We've not had to claim for an item lost or damaged yet, but we have had to put it dozens of claims for late deliveries. Last time I did a report on it we had 50% of our next day deliveries arriving late. Anyone else had this problem with XDP?

 

[fatChief]

We are small business that sends out about 200 packages a week so about 10,000 consignments a year. We used to use another carrier without any problems for about 8 years but they changed the dimensions of what they would carry so sadly we had to move. What a disaster it has been since!

XDP constantly deliver late, damage an awful lot of our consignments and trying to get any information out of them to pass on to our customers who are waiting for their orders is like trying to get blood out of a stone. On top of this they frequently LOSE our parcels. Trying to get them to pay for the damage and losses is a task in itself and they'll happily reject most claims without any good reason. When you ask why they've rejected a claim we always get the same response: ' We refer you to our terms and conditions". I honestly believe that the terms & conditions we signed are unfair and would love to challenge them but cannot afford to do so.

So, if you'd like to spend most of your time clearing up after XDP than running your business by replacing orders (by the way they still charge you for the carriage if they've lost or damaged a consignment AND they get the repeat replacement consignment on top so they are doing well out of it), chasing up non deliveries (if you can get an answer) and generally trying to keep your customers from being stranded then XDP are the delivery company for you.

When I spoke with an XDP area manager about what a rubbish service they provide his answer was 'don't use us then'. If senior management don't care it's no wonder their employees have the same attitude.

We've since moved to a much better delivery company and our lives and the lives of our customers have improved as a consequence.

So, be warned, if you want to experience a complete lack of customer care then XDP are right up your street.

 

[Deleted member 199956]

After XDP costing us £400 in one damaged and then lost delivery, we decided to shut down the business as it just wasn't feasible and we couldn't find another courier company to replace them at a similar price/service level.

I think the final straw was when they literally lost a chest of drawers... it weighed 50kg and was pretty huge. How on earth is something like that lost?!?

fatChief, who did you go with in the end?

 

[fatChief]

Markus,

We were very happy with the quality of service from ParcelForce (PFWW) but found their charges for items over 1500mm tall too costly so sadly had to move again but otherwise really can't say anything too bad about them. We currently use a great company called ParcelHub. they've got us some magnificent rates with UK Mail for items under 1500mm and with UPS for items over 1500mm tall. The owner of the local Parcelhub franchise is a super guy and his staff are trained to respond and deal with every query quickly and efficiently. We couldn't be happier with the cost savings and quality of service. On top of that when we do have to make a claim it is dealt with quickly and efficiently leaving us to concentrate on our business. Try contacting ParcleHub, I really recommend them. We are based in Suffolk near Bury St Edmunds so there might be regional variations in quality of service from each depot so it might be worth speaking to some local to you ParcelHub customers first. Good luck and hope that this has been of some help.

 

[SamStones]

Just as a quick update on our service from XDP since we posted in March 2015:

We went through I think 4 different franchises in the first year as our area moved from owner to owner, although they all started off good they quickly fell apart. That is with the exception of our current depot who do very well, they're nearly always available at the end of the phone if you need them, the collections manage to happen daily (if not always on time) , and we've not had the experience of the late deliveries either.

Hopefully they will continue this way, but it's always handy to have a backup plan just in case as you never know with courier companies!

 

[cracklepop]

Markus,

We were very happy with the quality of service from ParcelForce (PFWW) but found their charges for items over 1500mm tall too costly so sadly had to move again but otherwise really can't say anything too bad about them. We currently use a great company called ParcelHub. they've got us some magnificent rates with UK Mail for beds and other items under 1500mm and with UPS for items over 1500mm tall. The owner of the local Parcelhub franchise is a super guy and his staff are trained to respond and deal with every query quickly and efficiently. We couldn't be happier with the cost savings and quality of service. On top of that when we do have to make a claim it is dealt with quickly and efficiently leaving us to concentrate on our business. Try contacting ParcleHub, I really recommend them. We are based in Suffolk near Bury St Edmunds so there might be regional variations in quality of service from each depot so it might be worth speaking to some local to you ParcelHub customers first. Good luck and hope that this has been of some help.

We had similar experiences with ParcelForce and Royal Mail before we switched to ParcelHub. couldn't be happier.