How the French Navy Sank the Maginot Line

[Gondor]

I am still writing this entry to this Group Build as the model I was hoping to build for it will not be delivered until Tuesday, at the earliest. It's the usual suspects as couriers, EVERI, who lose parcels and "run out of time" for deliveries while it is still late afternoon. So anyway, a written entry for me this year with only the basic idea behind it in my head before the start of the build.

[NARSES2]

My experience with them has led to me trying to avoid retailers who use EVRI, although they will now deliver to my local PO, but I'd rather pay a little extra and have Royal Mail deliver it.

[Gondor]

Funny how a simple idea can grow arms and legs. I am finding that I am haveing to dive deeper and deeper into research of what happened at the start of WW2

[Charlie_c67]

My experience with them has led to me trying to avoid retailers who use EVRI, although they will now deliver to my local PO, but I'd rather pay a little extra and have Royal Mail deliver it.

Mind you, RM have their moments. Allegedly they "delivered" a book to my house, proudly showing the picture on their website when I did the usual tracking stuff. Problem is, the white UPVC door that's clearly in it is neither the brown outer or green inner of my house! 

[Gondor]

I agree that their sense of direction can be off. The sense of timing can be off too. I have a parcel on its way to me, last seen at the Jubilee Sorting Depot, not far from Heathrow on Friday. The app was saying they intended to deliver it yesterday  , yeah right  No help that today the app is down for upgrades, so I shall be watching the app quite often tomorrow when at work.

[PR19_Kit]

RM took over three WEEKS to send a small First Class parcel from the Wooksta in the Newcastle area to me in Kettering! 

I could have walked that trip in that time!

[Rheged]

Once I escaped from teaching, I ran a customer service department for a book  company sending out between 2500 and 3000 parcels a week by several carriers.  All of them could make crashing errors, but as a general rule, Royal Mail and UPS were most reliable for accurate UNDAMAGED deliveries.  ANC (UK) was a close runner up, but deteriorated somewhat after being taken over by Fedex.,  Hermes, later known as Evri, were not my company's preferred option.

Royal Mail and UPS almost always use their own staff and vehicles, whereas the others use sub-contractors more often.

The worst problem I had was sorting out a Fedex delivery that was addressed to a bookshop on Guernsey.    It had been sent to the Fedex contractor in Stromness, Orkney Islands.  Among the Orkney Islands are Rousay, Sanday, Ronaldsay,  Whalsay etc and Jenny at  Fedex central office and I eventually decided that someone had assumed that GuernsAy was another of this set.

Apart from the outlying islands, Scottish highlands  and deepest Wales  UPS usually managed next day delivery, two to three days for Post, three  days for ANC (UK) and Fedex  and "eventually" for Hermes.    Hermes even managed to run a forklift truck over  a couple of large parcels at one of their depots.

I have no doubt that our  Australia Post Gentleman can add to these comments from personal experience!