Delivery issues - Does anyone have similar problems?

[Mendi Warrior]

Next steps in the saga of my latest order ... My Traitor legions book and Warmaster Iconoclast initially ordered mid-November are lost in the Warp. And their replacement is headed the same direction ...

 

The journey starts at Wayland Games (I know some are unhappy with them, so far I never had reasons to be unhappy, I hope it won't change) where I order 99% of all of my GW-related stuff.

 

Then Hermes picks up the package, transfers it to B2C Europe in Antwerpen, Belgium, which in turn transfers it to Bpost for deliveries in Belgium where I live.

 

Up until my latest order, and that has been the case for several years, the package would arrive safely home.

 

It seems that a change occured in their process and now the only label appearing on the package is one from B2C Europe, which indicates my name and postal area with code and name, but not my home adress. Hence Bpost can't deliver and sends the package back to B2C where it is likely left to rot on a pile of undelivered packages until a human operator has time to have a look ...

 

Wayland confirmed to me that they were using the adress they have in their system, which is correct and complete, so the problem seems to arise at a later stage, either at Hermes or at B2C Europe.

 

Now, I am awaiting Wayland's reply ...

[Redcomet]

The trouble is Hermes. They are widely known as one of the worst mail carriers in existence

[Mendi Warrior]

I don't know for how long Wayland has been using them but up until my latest order I never experienced problems with their deliveries.

 

Hermes, for the original package, indicated my complete and correct delivery adress on their tracking page, so they either messed up when transferring the info to B2C or B2C messed up after receiving it. I can't understand what went wrong.

 

Anyway, it appears reviews for B2C Europe have quite a few other people experiencing similar issues with their delivery adresses.

[Halandaar]

Oh man, product from Wayland with delivery by Hermes?! No thank you, not even for free!

 

My experience with Hermes is that they will make the absolute minimum amount of effort and instantly pass the buck when things go wrong, so I wouldn't trust them to have gotten it to the next carrier correctly just because they say they have.

[pawl]

Even if the problem lies with B2C it's probably still Hermes' fault

[Mendi Warrior]

I guess the absolute minimum effort is the rule with so many companies nowadays ... and I don't trust companies on their words alone.

 

Anyway, I also contacted B2C Europe which basically answered to say "ask the shop" and "due to privacy laws we can't say more" ... and ended with "hope that you will receive the parcel soon!" ... which is unlikely thanks to their label not having the complete adress  

 

Wayland promised they will sort it out, and, of course, Hermes confirmed to them they used the correct adress (which seems contradicted by the tracking info) ...

 

Fingers crossed. I'll see what happens.

[Joe]

Considering we've not long seen the video of Hermes pitching packages at walls in the warehouse, I'm surprised some companies are still choosing to do business with them. 

[Trokair]

Long term contracts tying them in?

 

Mendi Warrior, I hope it turns up present and correct soon.

 

Random thought, you said you have had deliveries in the past with no problems, where they all pre Brexit? I don’t know, but I can picture it being something as stupid as difference in privacy laws between EU and now non EU country causing the computerized system to not transfer a personal address (as opposed to a business address) correctly or some such nonsense.

[Joe]

Long term contracts tying them in?

 

It's possible. When I was dealing with couriers on a daily basis we didn't see any sort of contractual agreement that tied us to them specifically (this was largely with DPD and UPS, mind you), but it's possible that Hermes operate differently.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Joe

[Mendi Warrior]

No idea if they have long term contracts.

 

Most were pre-Brexit, then a couple post-Brexit, actually 8 since the UK left the EU, of which 7 without any issues (I just checked the dates). This said, this is the first since July 2021 and the changes for VAT exemption in the EU. I don't remember if Hermes did the previous ones or not. You could be right about the transfer of a personal adress. But I suspect we would have everyone impacted.

 

I didn't had any issue with two purchases I made in August and October though, but they were delivered by UPS and DHL (UPS messed up the import VAT calculations though, 21% instead of 6% ... it took 4.5 months for them to acknowledge the mistake and agree to correct it, which should happen in January as they seem to be behind by 2 months). Nothing wargames related.

[Axineton]

Also add covid into the mix which i suppose isn’t helping

[Halandaar]

Also add covid into the mix which i suppose isn’t helping

 

Although it's probably not responsible for changing the address on the label unless we've discovered an even more insufferable variant 

[gorg_graggel]

Pre-brexit I was using Wayland quite frequently. Sometimes multiple times per month and rarely ran into any issues. If I did, things were usually quickly and amicably resolved. I kept hearing a lot about how Wayland is bad, but I never experienced it myself.

 

Post-Brexit I have ordered just 3 times from them. Not because anything went wrong, but mostly because the savings compared to ordering from German shops weren't that great anymore (and because my backlog is huge, so I'm generally ordering less than usual :p ). All 3 orders have been sent via Hermes and everything arrived in good condition. (The last one was an order from November 6th.) Took longer than before, but that seems to be due to the additional administrative load for shipping from out of the EU. Still within reasonable time-frames though.

In fact it seems to be the only UK shop that has managed to handle the transition without causing me the headache of having to go to the customs office to pick things up and/or having to overpay due to faulty declarations and then having to deal with whoever shipped it to get reimbursed. Also the shipping rates for tracked delivery are weirdly lower than before even (free untracked for orders over £60 doesn't exist anymore post-brexit for international).

 

I was a little weary when I learned they're now using Hermes due to them not having a good track record around here either. But so far my experience has been good, so I had the impression Hermes might have got turned around at some point that I must have missed as I was avoiding them if possible.

 

I assume the combination of Covid, Brexit, Christmas and general worldwide shipping issues of various kinds might have had an impact on your orders in addition to some potential technical problem occuring as you have deduced yourself from the information you have.

Edited December 31, 2021 by gorg_graggel

[Gederas]

Then Hermes picks up the package

This is the problem right here. I've heard nothing but horror stories about Hermes. Here's some of the possibilities of where your package is, based on what I've heard from people who've had to deal with Hermes:

1. Sitting on the side of a road somewhere, thrown off the truck
2. In the trash
3. Delivered to the wrong address (and either kept by the address they delivered to, or sent back and then thrown out)
4. Stolen by the delivery driver
5. Still with Hermes, and sitting there until they deign to actually send it

Yes, I've heard of all of these happening.

[Rik Lightstar]

Or Hermes decide its undeliverable and auction it off after 6 weeks.

 

Check out BBC Rogue Traders: Hermes episode

 

Rik

[Oxydo]

Well, Hermes is the god of thieves.

 

Or Hermes decide its undeliverable and auction it off after 6 weeks.

 

Check out BBC Rogue Traders: Hermes episode

 

Rik

If it's the episode I saw about them a while back I second watching it, it's interesting and good in a terrifying way.

[Mendi Warrior]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

 

It seems the episode is unavailable on the BBC website. Quite curious to see it. I'll check youtube in a moment.

 

I know of the horror stories. I have heard quite a few and been through a couple as well over the years. I have been ordering online and/or from abroad for about 30 years now, from many different places on Terra, using quite a few of the transport companies in existence, from wargames stuff, books, ... to artworks and various collectibles. Most of the time everything went fine but sometimes it turns out to be a nightmare. So far, I have always either received a replacement, been reimbursed or been compensated. The worst is when the item is unique and can't be replaced.

 

Amongst the scary ones are the shipper in Australia deciding to simply bubblewrap a 180x120cm painting to ship to Belgium (it didn't really withstand the journey well), the two packages from the same guy leaving the US simultaneously with one arriving safely and the other having its tracking diverge early and end up in Mumbay where it disappeared, the one package held in customs for more than 9 months, ...

 

For this particular one, Wayland promised me they will sort it out.

 

@ gorg_graggel can you check your tracking info and let me know in pm if B2C Europe was involved in the transport chain? If they were not, the problem probably lies with them (they seem to replace the original shipping label with theirs).

[Kenzaburo]

Wait a minute, so Hermes sucks everywhere? Because they are a nightmare in Germany. There's been a few videos of their delivery guys trying to throw parcels onto balconies to get them delivered. My own local delivery guy is a nightmare as well: he'll ring the door bell, say he has a delivery, as soon as I open the door of the apartment building with the buzzer, he'll throw it in and run away as fast as possible. And once I get down into the hall where he has left it, it becomes obvious why. The parcel looks like it has been sat on. Numerous times. From all sides. 

 

But anyways, there have been problems with all kinds of delivery services in the past few months. I have issues with several Kickstarter deliveries, stuff from Amazon and stuff from GW. It's all different logistics enterprises and all have trouble providing proper tracking or delivering a parcel at all. So far, most of my ordered stuff has turned up, sooner or later (mostly later), but at least in one case an order got lost completely. :/

 

So hang in there, frater, maybe there's still a chance it will turn up!

[Monstra Sumus]

Hermes have always been notoriously bad. They straight up stole from me at one point and I pursued it through small claims court. 

 

I used to use Wayland for a long time before I had a very negative interaction with them and switched to Element Games whom I have never had any issues with and they have been very clear in their communications. 

 

If "Kyle" was a company, it'd be Hermes. 

Edited January 3, 2022 by NomadPainting

[gorg_graggel]

@ gorg_graggel can you check your tracking info and let me know in pm if B2C Europe was involved in the transport chain? If they were not, the problem probably lies with them (they seem to replace the original shipping label with theirs).

It looks like they did indeed use B2CE. In fact it was handed over to them after it arrived at the "national sorting hub" and previously "entering the Hermes network".

 

This is for my latest (November 6th order, that got shipped on November 15th, due to including pre-order items, and arriving on the 24th).

 

The order before that was in April and didn't mention B2CE.

 

 

As for the bad reputation of Hermes, I can only say as much as my wife and I have been ordering A LOT of stuff the last two years. Things got delivered via various services and I can't really say that anyone was particularly good or bad purely by looking at the name of the service. It always seems to be on individual drivers and how seriously they take their jobs.

 

The delivery industry notoriously underpays their workforce and in case of the drivers they are responsible for any crap that might happen (like parking tickets, for example, or other similar things that could be less problematic if the companies would put in the effort to get their drivers recognized as delivery drivers even if they have to use their own private cars). So, to a degree I can understand that some people can deal with that better or for longer than others, but at some point a breaking point is reached and people then just dgaf anymore. It is crappy from the perspective of the recipients, but it is what it is... Some time ago I have started to become one of those people I used to hate. Complainers. I complain to the company about bad behaviour of their drivers regularly. And sometimes it does indeed help after enough complaints have been filed (by myself and/or others). As I said, I understand getting frustrated with one's job/employer, but one doesn't fight that battle on the customer's back. And if one is over their job, they should look for something else (or made to).

Edited January 4, 2022 by gorg_graggel

[Mendi Warrior]

Thanks for the info gorg_graggel. So it seems B2CE don't always mess up the deliveries. As an aside, I'm completely agreeing with your point on the delivery industry.

 

I eventually received my order, or more precisely its second replacement (both original and first replacement still seem to be somewhere in the warp and not back to Wayland yet). I required Wayland to send it via another carrier, which, after a short exchange of emails, they agreed to do at no extra cost to me. They sent it via DPD and it was promptly delivered.

 

I remain curious about the true reasons why the original order and its first replacement were not delivered but I don't think I'll ever know. Maybe it is a seasonal effect, holiday season, temporary workers and some rogue guys deciding that being underpaid means they deserve to loot some of the shipments to compensate. If it were a structural problem, I guess we would be hearing lots more complaints.

[gorg_graggel]

Covid and Brexit are the main reasons for stuff from the UK I presume. The services probably do have contingencies for all sorts of crap that might happen, but can't forsee or react to everything as it comes up. So when things pile up issues (visible to the customer) arise.

 

For my last 'season' of my White Dwarf sub I had to mail to GW every damn month to get a replacement, sometimes twice. Combined with their then slow reaction times of up to 2 weeks due to still restructuring for Covid and Brexit measures, it felt like I was in contact with them every week. Whoever they were using for that back then, the first attempt predictably failed, always. They then always used UPS for the replacements and even that failed a few times and they had to send it out a second time. And because there is a period you have to wait to ask for a replacement to make sure it is not just very late, the subscriber version with the different cover was already sold out by the time they got back to me. Once they even thought the regular one was out too, but support managed to source one anyway from somewhere. It also coincided with some pre-Covid/Brexit issues from Nov 2019 and due to it taking so long to get fixed it initially looked like something else was the problem. The 'lost' issues also never arrived at some later time, so they were indeed gone . I admit though that I sometimes lost track of what I had and hadn't received and accidently asked for a replacement of an issue I already got. :P More then once actually. They never questioned me and I technically could have just gotten a 'shadow subscription' to share with somebody else. (I didn't, because I'm not an ass :D)

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't make things more difficult for your businesses by leaving a shared market during a pandemic for dumb reasons. (And that's as political as I'll get. ;) )

[Cactus]

COVID-19 related disruption has continued, and countries continue to be at various stages of normality. These events are

outside of their control. However, the negative impact on Games Workshop’s normal operational processes has reduced

in the period reported. Our main facilities are broadly back to normal allowing us to focus on the completion of some

major projects. For example, staff from our support functions have been able to fly to Memphis to help the local team get

our warehouse project fully operational. We are hopeful we can clear back orders and reduce delivery times in the next

month or so.

Warehouses - North America

Logistics projects have progressed, albeit more slowly than planned, partly due to COVID-19 restrictions preventing the

UK project team from entering the US. Given these challenges, the progress that has been made has been remarkable.

The new system and technology in our Memphis facility is now operational, significantly increasing the number of orders

we can pick and pack. The £5 million of back orders at the end of November 2021 will be cleared by early January, hurray!

We now have a team of 71, up 7 in the period. To ensure we realise the benefits of this investment, the short term goal is

to maintain a full team. The job market in Memphis has been more fluid than historical trends resulting in some shortages

in the period reported.

From the half-yearly investor report. Hopefully you all get your backlog of White Dwarf etc. soon.