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Sept 28, 2010 11:03:12 GMT
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This is a quite brilliant example of your point re. proof reading what you've written... Ha! Quite. I try never to use them whenever possible as the service is terrible and their attitude stinks You should try living where I live. Remember that episode of Dispatches earlier in the year that went undercover in two south London sorting offices, showing the staff playing football with parcels marked 'fragile', throwing reams of post into the bin, stealing money from envelopes etc? That was filmed in my local sorting office in Wandsworth/Tooting, as well as the nearby Brixton one. Fills me with confidence. Whenever I order stuff through the post, I get it delivered to my office in Kensington. Reduces the risk ever so slightly...
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m0rris
Part of things
Posts: 195
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Sept 28, 2010 11:04:38 GMT
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Speedy response from Kevin Leaper: This is a quite brilliant example of your point re. proof reading what you've written... True but no-one paid £4.40 for the priviledge of reading it. m0rris
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Sept 28, 2010 11:11:16 GMT
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Last Edit: Sept 28, 2010 11:12:47 GMT by Autofive
Someone just shot the elephant in the room.
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Sept 28, 2010 11:18:01 GMT
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Separate reply from Will Holman:
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Sept 28, 2010 11:19:19 GMT
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Sept 28, 2010 11:32:51 GMT
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Okay folks lets spin this into a positive then :
What can we best do to avoid loosing things in the post? Insurance? Different carriers? Specialists??
Maybe we can get some advice together and make a useful thread/wiki entry.
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Sept 28, 2010 11:46:18 GMT
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insure everything accurately describe and value your parcel photograph your parcel before it leaves use interparcel, or a freight company, avoid RM
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Someone just shot the elephant in the room.
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Raoul Duke
Part of things
Posts: 990
Club RR Member Number: 117
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Sept 28, 2010 11:48:51 GMT
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Could we turn the 'Pony Express' into an actual company, with RR members as shareholders? We could slap some official-looking decals on the side of our various sheds and shitters delivery vehicles and become national market leaders in automotive delivery. Best not work to any actual deadlines though
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...a redder shade of neck on a whiter shade of trash...
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Sept 28, 2010 12:58:28 GMT
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Could we turn the 'Pony Express' into an actual company, with RR members as shareholders? We could slap some official-looking decals on the side of our various sheds and shitters delivery vehicles and become national market leaders in automotive delivery. Best not work to any actual deadlines though Would need business insureance on the cars, but I like it.
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Sept 28, 2010 13:29:35 GMT
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Personally I would not send a £1200 item Royal Mail or Parcel Force. I would use a carrier who was correctly insured. Some carriers give you the option to take your package "open box" to their depot and they sign to accept the package and contents.
If something is very valuable then I'd not use an intermediate like Parcel2Go or MyHermes even though I have had a very good experiance of Parcel2Go sorting out a lost parcel for me. If it was high value I think I'd deal direct with the carrier and explain my expectations of value and recompense before hand.
Royal Mail manage to deliver the vast majority of items they carry. They lose some. Most people use uninsured services. This is where the problem comes in.
Even FedEx, DHL, UPS manage to lose or damage some stuff, the difference is that they do so for far less stuff and my experiance is that it is Far FAR easier to get insurance paid though a "proper" carrier than it is RM or Parcelforce.
Its nothing to do wtih who owns them, its down to how they are managed and the lack of competition in the market place. Private companies with virtual monopolies act the same.
I use them for a small minority of parcels, only the light weight an low value stuff which is so much cheaper to go RM that its worth doing.
Also small boxes and packages seem to survive better.
Also also also PACKAGE PROPERLY. I've had stuff sent to me off ebbay or whatever and you wonder how it arrived in one piece. Package with the expectation that at the very least it will be thrown into the vans...
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1937 Austin Street Rod - 1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1976 Rover V8 - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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bmw156
Part of things
Posts: 796
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Sept 28, 2010 13:44:51 GMT
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two subjects almost lol.
royal fail - IMO now adays when more automotive parts are being sent, i feel awarkward carring massive parcels into the postoffice and struggle to fit through their door lol. i always get things picked up from home or work. i have had some problems but not many, more people trying it on. if people come back to you saying the item is damaged, get a picture. i have had a few people saying its damaged, and i ask for a picture and never hear back. don't loose your temper with them, just describe the law and follow it through. p.s i have just send something to brazil with royal mail. lets hope it gets there!
and car magazines - they are IMO out dated, past it etc. i only buy them to look at or if i want some concrete information. the majority of stuff i read and learn from is on forums. i have no qualification in mechanics but i like to think i know alot of stuff, more then a friend who has a qualification. even though the forums are not perfect by a long way, i learn so much stuff, and mainly off RR because of the vast diversity. and best of all, its free.
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Sept 28, 2010 13:56:04 GMT
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Even FedEx, DHL, UPS manage to lose or damage some stuff, the difference is that they do so for far less stuff and my experiance is that it is Far FAR easier to get insurance paid though a "proper" carrier than it is RM or Parcelforce. On a bit of a tangent, years ago I used to work for a fulfilment house that did charity Christmas card orders and the like. We had two delivery deals, one with Royal Mail, one with a courier firm called Reality. Weirdly, Royal Mail were far better - the contract with Reality stipulated that they could guarantee delivery of 80% of the parcels we sent with them, which is absurd - it gave them a green light to not deliver a fifth of all the goods. We were always getting calls from customers saying that they'd seen the Reality van arrive, the driver throwing their parcel into their garden and driving off. They would also quite often leave parcels in people's dustbins, which would invariably not be noticed until they'd already gone off to become landfill.
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Dez
Club Retro Rides Member
And I won't sit down. And I won't shut up. And most of all I will not grow up.
Posts: 11,712
Club RR Member Number: 34
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Sept 28, 2010 14:02:45 GMT
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if i was spending 1200 quid on a fairly delicate, complex electrical item, i think id find the time to go and collect it in person rather than trusting it to any carrier service, no matter who they are. but maybe thats just me.
i don't use the royal mail any more, ever. even if its cheaper to send something with them i pay the extra and it goes with a courier. i even ask ebay sellers not to send stuff to me with them either, the last thing i got that was delivered by RM was send next day signed for and took 10 days to arrive..........
and i agree, magazines are a redundant format. they can never compete with the internet, especially when half of what they write about is talking about things that have happened on the internet, but months ago...... seems a bit pointless to me.
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Sept 28, 2010 14:09:09 GMT
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On the subject of magazines being redundant (sorry for hogging most of this thread with my annoying opinions), I'd have to disagree. I've always had a love for the written word, but I also love the aesthetic qualities of a well-constructed magazine - something you can hold and savour without staring at a screen. You can read them on a plane, on the bog, on the bus... while I get the majority of my car info online, I can't envisage a time when I won't be interested in perusing the racks in WHSmith and grabbing something genuinely colourful and interesting to absorb on the journey home.
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Sept 28, 2010 14:23:05 GMT
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I use Interparcel for all the stuff I send. They've always been great on price and super reliable, with both collection and delivery.
I always feel that if they, for example, can delivery a welder to Scotland for me for less than a tenner next day, then I should at least be able to package things in a manner that will be fitting for purpose.
I've used Interparcel to send a short motor to the States and the rest of it to Australia and they haven't let me down.
Obviously, if you're sending delicate, or high value items it makes sense to insure them properly, describe them accurately to the courier, package in a way that protects the item and it never hurts to take a picture of both the item and the whole thing packaged up.
Joe
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dw1603
Part of things
Posts: 591
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Sept 28, 2010 15:01:50 GMT
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Well, thats my mind made up. I agree with most of what dbizzle had to say about PPC, and I was seriously wondering whether or not to renew my subscription. Well just to be perverse, I will!
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Sept 28, 2010 15:11:39 GMT
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if I was spending 1200 quid on a fairly delicate, complex electrical item, I think id find the time to go and collect it in person rather than trusting it to any carrier service, no matter who they are. but maybe thats just me. Exactly. Unless it was coming from overseas, I'd be going to get it myself. I bought a sunroof for my van off ebay but as it was easily broken I simply couldn't entrust it to a courier, so went all the way down to Darford myself to collect it. It just wasn't worth the risk.
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1962 Datsun Bluebird Estate - 1971 Datsun 510 SSS - 1976 Datsun 710 SSS - 1981 Dodge van - 1985 Nissan Cherry Europe GTi - 1988 Nissan Prairie - 1990 Hyundai Pony Pickup - 1992 Mazda MX5
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Em
Part of things
Fuel Injected? Carb Infested!
Posts: 601
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Sept 28, 2010 16:12:35 GMT
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Sorry to harp on about magazines on a thread about couriers, but like dbizzle, I think there’s just something great about magazines. I absolutely love car mags, always have, always will. I used to buy them by the metric tonne but now limit myself to just CC and Retro Cars, when I can find it. I’m also a pedant for the written word (I’m a copywriter too, guess it goes with the job…) and I love a great photo too. Then there’s the smell of print, you don't get that from a 15” flat screen monitor! I think that there’s a perception that just because we’re into cars, we’re not that bothered about or good with the written word. A quick glance at Retro Rides and many other forums shows that on the whole, we’re actually a remarkably articulate, erudite, lucid and witty bunch. I remember one of ex-CC Editor Tim Baggaley’s editorials in which he reckoned there was an inherent ‘authority’ in the printed word that was lacking on the net. The thrust of his argument was that a magazine feature goes through layers of checking; editors, sub-editors, technical editors, proof readers before being printed where as anyone can post on a forum. However, as magazines are forced to cut corners with the results outlined above by dbizzle and forums like Retro Rides feature more and more informed and accurate info (aceadvice’s IVA/BIVA content, for example), the gap is narrowing by the minute. But even though you can take a laptop to the lav, I’ll still always love car mags! Sorry, I seem to have gone on there a bit….
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Sept 28, 2010 16:16:32 GMT
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I disagree that Magazines are a "redundant format". No forum is as well laid out as a good magazine, even my posts LOL. Also the immediate accessibility of the magazine, you pick it up, read it. Throw a few in a suitcase, lend them to your mates, read them on the loo, etc.
Same as books still sell for a lot of the same reasons.
People still buy CDs not downloads.
Magazines have challenges and need to change and they do change. For example look how few classifieds are in magazines now compared to 10 years ago. Fast moving news and classifieds are best suited to the internet.
Magazines fill another need.
You never get a 404 error from one for starters...
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1937 Austin Street Rod - 1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1976 Rover V8 - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Sept 28, 2010 16:52:09 GMT
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If i have to reccomend a courior. It would be UPS via interparcel.... cheap as chips and you can add as much insurance as you like. If you don't its automatically insured for £50
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