Disgusting Customer Service

While I was out a Yodel courier tried to deliver an internationl parcel to me. When they got no answer, instead of leaving a "we tried to deliver a package to you card"/text/email, they redirected it to be returned to sender. There was no option of having the parcel redelivered. I only found out that they'd done this, because I happened to be trying to check progress of the parcel which had been posted using eBay's Global Shipping Program. GSP is fine in US, but as soon as it arrives in destination country, it is very difficult to track, they often use multiple couriers and you aren't always sure who they are using. In this case I spent literally hours this morning trying to talk to people at Yodel, 13Ten (they were great, by the way), WNdirect, and Citipost.

Despite Googling contact details for Yodel, the only numbers I managed to get through on were a) automated, and about as much help as a chocolate teapot and, b) a customer call centre in South Africa. Because Yodel shot off the mark with such speed and sent the parcel back to sender, even with my correct tracking number and delivery address, they refused to either arrange re-delivery or try to stop the parcel for me, until I could contact the sender for the return address. Slightly difficult to do in a hurry when they are only contactable by eBay messages and on a different time zone. Entirely not the sender's problem, they have no control over the shipping once it leaves their hands. They kept saying it was a security issue. Despite the fact that they knew it was my parcel. This is beyond unhelpful. I have to say, it's taken me quite a while to calm down enough to write this review.

I also managed to contact them on Webchat and got the same unhelpful response. Here's a hint, Customer Service. You are supposed to be providing a service to your customers, not making it as hard as possible. Despite the fact that I am not the person who originally sent it, I expect a high level of service, since I paid for delivery of the parcel.

I am now going to land up having to pay twice for expensive shipping from the US due to no fault of my own or the senders.

Although call centres serve a purpose, it is pointless to locate them in countries so far away, and then giving them no contact numbers to even be able to call the appropriate people in the destination country.

If I could leave them no stars I would. I hasten to add that this review is for their customer service. I've had plenty of parcels delivered by Yodel before, and they have always left an attempted delivery note before. Perhaps this was a slip up, but whatever the case the whole customer service issue has left me feeling really angry.