Many years back our firm made the decision to use parcelforce as the carrier of choice to return faulty parts we had exchanged, mainly because our returns could be taken to any post office in any town.
So there I am, trying to find a parking place somewhere near the Post Office. I drag a couple of 25 lb parcels out the back of the van, balance three small parcels on top and stagger round the town centre into the post office... Well I would stagger in, but when I open the door, the three people at the back of the queue fall out of the door backwards.
After queueing for about half an hour behind a string people, including mothers with a double buggy and three or four other bored kids who are busy rearranging a sad display of rather grubby looking greeting cards or experimenting with using a passport photo booth as a urinal, I get near enough to the front of the queue to see that only three of the nine counters are manned. When I finally get to a counter, I am asked to take the parcels to the other end of the office to be weighed, as they won't fit on the counter scales. I then have to navigate my way back through the growing mass of pushchairs and screaming kids in the queue.
Having weighed in the parcels, I return to the counter, and the clerk starts punching in the address details, only to find the system won't accept the postcodes on the pre-printed labels supplied by parcelforce.
After a bit of to-ing anf fro-ing, and calling their supervisor, they decide the postcode is correct after all (we have been using the same delivery address for at least the last 10 years)
The clerk completes the paperwork, and says 'that will be £xxx, please'
'No, these are contract parcels' I say.
'We don't accept contract parcels here, they have to go to a main post office'
'This is the main post office isnt it?'
'It used to be, but it's been re-designated a sub-post office now'
'But Parcelforce still collect from sub-post offices, dont they?
'Yes, they do, but we don't take contract parcels'
'Parcelforce say you do'
'No, we can't accept contract parcels, they have to go to either a main post office, or a Parcelforce depot'
So I end up dragging the whole lot back to my van just in time to be handed a parking ticket because I have been there for over an hour. I then drive the lot to the next town that does still have a main post office to start the process again. By the time I finally get the parcels booked in I have missed the latest collection time for next day delivery.
In the end it has cost me and my firm about half a day's work, a 20 mile drive and a parking ticket to send five parcels about forty miles by using a 'convenient' local post office.
