dammit Yodel.

[Gizmo]

If you are in the UK you may remember a company called Home Delivery Network or their newish trading name Yodel.

The short version is that they suck and use independent couriers who they pay peanuts. Last year they had a habit of marking parcels 'delivered to customer' when they'd only handed it over to their independent courier (presumably as it meant that they met the sellers 'deliver by' and didn't get told off). Ours took another 20+ days to get to us! By then we'd cancelled the order, got a refund and had to physically pick up the item from several cities away. Another one they marked as leaving a card when they hadn't even tried to deliver it and hadn't left a card - I know, I was at the front of the house all day waiting for it.

Since we originally ordered in early November I said I wouldn't use any company that are known to use Yodel from November to January as you might as well drop it into a black hole. Quite a few other people on certain consumer sites were muttering the same things.

So this year the only places that do the item one of the family wants all use Yodel. So now I have to go several cities away to buy the damn thing.

It doesn't help that my attitude to Christmas this year is that it is about 6+ months early and can go rot...

[Andara Bledin]

Be sure to tell the various retailers why you won't be using their services.

Nobody will stop using their service if they don't know that people are not buying because of it.

^-.-^

[Gizmo]

I had a huge arguement with Amazon last year about it and asking them if I can specify "not yodel" but was told that wasn't possible. I ended up emailing a load of private sellers on there to ask who they use and finding one who hates yodel as much as I do in the end.

I have been causing holy hell about them with other sellers and will continue trying to do so. Unfortunately low costs seem to outweigh customer requests not to use them.