Boots/Hermes Rant

So loads of bloggers have been raving about the new release of Maybelline Baby Lips so as I'm always one to jump on the bandwagon I decided to place an order with Boots.com. Turns out the delivery agent is Hermes. *sigh*. Not had great experiences with them in the past so dreaded how this was going to turn out!

Was told during checkout that delivery would be by today. Great!

Received a text message about an hour ago to say that my parcel was out for delivery. Great! Sat on my sofa watching some random shark programme hoping it would make me go back to sleep. Just to add here that I live in a town house so my living room is on the first floor and the front door on the ground floor (getting in would be tricky otherwise, ladders etc). Anyway door bell rings and I leg is downstairs. Just as I got to the bottom step a card is shoved through the letter box and moments later a car door slams. My heart sinks. I dive for the house keys in the utility room and leg it to the front door, open it and a massive box is outside it. I look at the card and it says by door.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Why would you even bother writing the card out. Why would you not ring the door bell first to see if anyone answered?!!! Madness. But it gets worse.

I ordered 4 baby lips and 2 nail varnishes. Look at what it was packed in....

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Sadly the photograph does not really show the scale of the size very well but its bigger than a shoe box and stuffed full with paper!!!!!

I'm now off to write an email to boots to advise them of their shocking courier service (who incidentally faked my siggy on their tracking) and their packing department for packing those small things in that stupid box!!!

/rant.

lols they could have easily posted that through the postbox if they used a smaller box/bag.

I have had a bad experience with Hermes too, I got a text saying it had been posted through postbox, got home there was nothing, checked online and it said it had been delivered, emailed Asos and they said they would check for me as you can't contact Hermes directly regarding delivery. Did all the usual, check safe places, asked neighbours if they received anything but nothing. The following night a lady rang my doorbell with my parcel and a note from Hermes to her saying that they posted it through the wrong postbox and if she could call them and she very nicely brought it round for me. It would have been nice if Hermes then went to the correct address and put a msg in my postbox notifying me what had happened or changing the online status instead of keeping me in the dark =_=.

Couple of years ago I ordered on the next sale online. Hermes was the courier. They tried to deliver whilst I was at work and left a card saying they'd try again the next day. I asked my neighbour if he'd kindly take the parcel in for me which he said he would. So I left a note on my door asking them to deliver to my neighbour and gave the number.

Got home from work and went to see neighbour and he said no one had been! Assumed maybe he'd been over whelmed so figured he'd deliver the day after.

Over night however I got an email from next thanking me for my returns!!!!! The courier had basically returned them back to next. Of course with it being the sale the items I'd ordered had gone back out of stock. Was really pissed off and from them on only shop the sale either in store or when they allow delivery to store.

how stupid =_=

Yep, they could easily have fitted that in a jiffy bag. That's ridiculous. If Boots are on Twitter I'd tweet that picture to them. They won't ignore it then.

Hermes are pretty bad, but not quite as bad as Yodel in my experience. They delivered some office furniture to me earlier this year and they didn't bring one of those little trolley things that they lift heavy stuff with so they dragged it down my drive. The desk was missing a corner by the time they'd finished with it.

Better still, they put a card through my sister's door saying they'd left her parcel in a safe place. But didn't think to tell her where the safe place was. So she spend ages trawling round the garden/neighbourhood looking for it. Eventually she gave up and rang them. It turned out the "safe place" was in the courier's van  

I don't have twitter but I've sent them an email anyway. See if they replied!

My Hermes Lady is lovely and a total star. She knows when I do the school run, and what time I get back and has even tracked me down chatting to other mums at the bottom of the road to deliver before! I'm seriously off Boots after the grubby Models Own incident. I did eventually get replacements but I had to jump through hoops for them. They were also in an industrial sized shipping crate with just a bit of screwed up paper.

the size of that box??!!

Hermes are appalling. I ordered a desk from debenhams once, hermes left the desk on the door step of the house which was on a main road. No note, no nothing - luckily a mate had popped by to drop a card off and put the desk around the back of the house. I did ask debehmans who signed for it, and they couldn't tell me (because no one did) and I kicked off so they refunded me  

My mate has lost an arm chair that Hermes left out side a block of flats. She's in a massive dispute with them at the moment as someone obviously took it, at least ring any bell and leave inside the building.

As for packaging, amazon is the same, massive boxes for tiny things. I say sorry to the trees when ever I get an amazon delivery....

ninjablossom wrote:As for packaging, amazon is the same, massive boxes for tiny things. I say sorry to the trees when ever I get an amazon delivery....

Yes its no wonder Amazon have had to start charging P&P on purchases under a tenner....to pay for those ginormous boxes.

You can get round their new P&P charges by the way, just add a cheap book from the Amazon Warehouse to your order. They start at 30p. Then your P&P is free. I was looking at a nail polish (surprisingly enough) on Amazon the other day. It was £2.99 but they wanted £6.01 P&P! Add a book for 30p and the P&P is free  

starrystarry wrote:

ninjablossom wrote:As for packaging, amazon is the same, massive boxes for tiny things. I say sorry to the trees when ever I get an amazon delivery....

Yes its no wonder Amazon have had to start charging P&P on purchases under a tenner....to pay for those ginormous boxes.

You can get round their new P&P charges by the way, just add a cheap book from the Amazon Warehouse to your order.  They start at 30p.  Then your P&P is free.  I was looking at a nail polish (surprisingly enough) on Amazon the other day.  It was £2.99 but they wanted £6.01 P&P!  Add a book for 30p and the P&P is free  

Thanks for the tip, I haven't ordered under £10 in a while but if I do I will use this. £6 for one small item is obscene.

That's a great tip starry, thanks!

very handy tip, thanks Starry!

No worries. Link to the cheap books...

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Hermes seem to be very hit-and-miss.
Some stories I've heard:
- My neighbour ordered from Next online. She was told a delivery date by Hermes, her mum stayed in all day - no delivery yet online it said delivery attempted. She came over to see if maybe they'd left the package with us but no. A couple of days later my mum saw her at the shop and asked about the package and my neighbour said they'd delivered it later that day at 11PM! Seriously, who delivers parcels at night?!
- The most imaginative safe place seems to be... wheely bins. What if it's rubbish collection day?!  

Another Hermes hater here! Ordered loads of sweets one Christmas and filled stockings etc. When the box arrived it was soaked through, ripped open and looked like it had been used as a football in the carpark in the rain. When the sweet shop took it up with them they said parcels are often left outside!! In the rain?!!! The contents were destroyed. The company had to replace everything, not even solid things that you'd expect to survive anything had, they were all soggy and bashed and horrid.

My Hermes Lady is pretty good but when she was off, someone did her route.
I had ordered a jumper from next which was thrown over the back gate, where there's a big sign "Beware of Dog!" We'll, the jumper made a great chew toy for my husky!

Yodel are another one. Had the same problem, a parcel for my brother was thrown over. Another toy for the dog!

visualize wrote:- The most imaginative safe place seems to be... wheely bins. What if it's rubbish collection day?!  

This happened to me with Royal Mail. I was waiting on delivery of a china Winstanley kitten worth about £30 and the postman left it in my recycling bin.........    

Needless to say the bins had been emptied and I never got my kitten.  

Babafette wrote:

visualize wrote:- The most imaginative safe place seems to be... wheely bins. What if it's rubbish collection day?!  

This happened to me with Royal Mail. I was waiting on delivery of a china Winstanley kitten worth about £30 and the postman left it in my recycling bin.........    

Needless to say the bins had been emptied and I never got my kitten.  

did you complain? thats really out of order

Yes, I did complain but it didn't get me anywhere.  

Had a reply from them saying sorry about Hermes and sorry about the packing. We'll refer your comments to our boots.com team.

That was it.

SA...what were the Baby Lips like? They're on 3 for 2 at Superdrug at the moment so I might give them a whirl. Which colours did you get?

Babafette wrote:

visualize wrote:- The most imaginative safe place seems to be... wheely bins. What if it's rubbish collection day?!  

This happened to me with Royal Mail. I was waiting on delivery of a china Winstanley kitten worth about £30 and the postman left it in my recycling bin.........    

Needless to say the bins had been emptied and I never got my kitten.  

We had that too. Luckily it was the day before bin collection but they left a box full of American candy in our half full bin. Which we had to leave in the bin, because who wants to eat bin poptarts?!