Deliveries gone mad.

ejmaztec

I ordered an auto-part from Germany over a week ago, and the package was handled by Dhl.de. I was given a tracking number and the parcel was merrily travelling on its way to Ireland. On its arrival in the country, the tracking didn't specify the exact location and only mentioned that it was in a depot in Ireland waiting to be delivered.

To see if I could get more information, I tried the tracking number on the Irish DHL site but it wasn't recognised.

On Friday evening I contacted DHL here to find out where the parcel was. I was told that DHL here isn't the same as the DHL that was handling the shipping from Germany, so it was nothing to do with them. They then told me that An Post handled Dhl.de deliveries here.

After the call I entered the tracking number on the An Post tracker, and it was immediately translated into the An Post equivalent. That told me that the package was in Galway (I'm in Kerry) and couldn't be delivered as the recipient was unknown.

Yesterday I rang An Post customer services because the parcel was in Portlaoise and was going to be returned to sender. Even though they knew that the Germans had wrongly addressed the parcel, and that it was supposed to come to Kerry, they couldn't "interfere with the post" by telling Portlaoise what the correct destination was. The lady said that the Guards were the only ones allowed to intercept mail. She also told me that, with any luck, Portlaoise would work out where I was, and send the package to Kerry. There wasn't any way that a member of the public could contact Portlaoise, because as the lady said, people would be ringing every 2 minutes looking for parcels, or trying to get parcels delivered quicker.

Needless to say, there wasn't any luck, and the package has now left Portlaoise for Germany.:(

The Germans have apologised for making a mistake, and will re-address the package on receipt, and send it straight back. I actually paid additional postage to get it quicker.:pac:

...and to add insult to injury, it probably cost me an arm and a leg to ring the An Post 1850 number.:(

It seems crazy to me that a package that could have been delivered today, now won't be delivered for another week (or more) because of some grey area in the postal system.

The Lovely Muffin

ejmaztec wrote: »

After the call I entered the tracking number on the An Post tracker, and it was immediately translated into the An Post equivalent. That told me that the package was in Galway (I'm in Kerry) and couldn't be delivered as the recipient was unknown.

Yesterday I rang An Post customer services because the parcel was in Portlaoise and was going to be returned to sender. Even though they knew that the Germans had wrongly addressed the parcel, and that it was supposed to come to Kerry, they couldn't "interfere with the post" by telling Portlaoise what the correct destination was. The lady said that the Guards were the only ones allowed to intercept mail. She also told me that, with any luck, Portlaoise would work out where I was, and send the package to Kerry. There wasn't any way that a member of the public could contact Portlaoise, because as the lady said, people would be ringing every 2 minutes looking for parcels, or trying to get parcels delivered quicker.

Needless to say, there wasn't any luck, and the package has now left Portlaoise for Germany.:(

The Germans have apologised for making a mistake, and will re-address the package on receipt, and send it straight back. I actually paid additional postage to get it quicker.:pac:

...and to add insult to injury, it probably cost me an arm and a leg to ring the An Post 1850 number.:(

To be honest, I don't think it makes any difference whether or not An Post knew that the parcel was wrongly addressed, as the lady said to you, they can't interfere with mail.

It's the fault of the sender for putting the wrong address on the parcel, not the fault of An Post.

You should contact the send and ask for a refund for the money you paid for quicker delivery, considering you haven't got it at all now and your item is on the way back to them.

ejmaztec

Purple_Bobbin wrote: »

To be honest, I don't think it makes any difference whether or not An Post knew that the parcel was wrongly addressed, as the lady said to you, they can't interfere with mail.

It's the fault of the sender for putting the wrong address on the parcel, not the fault of An Post.

You should contact the send and ask for a refund for the money you paid for quicker delivery, considering you haven't got it at all now and your item is on the way back to them.

It depends what constitutes interference. I've had mail delivered that was obviously wrongly delivered to someone else, and because the original recipient has written a suggested address on it, the problem was solved.

On a screw-up with Paypal a few months ago, for some reason mine and some others' county location was recorded as Antrim, but this didn't stop the packages reaching Kerry.

Both of these incidents seem like interference to me, and the same kind of interference on this occasion would have meant that my German parcel being delivered to my address and not returned to sender.

Of course the Germans screwed up, but it wouldn't have taken much for the An Post customer service to send a note to Portlaoise which would have rectified the problem.

jor el

ejmaztec wrote: »

I actually paid additional postage to get it quicker.:pac:

You should look to get that back then.

ejmaztec wrote: »

...and to add insult to injury, it probably cost me an arm and a leg to ring the An Post 1850 number.:(

That's a local rate number.

ejmaztec wrote: »

Of course the Germans screwed up, but it wouldn't have taken much for the An Post customer service to send a note to Portlaoise which would have rectified the problem.

They'd have to find it first, which could be a needle in a haystack type situation at Portlaoise.

The problem is that the package was not labelled correctly, not that An Post couldn't deliver it.

ejmaztec

jor el wrote: »

You should look to get that back then.

I've already asked for it.


That's a local rate number.

My mistake, mixing it up with the expensive variety.



They'd have to find it first, which could be a needle in a haystack type situation at Portlaoise.

The problem is that the package was not labelled correctly, not that An Post couldn't deliver it.

Customer service told me that Portlaoise would have to decide what to do with the package at the end of the day, so it wouldn't have been hidden inside a big heap at this point. If the tracking number had been flagged by customer services, they'd know exactly where it was supposed to go. Despite customer service validationg my address and being certain that the parcel was supposed to be delivered to me, nothing happened, and the parcel went back to Germany.

I'm going to take it up with An Post, and get more of an insight into the situation for future reference. I'll find out whether I'm expecting too much of them.

jor el

The other thing is they had really no idea if this was intended to be delivered to you or not. Anyone with the tracking number could ring up and claim it was theirs, and they could get the tracking number in a few different ways. A telephone agent is probably not the one that can make the decision to deliver it to you, despite what they said.

ejmaztec

jor el wrote: »

The other thing is they had really no idea if this was intended to be delivered to you or not. Anyone with the tracking number could ring up and claim it was theirs, and they could get the tracking number in a few different ways. A telephone agent is probably not the one that can make the decision to deliver it to you, despite what they said.

Naturally I would expect them to ask for a copy of the invoice and transaction details to clinch it. If someone had the tracking number, they would have had to use my name, but their address wouldn't have matched anything on the address label, with the exception of "Ireland".

It wouldn't have been up to the agent to decide, but they could have given Portlaoise the details, and things could have been verified by them.