City Link return fees

[Stereo Steve]

We have just signed up with CL and have had a few returned, as you would expect. To my suprise, however, we are only charged the standard rate for a return. With Interlink, if a parcel was returned, we would be charged the parcel rate plus a £7 fee. So, a £5 item could cost us £12 to get back if it was undelivered,

Is this the way with City Link? It was one of my major gripes with Interlink. They would charge us a huge surcharge to bring an item back to a place they were already going to (to collect) and could pretty much know 100% that the first attempt would succeed.

[Froogle]

Yes this is standard with City Link. A big gripe of mine you'd think they'd return it for free. Perhaps then it would be in their interest to get it delivered.

We have just signed up with CL and have had a few returned, as you would expect. To my suprise, however, we are only charged the standard rate for a return. With Interlink, if a parcel was returned, we would be charged the parcel rate plus a £7 fee. So, a £5 item could cost us £12 to get back if it was undelivered,

Is this the way with City Link? It was one of my major gripes with Interlink. They would charge us a huge surcharge to bring an item back to a place they were already going to (to collect) and could pretty much know 100% that the first attempt would succeed.

[Jan]

City link return an item if it has been in the 'cage' for 5 days, it goes into the cage after two failed delivery attempts - you also have the option to pay an extra £1.85 (for us anyway) to have a third delivery attempt.

If they fail to try to deliver an item the next working day after they collect it from you, you can put in a claim for a refund of double the delivery cost. It takes ages to get your claim processed (and faxing it to them is the most efficient way to get your money back) but they always seem to get there in the end - we got £90 for one of ours - they don't often not deliver and are good at telling you what has happened so that you can at least let the customer know.

Another benefit of citylink is that you can use their online order tracking to provide order tracking for you customers and you can interface their labelling systems to Actinic quite easily (using plugins though).

Regards,

[Stereo Steve]

I think you negotiated a better 3rd attempt fee than us! Our rate is excellent though and they seem to get most items there OK. I also appreciate the door colour thing when carded as it not only proves they were there but probably discourages drivers from saying they carded when they haven't.

We haven't got around to the double money back yesterday although yesterday they didn't turn up to collect (driver got the sack!) and they are crediting us all delivery fees for the day and emailing our customers apologising! Thats good customer service as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if I could claim the double money back for all those cons?? Maybe why they quickly offered to credit them for us! Anyway, I'm happy.

I'm just suprised as I got used to paying £12 to get stuff back with Interlink.

[chris ashdown]

With CL you can also ask for mailtrack where they send you a email every time there is a problem with the delivery be they out or "whatever" (Whatever learnt that word from my 18 year old daughter)

This means you can then phone the customer up and sort it out before they return it

[george]

I actually like CityLink as they seem to be one of the better companies for recieving deliveries in the North East of Scotland, meaning that next day delivery normally arrives, err, the next day, not like a few on my black list.

I will never use a delivery company that treats this area like a bit of excrement on their shoe.

[Stereo Steve]

#6 Thats why we have rejected Business Post and Parcelforce. It makes no sense. Sure, it may cost a few pence more but why don't they average into their fees? I need a flat rate unless it has to go in a boat when I am happy to pay a bit more.

I found it pretty difficult to explain to customers north of the highland line that they would have to pay twice as much as somebody 50 miles to the south when the item is coming all the way from Devon!

[Stereo Steve]

#5 It's mainly our Ebay customers that give us delivery problems. I have found there is little mileage in trying to get the item to them if it fails first and second time. I'd rather just get it back, refund, block and move on.Website customers have a far higher success rate and always provide a phone number and up to date address. With Ebay, this is often not the case, leading to far more problems.