Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
I often order stuff from Amazon and have it delivered for free. Those packages always arrive earlier than expected and are delivered by Royal Mail.
Recently I ordered a Xmas present for my partner and wanted it delivered faster to make sure it would arrive on a certain day.

Unfortunately, Amazon used PARCELFORCE to deliver the parcel.

When it didn't arrive on the day it should have, I tracked it: 4 attempted deliveries, two of them on a day I was home all the time because a BT engineer was installing phone/broadband at my place.

Even if I hadn't been at home, they surely would have left a 'sorry we missed you' note. I'm pretty sure they never even made the delivery attempt.

I called PARCELFORCE to rearrange delivery and to complain. When I asked why they didn't leave a note when they attempted delivery, they replied that they probably ran out of the slips (Yes, they are THAT pathetic!!). To have the parcel redelivered on Saturday would cost me an additional £12!!! So now I have to pick it up at the local post office.

AVOID AT ALL COST!!

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
I am positively disgusted at the way I have been rudely neglected by a company who say they are 'excellence in both business and consumer delivery'.
Recently I ordered some very expensive good from China and was given a tracking code for my item. I have been tracking it (ea733454533cn/ EC716847186GB) for the last 8 days and was very excited to see it had arrived in the UK 3 days ago. As it was the weekend I didn't expect to see my parcel untill at least yesterday, but continued to track my parcel day and night just in case.
Today however was my next look, I typed in the tracking number and found out that my parcel had supposedly been delivered twice yesterday at 14.12 and again at 17.27. Both of which, if they have any truth did not occur as I have been working from home all week.
I then contacted PARCELFORCE on their automated system 08708 501150 to be greeted by a computer who supposedly could recognise my voice and would be able to help me. The realisation is 3 attempts at saying my tracking number and three repeats of " please could you repeat your tracking number". Ok these machines are rubbish we all know that anyway. I then was put through to an operator after about 7mins on hold! The lady couldn't have been more helpful, and in turn put me through to the Tonbridge depot before I could ask what the problem was. Another 10mins before there depot staff picked up the phone! I explained the situation that my parcel had supposedly been delivered but in actual fact it had not. He searched for my package and I was horrified to find out that it had been returned to sender because the delivery driver had put "house un-occupied" in the reason for non-delivery.
I would love to know how he/she had come to this conclusion especially considering I have not left the house for the last 3 days.
I thought ok this can be stopped and easily rectified with another call to the helpline, again I went through the laborious task of repeating my tracking code three times, again the computer said no! again I reached another call centre operative after waiting another 5-10 mins. I went through the story with him, he then told me to my disbelief that they cannot stop the re-delivery and that it was because of what the delivery driver had put on the non-delivery instructions which is why it is being sent back to sender. My packeg is now somewhere in transit between the Tonbridge depot and China. Your guess is as good as mine!

I went to their website to find out details of holding times and details of re-delivery. It states that "We will keep your parcel secure at a Post Office or at our depot for 16 days before returning it to sender." This I know now is completely false as it has been held for 2 days not 16.
I leave the country in just under 2 weeks and have no forwarding address as yet so now face a long wait to have my parcel redelivered which I will have to pay another £25 for delivery no- doubt. It is appalling at the way I have been treated and the service at which I have been given. Parcel force really are rubbish! I cant believe a company of their size cannot for definate tell me exactly where my parcel is or stop it from being sent back to China for no reason.

They are lucky to get a 1 for rating from me as they deserve ZERO. After all that is what i'm left with absolutely nothing!!!

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
I paid for a service much more than the value of the contents in the box just because I wanted it to get there approximately 10 days as I was told, the other quote was for £ 60+ for approx. 8 weeks. My sister had to go to the post office to chase it, after the 10 days lapsed and guessed what! The box was badly damaged, ie. torn, chocolates partly chewed by something. Parcelforce service is so disappointing that I will never use them again. I sent them a letter about my complaints and they sent me a reply which presumably their standard letter to fend off people. There is no customer care in that letter at all, as far as they are concerned they had our monies and don't care anymore. I really am very unhappy with Parcelforce, that anyone I see in the post office who has a parcel I will just tell of my experience and it is up to them really if they still want to use parcelforce!!!! Also, my advise to these people is to keep all the receipts and prepare a letter in advance to be sent to parcelforce within 30 days from sending it as they are expecting it anyway. Why do you supposed you have to sign this paper that you read everything relating to claiming damages, obviously they are expecting lots of claims!! Parcelforce you have no customer relation skills at all. I was willing to forego the delay in the parcel, but having it damaged as well was way too poor service, and you have no idea how to deal with people like us really...

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
The voice recognition system for requesting redelivery is completely useless. So I found a way to reach a live operator.

Call the general number 08708 501150. DO NOT PRESS ANY KEY when prompted.... after a minute, the call will automatically enter a queue for live operator. This queue took me 4 minutes......and then the operator arranged the redelivery for me within a minute !.

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
Have just sent this complaint to Parcel Force but expect no reply. Every time I have ever had (ie forced by supplying company) to use them, they have been absolutely useless. No wonder you cant speak to a human being on the phone.

Here's what I said:

" I waited in 13 hours yesterday for a delivery that never came.

No one contacted me although I was promised someone would ring me back after I telephoned the second time.

This morning because of your totally unprofessional non human contact telephone system I got via the sender the information that they had been told (by you) that someone had tried to deliver my parcel yesterday at 8.30pm - that is absolute crap.

I was still sitting a few feet from my front door as I had been since 7.00am

I have never EVER recieved a parcel via Parcel Force at the time specified.

Only 8 weeks ago I was expecting delivery of a modem which didn't turn up after 5 days. The company confirmed that they had dispatched it at the beginning of the week.

By sheer chance as I was going to my local sorting office for another reason I asked if for some reason they had it.

It turned out your so called delivery person had just dropped it off there without even bothering to come to my front door.

I had no card to say they had tried to deliver, and presumably it would have been returned if I hadn't by co-incidence been at the sorting office. In the meantime I ran up £10 worth of dial up calls because I didn't have the modem to go with my new account.

Two years before that I waited in 2.5 days - YES THAT IS TWO AND A HALF DAYS - waiting for another delivery.

No wonder you have a phone system that stops anyone from talking to you.

What a totally unprofessional rip off service.

And please don't blame the front line staff. Situations like this only happen when there is crap management. The culture you have created has led to this type of managment led non acceptable level of service. "

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
Parcelforce offer poor service, and absolutely no customer service whatsoever.

I am currently awaiting delivery of a parcel, which I had asked them to delivery to my local post office earlier in the week.

On arriving at the post office to pick up the item as arranged there was no item to collect. I later contacted the depot who informed me that the item was to large too deliver to the post office (don't know why they couldn't have told me this in the first place) but they would deliver to my home address on Saturday morning between 08:00 and 12:00.

It is now 12:30 on Saturday morning, my parcel has not been delivered, I have spent 1hr and 30 minutes on their automated phone system, getting cut off approximately every 5 minutes, and now their phone system has been switched off - they shut 12:30. Brilliant!

Avoid at all costs.

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
And now for something completely different.

A few months ago I pre-ordered something from Hong-Kong, I asked them to ship it as fast as possible, since the date of release would be one week before my son’s birthday. The total cost would be around $130 of which about $50 was shipping. The shipping date came and I tracked it online until it came to the UK customs, where they held it for no apparent reason and released it with a ridiculous amount of charges.

After the horror stories I’d heard about Parcelforce, I was getting quite anxious when my package landed in the Mitcham Depot and was being held until I paid for it. Instead of the promised 3 days, it had now been 6 days –all miniscule compared to most people, I realize.

I phoned the helpline, which I’ll admit is designed to drive people mad. Then I located the depot my parcel was at, and phoned them. I had to wait 20 odd minutes to get someone on the line. That’s alright, but

(!) I would strongly suggest you adjust the tape you play, since it has about 4 seconds of music and then just clicking, loops and a very insincere female voice lisping in your ear, trying to sell you services, which is as lude as it sounds.

I got a man on the phone. Only living in the UK for two years myself I don’t sneer at people who haven’t mastered the English language completely, but I think that in order to serve people at a customer’s service, it should be compulsory. He was uninterested and rude, but I kept pushing.

I was put on hold for a moment and got someone else on the phone.

Now *this* man deserves a medal.

To start with, he was friendly, patient and well-mannered,

I explained to him what had happened and he double-checked it for me. I was indeed being charged and I had to wait for a letter to arrive to tell me that, which would take another week or so.

Being pregnant makes me a little over-emotional, so I started crying. Apologizing, I explained this and asked him to ignore it and tell me the other options, such as appealing the charges. He explained that would take even longer and I’d have to pay the charges of sending the parcel back and forth. That didn’t help me at all, of course.

Then he asked me to hold and was gone for some time. When he returned he’d found my package and was checking it, because he thought it was a ridiculous situation. We calculated over the phone –with me still crying- what I’d paid, what was tax and how much they had over-charged. I decided to appeal; it was the principle of the matter after all.

He agreed completely, but asked about my son’s birthday. I said I would explain it to him and that it would be late anyway, whether my son understood that or not.

After some silence he said amiably that it just wasn’t my day today, but that he would help me, without letters, numbers and waiting time. If I could pay the costs of the customs retrieval right now (almost nothing), he would make sure it was delivered first thing in the morning the next day. He had confirmed the truth of my story himself, so if I held on to the packaging I could appeal after I received it.

I took out my creditcard and paid directly.
He gave me some phone-numbers for him and the UK customs directly so I could reach them myself if I wished and told me I had a case and no chance of loosing this. He then wished me good luck with the birthday party, the pregnancy and the rest of my day.

The next morning, my package arrived. Long story short, I phoned the UK customs and explained their error to them. They refunded it.

So yes: something completely different. I personally received first class service from Parcelforce, and even though I didn’t know this man’s name, again I would like to thank him very much for his help!

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
Did you know there was a difference in Delivery Times for these services? I posted a parcel to Japan a week ago at my local Post Office - asking for it to go by Air. I was offered Insurance or not. As the value was low I selected no insurance.

WELL this simple step also meant I chose to go from 7-9 days delivery time to 46-51 days delivery time as this is ALSO the difference between Standard and Economy.

I went back on Saturday to the Post Office and the Postmaster knew nothing of this - yes it is in the Booklet and on the Web but IT IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND ON THE COMPUTER BEHIND THE COUNTER.

So I have written to Parcelforce below - lets see what happens next.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dear Sirs,

I am in desparate need of your help. We sent the above parcel to Japan - our postmaster said it would go by air. I have been tracking it and it is still in the UK.

It was sent "International Economy" the postmaster the only difference being compensation between that and "Standard". HOWEVER, if I look at your website there ios also a difference in delivery time - there is no indication on the Postmasters screen in the Post Office that there is a significant difference in delivery time.

I would like to pay the difference and have this parcel "upgraded" to "International Standard".

PLEASE PLEASE help me. My wife is in Japan and this parcel contains some ver very important gifts for family and friends there.

Regards

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
idiots.

parcel farce exist, *in spite* of what they do, not *because of it*!

i was waiting for a flat screen to turn up from amazon.

...and waiting...

...and waiting...

soo, i rang them. "problem with the delivery address", came the reply...

no card, no phone call, nothing.

it's MY responsibility to ring THEM.

anyway, i did and arranged for a re delivery, the next day.

next day comes, zippo, zilch, nada.

soo, i ring AGAIN, spending some 10 mins negotiating their LAZY 'automated answering system' (which ALWAYS suck)...

"sorry, sir, we seem to have nothing on the system"....

ARG...

DON'T USE PARCEL FARCE, they suck, big time.

bollos

Note that this review is more than 6 months old and the company's procedures may have changed considerably since this review was written.
Seems to be the common issue here - parcel returned to sender after 2 apparent "delivery attempts", both times with NO CARD through the door at all.
A parcel from Japan, a) valuable, b) a birthday present! It's been to the UK, back to Japan and is now back in the UK again at the sender's expense, exactly a month after my birthday.

I only found out that I had a tracking number when it was too late. Couldn't believe it when I plugged the number in and saw the 2 fictitious delivery attempts.

The depot locator link on the post office website and parcelforce website shows the Charlton number but is today mysteriously out of order. Here is the number

0870-084-4501

You can get through to a human being on this number at least..their so-called national "help"line is just a machine.

And this is our national parcel carrier. God help us.

>>UPDATE 3/14/06: Good news -Thought I should let everyone know that Parcelforce have taken the initiative to contact me based on this review, and have actually offered to reimburse me for the duplicated postage costs from Japan. Very unexpected and pleasant surprise.