Courier and Delivery Services

It wasn’t a problem to move your post. Your issues are sadly common. Thank you for posting.

The reason we try to gather similar posts together is that it helps keep similar topics together to reduce the searching. So Thank you again for helping to add more information and your experiences as they are all important to the Community and CHOICE.

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I am on record for my historical opinion on Fastway now Aramex regarding how bad they have been as well as my suspicions why.

In recent weeks I relaxed my queries on shipping services used, and was surprised to receive two deliveries via Aramex. One from across Melbourne and the other from NE Victoria, and both were timely and fault free with good tracking. Could it be they are improving their game, at least in some areas or slowly or both, or have I just been lucky?

But not perfected yet since yesterday their driver left the 18kg box ‘by the front door’ as requested, making it impossible to open the front security door to retrieve it. In contrast the Auspost parcel drivers always leave it adjacent to the door so it is never in the way. The difference in maturity of service seems to matter, but there seems hope for Fastway/Aramex.

I’ll pull my head in now as I could be wrong and my recent experiences were aberrations.

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I wish I could agree with you. I have no reason yet to say that Fastway aka Amerex aka the devil (a rose by any other name …) has improved one iota. Sadly because of the more than one’s share of distrust in an integrity challenged world, buyer beware and a “no trust without verification “ culture should be the standard. Onus is in the lap of the consumer: determine who your courier is going to be when one is making a purchase online. Amazon.com.au has let its so called “good service” slip by not checking the credentials of some businesses they allow on their platform. Some of these businesses (a few on eBay) choose the cheapest and nastiest of couriers to do their deliveries. One such business is the aforementioned. I have attempted to prove this point by getting in touch with the dealer on eBay (for the item I ordered on Amazon.com.au) to determine /confirm which courier he uses; If the dealer is not forth coming in telling me which courier, he uses I will file a complaint with Amazon.com.au and complain about this dealer and give this dealer a 1/5 rating to warn other customers. We need more people to complain. In the end we get the service we deserve.

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I ordered a small parcel via Amazon from a supplier in the UK two weeks ago. Tracking seems to work as it flits across the world stopping to rest here and there. Some notification of delays, then it is reinvigorated and on the move again, I am not worried, there is no urgency. It was being handled by DHL in Oz.

Then out of nowhere I get two notifications this morning. I check with tracking to be told from various views that:

  • it was delivered today,
  • a courier attempted to deliver it at 7:57am today but we were not home (yes we were),
  • as at 7:58 am it is now available for collection as instructed (but I didn’t issue any such instruction).

So where is it? How do I find out? I checked with Amazon who provided a list of carriers. I called the number given for DHL to repeatedly get the message ‘you have dialled an invalid carrier code’; there is no discernable problem with my phone, both incoming and outgoing calls have been good this morning. The package has fallen into a black hole and the hole isn’t answering the phone. Is it time to complain to Amazon and try to get them to figure it out? Am I feeling strong?

On a whim I phoned the local post office: yes they have it, it arrived this morning. There is nothing wrong with that as I don’t expect couriers to treck out to my place for small parcels.

So how come neither DHL nor Amazon said it will go to the PO? How come none of the tracking hops said it was passed over to Oz post at some point? Why did I get spurious messages about a deliver that was never attempted and instructions that don’t exist? It would have been obvious to DHL as soon as it landed in Oz that they were going to send it to the PO. It would be so simple to get these things right and have a happy customer.

Yet another example of uncaring, take it or leave it, unprofessional conduct.

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This is an old thread but the topic is still current. I wish there was a way to compare courier services. I would love to be rid of Aramex but anecdotally it appears all courier companies in Australia are woeful.

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Welcome to the Community @grapeman

I share your ‘appreciation’ of Aramex as well as others. Unfortunately the recipients’ experience seems to be highly dependent on their location; some inner metro places get good service, some decent service; some very ordinary sort-of-service; and others virtually nothing that could be construed as any service.

‘Couriers’ who deliver are usually paid by the piece, so if you are the only delivery on a day and/or it is out of their way, they seem to wait a day or two hoping for another delivery to that area - a complaint to the deport usually helps. Not many years ago some ‘courier services’ did not even have contractors to cover some areas, yet they would accept shipments there, that would eventually get delivered.

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My company used to have a contract with Australia Post and the experience was generally quite good. Subsequently they cancelled our contract as we didn’t meet their volume requirements and we ended up with Fastway around 6-7 years ago.

First the good: our local courier drivers have been brilliant—conscientious, communicative and hard working. Though I suspect they earn little.

Most parcels do in fact reach the customer without issue, but a significant number are lost/damaged. You kind of have to expect that as a fact of life. But whenever loss occurs there is a total breakdown in communication. You cannot interact with anyone who would be able to physically locate your parcel. You have to use their ecosystem which sends you on a wild goose chase every time. All the while, your customer is asking “where are the items I paid you for in good faith?” If you are able to phone you get put through to a call centre, to some poor guy who sounds like he’s exhausted from all unrelenting abuse. He (always seems to be male) logs your query, and if you push the issue he might even escalate your query ie take the bold step of emailing the depot. He doesn’t have the phone number of the depot, and he cannot communicate with the depot. He can only convey that the issue is urgent and then tell you to expect a reply within two working days.

If you phone Aramex they will try to steer you to messaging them. There is a live chat pop-up on their website, WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger. Good luck. On my last attempt, I posted a query at 14:21 and got a response at 08:21 the following morning. Unfortunately I wasn’t still at my desk, so my query was closed and deemed ‘resolved’ at 08:39. If you write a negative comment on their Facebook page you might get a faster response.

When they lose/damage your parcel you get handed over to a company called FreightSafe to put in a claim. Eventually you might receive a fraction of the value of the item as a show of good will. You will receive the message “This payment has been made solely in the interest of maintaining a sound business relationship and is not to be regarded as an admission of liability on the part of Aramex”, even though Aramex have lost your parcel without any assistance from any other party.

There appears to be fundamental communication issue within the Aramex business model that is truely broken. Perhaps they are under resourced in order to save money, who knows. I have also experienced the issues getting worse, not improving.

Is competition resulting in a race to the bottom amongst courier companies, or is there not enough competition, or is there not enough regulation? I would love to know if there is an alternative to Aramex that is more reliable and at least provides some useful means of communication.

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