Review of CollectPlus Couriers (don't use them!).

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spotify95
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Review of CollectPlus Couriers (don't use them!).

Postby spotify95 » January 21st, 2020, 2:26 pm

I recently used Collect+ couriers to send an eBay item, and well, here is the experience of it...

Sold an item on eBay of relatively high value (Acer Aspire 5742 laptop) and wondered which the best way was of sending it. Ruled it down as follows:
    Royal Mail - too expensive
    Parcelforce - too expensive, don't cover laptops
    Hermes - not trustworthy enough (stole a laptop I ordered before)
    DPD - too far to get to / not a local access point
    InPost - parcel may have been too big to go in their lockers, plus too far out of the way

This left UPS and Collect, and since UPS was going to cost over £12 fully covered (however, with half cover, it would have cost just £6.50 to post), I went for Collect+.
They have a standard (2 day) service, and an Economy (3-5 day) service. Of course, I chose the Standard service, as 3-5 days is too long.
I also added additional cover on to the value of £100.
In total, this cost £9.30 to send, compared to UPS' £12.59 (though UPS was next day, not 2 days).
Splendid... or not, as the case may be....

Dropped it off, and all was fine. The laptop made it to my local depot... and went missing. Tracking didn't update for 5 days.
Damn, I thought it was lost...
Tried emailing them, to no joy. Tried phoning them (more on this later), no joy.

After 5 days, it showed as "delivery attempted", quickly followed by "unable to deliver, returning to sender". Great, they won't even do what I paid them to do!

After various other phone calls, I was assured that it would be delivered "on Friday or Monday" - corresponding to 1/17/20 or 1/20/20. Since no one was going to be available on the week commencing 1/20/20, that would have been problematic...
I was then told that the item would have a new tracking number, and that I would get a call back at 1pm that day. It didn't happen.
I then phoned up again, to be told it would not have a new tracking number. So what was going on?!
Thankfully, that day, I arrived home to a pleasant surprise - the laptop had been returned and had arrived back to me.

I was also refunded the £9.29 postage costs for the failed delivery. Which then meant I had to use UPS after all...
why did I not just use UPS in the first place!

Emailing CollectPlus is not a great method of communication, as most emails that you send go unanswered, or take ages to get replies.
Thankfully, they have two phone numbers, an 0845 number, and the standard 01 based landline phone number.
The 0845 number is not included in most peoples' call allowances, and will soon rack up a substantial charge.
The 01 number is included, however wait times are substantial. If you try phoning up in the daytime, be prepared to be on hold for up to 30 minutes (or more).
Phoning at 8am, when they open, or near 5pm (when people are on their way home), is better, with wait times substantially reduced. Which is a good thing, because their hold music is Mozart No.21 in C Major (or whatever it is called) - the piano piece of that melody is repeated on a constant loop until you get through.
And whilst it's definitely not the worst hold music to be in existence, it soon becomes annoying and irritating when you hear the same piece for 30 minutes!

The item was delivered via UPS the next working day, as they said...

So, to conclude, if you value your time, effort and patience, do not use CollectPlus couriers (or Yodel, as CollectPlus use Yodel for their delivery service). Use someone else, there are plenty of other choices for all different categories of parcel.


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