Companies and Services To Avoid

[Tight minge]

I recently researched into Dropshipping or using Fulfilled by Amazon to sell stuff from China at a mark up. It is a complete sore head with so many additional costs (import tax etc..) and rules (especially with Amazon), didn't make it worthwhile.

Anyway, ordering from 'Next' online has been really shite with delivery lately.

 

There are a couple of decent 3PL/dropshippers in Guangdong, but they are just warehousing, picking and shipping. Finding a good product is a challenge.

 

Amazon is expensive, but reliable (I guess, I have never used them). There are number of American backed/western facing companies who are just taking the piss. If you can get your product in to an FTZ dropship warehouse in China, it may take some of the hassle away.

 

 

I know of (not personally) a husband and wife team selling only a couple of sex toys via Amazon into Australia and seemingly making good money.

 

ETA: If you purchase in RMB or from a supplier in China without an export licence you’ll incur 17% tax or need to go through an export agent. If you get a supplier with export licence and in USD/EUR and get them to deliver to a 3PL in a FTZ, you will be able to drop ship quite easily.

 

Ultimately better to find a 3PL in Europe/wherever you’ll service from and supply from there.

 

 

[pub car king]

48 minutes ago, johnnydun said:

Anyway, ordering from 'Next' online has been really shite with delivery lately.

This. I used next all the time and it was no bother at all, everything was next day delivery up to midnight and always right first time. 

Now its pot luck if you ever get it.

[NotThePars]

14 hours ago, 8MileBU said:

Enough reason right here.

 

Okay, this is epic

[tree house tam]

Used Amazon, Vodafone and Arnold Clark and never had an issue. John Clark however? Won't use them again.

[BFTD]

TalkTalk are the worst company I've dealt with, I think. I was a LineOne customer, who got bought out by Tiscali, who were then bought out by TalkTalk, so that's how I ended up with them. Six months after switchover, they just ended our service; internet suddenly dead. Turned out that they'd set a six month deadline for all Tiscali customers to be switched over to their equipment at the exchanges, and the engineers hadn't met it, so anyone still on the old Tiscali stuff just lost their internet until the engineers caught up. Took ages to get to the bottom of what had happened, as nobody in support seemed to know why they were suddenly inundated with angry customers. I suspect they'd been warned, but told to pretend nothing was wrong.

Right after we were reconnected, the internet speed dropped to dial-up levels, and would regularly disconnect. Spent weeks on the phone with their support lines being asked the same questions over and over again (basically, the fault's within your house - are you using a filter? We can send you a new router, but we'll have to charge you), until the service died altogether. Five days being passed around to different people on the same corporate level, before some Tier 2 support drone told me there was nothing else they could do. Asked to speak to someone above their level - there is nobody else to speak to, sir. Do you really expect me to continue paying for a service that you're unable to provide me with? Well, that's up to you, sir. Got the impression that every single conversation I had was part of a script, even the last part.

Switched to PlusNet, and explained the issue to them. They got BT to send an engineer out within three days, who worked out that one of the local phone lines was rubbing on a tree, and had finally worn through the outer shielding. Made his repair, internet started working, never had a problem since.

re: Tiscali - their finance department used to be great at forgetting to bill you for the service. Every six months or so, suddenly your phone/internet would die, which was their way of telling you to get in touch as they needed paying. You'd pay off six months' worth, the direct debit would work for another six months again, then the same thing would happen. More amusing than annoying. Bad state of affairs when a company can't even reliably take money from you.

[johnnydun]

1 hour ago, pub car king said:

This. I used next all the time and it was no bother at all, everything was next day delivery up to midnight and always right first time. 

Now its pot luck if you ever get it.

Yeah, we ordered something, got confirmation, it didn't arrive and then we were told it was out of stock.

[johnnydun]

2 hours ago, G_Man1985 said:

Our help desk is out in India and I have a lot of time for it. Is good fun and can take a while . Patience is key

Is India the new name for Dryburgh industrial estate?

[Robin.Hood]

Just now, johnnydun said:

Is India the new name for Dryburgh industrial estate?

Haha. Believe it or not that's no our help desk regarding dealing with stock :-(.

[BFTD]

Other companies mentioned: Hermes are entirely dependent on the drivers in your area. It's the equivalent of your parcel hitching a lift on the motorway. Amazing anything ever arrives at all. I've spoken to Hermes drivers who say that they don't even have a phone number to call anyone; they have the same automated shit to go through. If Hermes don't pay them, they have to punt a message off to an email address they aren't allowed to give out to customers and hope someone decides to deal with it eventually. Far too many of these fly-by-night companies that take no responsibility for the services they provide, and there'll need to be governmental involvement at some point.

Zavvi used to be great for inaccurate descriptions. I bought a game from them years ago because they promised all sorts of additional bonus shit, only for them to just send everyone the standard edition. When everyone complained, they changed the description for the game to remove all of their additional promises, and denied the page had ever been different, which is one of the stupidest, head-in-the-sand approaches anyone can take on the internet. Contacted Trading Standards who told me, "yes, we've heard all about this"  

I bought a laptop directly from Lenovo a few years back, who claimed it had been delivered to a local business for me to pick up. The business said they'd never received the parcel, so I thought I was going to end up in the nightmare scenario where the courier claims they fulfilled their end of the bargain and I have to make a claim against the receiving business. Asked Lenovo to give me the courier details, and spent a couple of weeks getting the "we are dealing with your query" messages. Got sick of that, so told them that I was going to cancel the payment if I didn't hear from an actual human being. No response to that one, so I started the PayPal cancellation procedure, expecting that would wake them up and I'd have a fight on my hands. Their window to respond eventually passed without them doing anything, so I got my money back. Weird.

[Jambomo]

Hermes has been great for me so far as it’s usually the same guy who delivers and he’s really good. 

Unfortunately he must have had a day off on Tuesday because the parcel that they claim to have posted through my letterbox has clearly been posted through someone else’s letterbox instead, because it wasn’t delivered to me. I’ve e-mailed Hermes and heard f**k-all so far.

[NotThePars]

Saw a Hermes lorry yesterday when driving back from Liverpool. Was gonna flick them the Vs for DAFC but shat it. Sorry, mate.

[D.A.F.C]

Hermes has been great for me so far as it’s usually the same guy who delivers and he’s really good. 
Unfortunately he must have had a day off on Tuesday because the parcel that they claim to have posted through my letterbox has clearly been posted through someone else’s letterbox instead, because it wasn’t delivered to me. I’ve e-mailed Hermes and heard f**k-all so far.

This is the problem, occasionally they just lose stuff. I think they hire folk to pick stuff up and deliver in their own motors etc.
Feedback is just full of people saying they had phantom deliveries and pictures of empty doorways.
Dont want to go as far as saying people are stealing stuff but it looks suspect.

99% of their deliveries were fine before their f**k up but its scary how similar all the problems are. If you want to lose stuff then keep using them.

[Jambomo]

37 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

This is the problem, occasionally they just lose stuff. I think they hire folk to pick stuff up and deliver in their own motors etc.
Feedback is just full of people saying they had phantom deliveries and pictures of empty doorways.
Dont want to go as far as saying people are stealing stuff but it looks suspect.

99% of their deliveries were fine before their f**k up but its scary how similar all the problems are. If you want to lose stuff then keep using them.

The problem is that when I’m ordering stuff, I don’t get a choice of how/who delivers it.
 

I usually don’t know who is delivering it until I get the order confirmation details. It’s not as thought I can choose to go with someone better.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Jambomo

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, Jambomo said:

Hermes has been great for me so far as it’s usually the same guy who delivers and he’s really good. 

Unfortunately he must have had a day off on Tuesday because the parcel that they claim to have posted through my letterbox has clearly been posted through someone else’s letterbox instead, because it wasn’t delivered to me. I’ve e-mailed Hermes and heard f**k-all so far.

What email address did you use? Any I've found bounce back with "this address is now closed, call our robots to hear a list of prerecorded messages". Asking for a mate who has to use Hermes at work (i.e. me).

The latest annoyance is that they'll accept a booking to pick up a heavy parcel, then send a bloke in an ancient hatchback who'll say, "ooh, that one's too heavy, I'm not taking it".

[invergowrie arab]

Got a text other day saying Hermes had delivered my parcel which caused me to look out window to see some glaikit dame delivering a parcel to my equally glaikit neighbour.

f**k knows why as address on parcel was correct and we live in a normal street with numbered houses with numbers on the doors and gates.

Edited September 5, 2020 by invergowrie arab

[Jambomo]

5 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

What email address did you use? Any I've found bounce back with "this address is now closed, call our robots to hear a list of prerecorded messages". Asking for a mate who has to use Hermes at work (i.e. me).

The latest annoyance is that they'll accept a booking to pick up a heavy parcel, then send a bloke in an ancient hatchback who'll say, "ooh, that one's too heavy, I'm not taking it".

It was their online enquiry service - really annoying and I had to choose the closest options to what I wanted but never mind.

[BFTD]

Also, most Hermes drivers deliver/pick up from other courier companies too. Last one I spoke to "works for" five of them.

So, you can swear off Hermes and find yourself dealing with the same people. I saw DPD getting praise earlier in the thread - you might want to look at the relationship between them and Hermes  

[Hedgecutter]

5 hours ago, D.A.F.C said:

"Its over there, see next time ask those people over there (points to till workers) im the manager"

This is it.  So many people just see the customer as being beyond their scope of work, despite them relying on the customer to fund their blinkered job.

Credit where it's due, I asked a shelf stacker in Tesco (Huntly) where something was yesterday and instead of simply saying aisle 8, she walked me half way across the store and pointed out exactly where it was for me.  

[Mark Connolly]

3 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

This is it.  So many people just see the customer as being beyond their scope of work, despite them relying on the customer to fund their blinkered job.

Credit where it's due, I asked a shelf stacker in Tesco (Huntly) where something was yesterday and instead of simply saying aisle 8, she walked me half way across the store and pointed out exactly where it was for me.  

I fucking hate that as well.

If only there was some sort of middle ground between being totally unhelpful and overly desperate to help.

[Hedgecutter]

24 minutes ago, Mark Connolly said:

I fucking hate that as well.

If only there was some sort of middle ground between being totally unhelpful and overly desperate to help.

Tricky to tell whether they're genuinely nice people or c***s instructed to do it by management in order to outdo ASDA across the road. 

Why Huntly merits two large  supermarkets is beyond me anyway.