Didn't leave a delivery note & denied all responsibility

I ordered a Christmas gift from Thorntons for a relative. Unfortunately Thorntons used Hermes as the courier. Using the online tracking information, it showed that a delivery attempt had been made but that the parcel was then simply "returned for sender". I checked the my relative (the recipient) and there had been no delivery note left. What kind of company doesn't bother to leave a delivery note if the recipient is not in?!

One sure way of knowing if a company is "dodgy" or receives loads of complaints is if the website makes it impossible to find contact details - i.e. you need to search on Google just to find an email address or phone number. This is what happened here. I told Hermes the situation and they said (1) they're just a subsidiary of another subsidiary of another stakeholder of a 3rd-party freelance bla bla bla so they're not responsible (2) it's the responsibility of Thorntons, the sender.

In this case it was clearly Hermes' fault, not Thorntons' fault! Thorntons did their duty of wrapping the product, addressing it correctly and sending it in the post. Once it's in the post with a correct address and postage paid, it's 100% the shipping company's fault! Any shipping company that denies this shouldn't be in business.

I told Thorntons about this response from Hermes and they sent it again, free of charge, with ParcelForce. It arrived less than 24 hours later. Hopefully that's one more large company that will no longer be using Hermes.