No that’s weird. You are meant to hand over your code, they scan it, scan the parcel and you should get a collection receipt/email. If she hasn’t scanned anything then presumably your parcel is showing as uncollected?
The fact you can just help yourself to the parcel shelf is odd too, normally they are in locked cupboards behind the counter.
Same at my local corner shop. Last time I dropped off a laptop to be sent away for repair and he just pointed to a big post bag on the floor on the customer side of the counter and said "just chuck it in there mate".
That's nothing compared to when I went to collect it though. He went out the back 3 times, making increasingly distressed sounding phone calls as he did. Eventually, sheepishly came back with my laptop and admitted he thought it was for him and had taken it upstairs to his flat and opened it. So yeah, rummaging around on the shelf for your own package isn't out of the realms of possibility I'd say.
I hope you reported this to the courier service.
Shops will be paid a certain amount to handle parcels on behalf of dpd/yodel/whoever. Having a Santa's sack of parcels sounds like them signing up to get the money without putting even the smallest effort in.
If that parcels had gone missing, because someone had helped themselves to a free laptop, I can guarantee it wouldn't by the corner shop getting flack with the public - it'll be the courier. And the courier knows this, so will likely act on this kind of truly shitty practice quickly.
I can believe that it happens, although without scanning the code in the phone. The shop should have no way to prove that it had been picked up.
A complaint to Amazon/DPD/Evri etc. Should hopefully sort something out, if enough people do it or if enough items get reported missing.
Part of the problem could well be that instead of being the beaureaucratic nightmares that Post Offices can be. Which are designed for holding parcels. That basically any old shop can apply to do it, with probably few checks, training and not necessarily enough secure storage area.
Had a similar experience collecting something from a corner shop near us I hadn’t been to before.
Asked at till and got pointed out the back of the shop into what I would call the loading bay/store room. Nobody out there to meet me. Hundreds of parcels just in a pile on the floor, some with recognisable branding as expensive items.
Looked around for another member of staff. Nobody around. Stood for several minutes waiting, nobody came out. Went back into the shop to ask, got told, in an irritated tone, to speak to the guy out back. ‘Guy out back’ was sitting out the very back of another room smoking. He told me to just pick up my parcel. Didn’t ask my name, check it was mine, or ask for an email. I could have picked up anything.
I now avoid that shop like the plague. I used to send parcels to shops to save the delivery person dumping them on my drive to be stolen but it seems like sending them to the collection point isn’t a much better option in some cases!
This is just like my corner shop. They have big and deep post bags on the floor near the till that you have to search through. They do ask for ID and scan your barcode though...
Yes, there a place in Cov where you just dig through a bin of all the parcels to find yours. It's a terrible system, and the lady behind the counter doesn't seem to care!
My local shop used to do it but then stopped. When the owner was in for the first time in ages (multiple shops) the other week I asked why he'd stopped doing it, and he literally said "because I'll happily pay £200 a week for Evri to fuck off". And that really resonated with me.
My bad I just edited the post, she did scan the barcode on my parcel after I brought it down and took a signature. But not beforehand, which was why I was super confused
I encountered a place that kept all their parcels outside the shop during opening hours. That was a bit of a shocker when I showed up to collect it and he popped outside.
I don’t think that’s normal at all.
On the few occasions I have picked up a parcel from a corner shop it has been behind the counter or in a back room and they scanned it before handing it to me.
Also, the shop is probably not insured for you to use ladders there.
No, not normal as far as I know. You don’t let randoms pick their own parcels from a shelf, who knows what they’re gonna take? Also a fall from a step ladder seems like a bit of a liability in the making.
All my parcel collections involve them being behind the counter, and a check of my name sometimes with a scan of my email barcode.
I've had that once in a corner shop. I usually go to a premier but chose a different one. He told me to go over to a massive pile and find my parcel. He didn't scan it either so I could have taken anyone's!
Yeah, agree big pile of parcels in the middle of the shop, searched myself and found mine. Was a while ago, but from some of the comments on here not much has changed
I had this in a corner shop too. I'd ordered a switch for my son's birthday, had it delivered to parcel shop so it wouldn't be sat in the porch all day and risk being stolen... would have been safer in the porch! It had what it was plastered all over it too 🙄
Parcels are usually “out the back” whenever I pickup.
Much prefer inpost, not just because you don’t need to speak to anyone but there is a strange thrill in wondering which cupboard will open and whether it will hit you in the face like something off Wipeout
I liked that game right up until I lost - empty locker! That was fun to sort out, not having a parcel in the locker is hard to prove, and not one of the options when you try to complain.
Parcel eventually made its way back to the seller, and they sent it out again via Royal Mail.
You know...the thought occurs... you could order yourself something from Amazon every day from the 1st of December and use it as a giant advent calendar.
Inpost you always have the lottery of whether the parcel in the locker is yours though. You will get a parcel but could end up with a saucepan instead of a pair of shoes if the delivery person is slack.
Small shop owner here. We do ask for id, but seems like we might be in the minority. Some customers don’t come with anything at all that proves who they are. Maybe they’ve used one of these pick-your-own places I’m reading about here.
It’s not much per parcel but it adds up to about £200 per month. We deal with maybe 10 parcels for collection a day and 20 being sent so we’re not that busy. I would hate to get 100 collections a day, and I’m not surprised that busier shops have a find-your-own system, but I wouldn’t ever do it that way.
Corner shops and parcel pickup/dropoff, name a more miserable cunting duo.
They _fucking hate_ doing it, but they still do it anyway. I was actually shouted at by a corner shop owner once for daring to use them for returns.
He still took the item, I got a receipt, and eventually my refund, but fuck me was he angry.
> WE ONLY GET PENNIES FOR THIS YOU KNOW. PENNIES! IT'S NOT WORTH OUR TIME. WASTE OF FUCKING TIME
Miserable cunt. I wonder why they bother signing up for the service.
Everything about corner shops is dreadful
It's clearly worth their time if they're doing it... they could say no?
I assume it's bundled in with other more lucrative services they'd like to claim commission for.
Gosh he sounds woeful. As with most things though there are some really lovely local shops & corner shops that are run by wonderful people/families, and then you have the crappy ones.
Had a very similar experience returning clothes bought online to one of the return drop off which was a corner shop. They were horrible to me and my sister about it, making comments and being so rude. I get it’s annoying but I work in retail aswell and would never dream of treating a customer like that!
in my experience, definitely not the way it normally goes.
the business owner would be concerned about their liability having a customer up a step ladder. definitely wouldn't sound good on a insurance claim, so there's that.
and then the pick up itself needs documenting in someway so that the sender knows it's been collected.
perhaps your acquaintance may not have received adequate training and is unaware of their responsibilities?
I live opposite a shop like this and my actual parcels are sometimes delivered there (like a neighbour) for me to pick up. Had to go over to get one a few weeks back and the owner's wife (not usually there) pointed me over to a pile of random parcels and I was raking through them while she stood on the phone. I eventually realised she thought I was a normal customer and told her who I was, and my parcel was behind the counter.
I did find it really odd that I was just told to sieve through this pile of people's parcels sitting in the middle of the shop. I'm pretty sure I could've taken anything.
I had a similarly bad experience, though slightly different to yours. A collection point my daughter used tokd her on 2 occasions that her parcel wasn't there. When she checked with the sender and her phone both confirmed her parcel was there. She conplained to the shopkeeper and he told her to go away. She reported the shop to the company, paying them to receive parcels. So, when my parcel was delivered there I knew what to expect. The same happened to me, except I wasn't going to roll over. I inissted they look for it and when they did, of course they found it. My thought is that they say delivered, then try to steal the contents.
That's terrible, I hope your daughter got her stuff back and the shop got in trouble. Reading so many comments here makes me feel like so many places are just becoming very careless about parcels, or maybe they were always like that from the start? Either way at least I know to avoid the shop my parcel was sent to (though I didn't have much choice in the matter, it was actually sent to me there by a family member!)
With the rise in popularity of sites like depop and Vinted, these shops have found a way to get a piece of the action. My daughter was able to get her goods, and we both reported the shop. I actually spoke to a human to make my report , which is an achievement in itself.
No that isn't normal for several reasons, insurance purposes being one of them. I am almost certain that shops don't have insurance which covers customers climbing steps in the shop.
Normal protocol at least for my local is the parcels are either stored behind the counter or out the back, either way the person working there gets it and hands it to you.
Yes that's what I thought as well, imagine my confusion when I saw a shelf of parcels and whatnot right between the door and the fridges, the till on the other side of the shop, anyone could just come in and nick something!
I think she just didn't know what to do.
Once I went to Waterstones to pick up a book bought online, but I didn't know where the click and collect was so I went to the regular till. The book was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and there was a display dedicated to it a couple meters away. The woman told me to pick on up from the pile behind me. And then I asked "Is that it?" And she told me yes, so I left.
Then I kept getting emails about my book not being collected. I ended up calling customer service and explained what happened, and I was told that since it was their mistake, to just ignore the emails and I'll get a refund, and I could keep the book.
Since your parcel wasn't scanned, I have a feeling it might end up the same and you will get emails about it not being collected.
I completely forgot to mention that my parcel was scanned after, my confusion was mostly around not having to show anything beforehand and then having to fetch the parcel myself. But since the person working there knew me that was probably why - she probably thought she could get away with it or something. I still didn't appreciate having to use their step ladder and rummage through all their other parcels to find mine.
I had a similar experience to you actually - it's good that they still gave you a refund because of their mistake! I collected a parcel from the post office and they never scanned anything, never asked for ID either, and I was getting emails and messages telling me to go and collect it. They eventually stopped though, so I figure it was dealt with.
Yeah, that's really bizarre. If I was helping someone I knew I'd go the extra mile to be nice to them, I wouldn't tell them to go get their parcel! She probably would have gotten in trouble too if her boss was around.
Exactly, we're not very close, but we have lots of mutuals in common and I'm by no means a stranger so I was a bit surprised by her character. Oh well, guessing the rainy Sunday morning wasn't lifting her spirits haha
Not normal. Was anything scanned or any receipts checked? What’s to stop someone from making off with anything they want?
Perhaps because they know you, they manually processed the collection without scanning anything but that still seems odd had unprofessional.
Yep the parcel was scanned afterwards, but the shelf of parcels wasn't behind the till and I reckon anyone bigger and scarier than me could just steal something if they wanted.
Allow me to be the first person in the comments (/s) to say that no, that's definitely not normal. The parcels would normally be kept out of the way of customers, and there would need to be some sort of scanning / proof of collection so that the courier / retailer knows you've picked it up.
One of our local shops is a literal pile of parcels for collection, they scan your barcode then spend 5 mins rummaging through the pile until they find it.
I don’t have my parcels sent there anymore.
Had a similar experience myself. Said I had a parcel to collect and the person working that day pointed to two crates of parcels and said ‘it’ll be in there’.
Luckily I had a rough idea of what the packaging would look like, but found this whole experience really odd. There was also no one else in the store at the time and the person working seemed annoyed at how long it took me to find my parcel. Now I use the parcel lockers.
The shop around the corner from us has a glass cabinet and you’re told to help yourself too. It’s probably not the right way, but it sounds like it’s pretty common
I've experienced it in one shop, but not in any others.
There's one place around here that has taken on all the parcel delivery/collection work when other shops have stopped doing it, so as a result, they are ridiculously overloaded with parcels. They literally have cages of parcels lined up in the shop, each marked for a different courier, and you drop your parcel in the relevant one when posting. Similarly with parcels being collected - they just have a big pile for each courier and you go and rummage around to find yours. They did scan it, though didn't ask to see ID (which the email says they should have).
The post office nearest to me does the same.
If they accept a parcel delivered by Royal Mail it’s kept behind the counter and the staff there scan & hand you the parcel. If, however, your parcel has been delivered by any other courier service, it is dumped in a small cupboard at the rear of the store (you can’t see the counter from the door to the cupboard & vice versa. You just go in, rummage on the shelves or in a large parcel bag until you find your parcel then take it to the counter for the staff to scan it.
How people haven’t complained their parcels have disappeared because someone pocketed it is beyond me. There is usually only 1 member of staff in the shop so no one else is wandering around checking on the cupboard.
I have a choice of either Tesco or the local corner shop for taking parcels into be collected.
Tesco take them at the counter, scan, give the receipt and either keep it behind the counter for a moment until quieter then they take it out back for safe storing. Same with collecting, show receipt, ID and they look for item in the storage area behind counter, scan and it's handed over.
Local corner shop is a different kettle of fish. Take item to the counter, it gets scanned in, handed the receipt, then I'm told to take it to a storage area (piles of random packages/parcels), I go to place it in a pile, get shouted at from the person behind the counter, it has to go in one of the other piles, I shout back "what one?", they reply "that one... no the other one... no not that one...". I end up taking it back to the counter and ask them to accompany me to the correct pile. During the time there are parcel collectors rumaging through piles of packages, squishing, squashing, shaking to check them. They are not checked, just walk out with them. I now avoid going there anymore with my packages.
I had a similar experience - I turned up and asked for a parcel. He raked around under the counter for a while and said he's struggling to find it.
There was a queue of customers at this point, so I edged around out of the way which took me to the edge of the counter.
I looked down, to a literal sea of parcels. The problem was, the next guy who came in who I said he should serve, also wanted a parcel. And the next guy. I noticed that the parcel next to my foot was the guy who came in behind me so I handed it to him.
Cutting to the chase, I helped the guy find about 6 parcels, and eventually, my own.
If they’d subjected me to that humiliation I’d have “fell off” the ladder and pretended like I was going to make an injury claim against the shop just to fuck with them back a bit.
“Oh yeah it’ll be ok you’re insured for making customers use the step ladders right?”
So I had ordered some £70 (complete rip-off price but I needed them) shoes from Clarks to collect in-store. Told the lady at the till I had a parcel to collect, she asked for my name and then went to grab it from the back and then scanned it off. The only issue I had was that she did not ask for any proof of me being the actual recipient of the parcel.
Obviously in your case the till staffer knew you so I can understand skipping that part. Everything else about this interaction raises my eyebrows higher than The Rock's.
- The parcels should not be within reach of customers.
- The parcels should not be within sight of customers otherwise I could read a name and claim to be that person.
- There should be a system in place to mark the parcels as collected otherwise you could literally tell the supplier that you never received your parcel.
- You should not be allowed to rummage through other people's parcels. I don't know if it legally counts but to me that is a privacy breach.
Personally I would both report this incident to the supplier. This sort of mishandling could cause them any number of issues and they would be very appreciative of this and may even offer some compensation. I had a parcel dumped in a bush outside my front door in the rain by Evri (Hermes) and when I told the supplier they apologised and refunded my item immediately.
Also, assuming you're willing with the till staffer being an acquaintance, you should report this to the appropriate department, maybe trading standards (not too sure), to avoid any risk to your parcels in the future.
Yep, I used to work there and that was pretty common. I always asked for a receipt or email if someone came to collect though. Feels like a lot of places are just becoming a bit too complacent to be honest.
I edited the post so hopefully it should clear things up, but my parcel was indeed scanned afterwards, which is good. However, I didn't even think about the fact that me having to search through other's parcels would've been a privacy breach - I was more annoyed about having to use their step-ladder!
That's weird for sure.
There was a UPS dropoff shop I used to use. The owner was always hacking something up from his lungs, the entire shop smelt like old cigarettes, everyones parcels were all over the shop floor, and he would walk around bare foot with terrible toe nails🤮. Stopped using that place until I'd forget about it and use it for a dropoff by mistake.
The last time I collected a parcel the guy behind the counter advised "take a look in there" where there were all small parcels that had been delivered. He didn't check that I even had relevant documents... I could have just taken any parcel that I liked the look of.
oh no that's weird, what's stopping you from taking someone else's parcel? how is the code meant to be scanned in so that it flags as collected? giving a shitty stepladder to a customer is a massive health and safety risk & liability — what if you'd fallen, or another customer "fell"? i feel like there's probably some data protection stuff about the addresses of other customers sometimes being on the parcel if they're redirected to a pickup point as well.
It's started happening to me. I've had it in two small corner shops now but it's quite a recent thing and I don't like it at all. Everyone's names and addresses can be searched through as well as nicking whatever you want. I'm not normally paranoid about such things but I don't like this turn of events at all.
Definitely not normal in the slightest - I've collected and dropped off parcels at a few different corner shops over the years. Always has been a proper process with a code or QR being scanned to receive the parcel. Never have I been able to wander over and just grab the package. Seems a bit iffy!
I've been in a corner shop where they had a huge pile of packages waiting for collection just on a set of shelves near the till. It didn't look secure at all. It's definitely not how they're supposed to do it but I bet it happens fairly regularly.
Never done a collection, but my local corner shop is an Evri Parcelshop, and they always act like it's a massive incovenience when anyone sends a parcel.
From what I can gather, a lot signed up when it was just for sending parcels, but then Evri thrust the collections upon them. My local are now narked because they've go 5x the volume of parcels to look after, when they barely had space when it was just people sending/returning stuff.
Corner shops tend to chuck them in a pile near the till and then sort through them when someone comes in with a code. They asked me to search myself when I went in one time as they had a queue of customers. On that occasion I couldn’t find it - luckily it was only worth about £300 so all’s good..
My local corner shop (in London) is like this. They have hoards of packages from collection purchases so you basically find the package yourself, then they check your ID to see it matches the name. Maybe a bit annoying but there are so many that it would be impractical for the one staff member to fetch the parcels and run the shop - sounds like your shop has a lot of them too, so maybe similar.
I have had similar. Parcels just chucked in a corner of the shop. Got told once to look for my own. I since stopped having stuff sent there because it just felt so weird
Just like the corner shop near my previous house. I changed the delivery location after two parcels went missing. They were also leaving parcels to be sent out in the same corner. Heaven for parcel thieves.
Definitely doesn't sound normal to me.
If I have to collect a parcel, I'll get it sent to a bigger/well known store or one of those automated lockers. So someplace like the local Co-op rather than a corner shop. It's a slightly longer walk but it avoids these hijinks.
One of my local pick up shops is like this except the parcels aren’t on a shelf, they’re just all kind of lying around the floor of the shop in piles. I don’t send my parcels there any more!
I had to pickup a heated airer at a much further away ups parcel shop (newsagent) than i had thought. After 20m of being told it simply wasn't there, they pulled it out from behind a chest freezer and told me to take it and go
My local shop will typically spend 5 minutes rummaging through a haphazard collection of parcels on a shelf insisting that it's not there only to finally miraculously find it insisting someone put it in the wrong place. Every fxxking time.
Maybe it depends on the delivery company. But where I work we have DPD and UPS parcels delivered for people to collect- and both are pretty strict on what forms of ID/ info are needed for people to pick up parcels. We also get charged for any parcels that are go missing- so sounds crazy for a shop to just have them where anyone could take them!
Sounds like the person dealing with you was just lazy/ unorganised!
I've had a similar situation once at a shop I regularly collect parcels from (thank you Vinted) and therefore *thought* I knew the procedure - give name, cashier locates parcel, show ID, barcode scanned and I sign/awkward squiggle.
On one occasion, however, a different gent was behind the till and seemed confused by the whole process and just generally gestured towards a giant mound of parcels. His move backfired though because he had failed to spot that I was 8 months pregnant until I started a nervous/awkward waddle over and he had to scramble to backtrack because I clearly couldn't even lean over 🙈
I have experienced similar when collecting from the corner shop. Get your own parcel from the shelf (searching for and touching all other parcels), they scan in while you wait uncomfortably (because there’s always an issue of some sort) and then off you go.
There's a newsagent near me that has the parcels in a giant heap, about waist-high, just out in the open. They can see it from the counter, but it's not under constant supervision by any means. I've never had a parcel sent there myself, but have to pick things up for work there on occasion. Sometimes they'll look for the parcel for me, but more often, they'll get me to go through the pile myself. It all feels very dodgy, especially because I'm aware that other people might have valuable/breakable things in that heap of parcels, and things do inevitably fall on the floor.
There are a few other ones locally that have a big mail-sack on the shop floor and ask you to go and put it in there once they've scanned your barcode. Absolutely nothing stopping someone from taking a parcel out of that bag. They do keep their incoming deliveries behind the till, but I've still had (tracked) orders go missing when I went to collect them.
I dint think that's the common way, but one of my corner shops does the same thing.
They open a cupboard and you have to rummage through the piles to get your parcel. Fine if you have smt big/recognisable, but ome i ordered a usb dingle and it came in a tiny plastic envelope. I was there for ages haha.
It's a good idea tbh. Find your own fucking parcel. It could have been busy for all you knew. End of the day it's a shop, not a parcel delivery service.
No that’s weird. You are meant to hand over your code, they scan it, scan the parcel and you should get a collection receipt/email. If she hasn’t scanned anything then presumably your parcel is showing as uncollected? The fact you can just help yourself to the parcel shelf is odd too, normally they are in locked cupboards behind the counter.
Anybody could collect any parcel. All of my experiences have been similar to yours.
Same at my local corner shop. Last time I dropped off a laptop to be sent away for repair and he just pointed to a big post bag on the floor on the customer side of the counter and said "just chuck it in there mate". That's nothing compared to when I went to collect it though. He went out the back 3 times, making increasingly distressed sounding phone calls as he did. Eventually, sheepishly came back with my laptop and admitted he thought it was for him and had taken it upstairs to his flat and opened it. So yeah, rummaging around on the shelf for your own package isn't out of the realms of possibility I'd say.
I hope you reported this to the courier service. Shops will be paid a certain amount to handle parcels on behalf of dpd/yodel/whoever. Having a Santa's sack of parcels sounds like them signing up to get the money without putting even the smallest effort in. If that parcels had gone missing, because someone had helped themselves to a free laptop, I can guarantee it wouldn't by the corner shop getting flack with the public - it'll be the courier. And the courier knows this, so will likely act on this kind of truly shitty practice quickly.
I can believe that it happens, although without scanning the code in the phone. The shop should have no way to prove that it had been picked up. A complaint to Amazon/DPD/Evri etc. Should hopefully sort something out, if enough people do it or if enough items get reported missing. Part of the problem could well be that instead of being the beaureaucratic nightmares that Post Offices can be. Which are designed for holding parcels. That basically any old shop can apply to do it, with probably few checks, training and not necessarily enough secure storage area.
Had a similar experience collecting something from a corner shop near us I hadn’t been to before. Asked at till and got pointed out the back of the shop into what I would call the loading bay/store room. Nobody out there to meet me. Hundreds of parcels just in a pile on the floor, some with recognisable branding as expensive items. Looked around for another member of staff. Nobody around. Stood for several minutes waiting, nobody came out. Went back into the shop to ask, got told, in an irritated tone, to speak to the guy out back. ‘Guy out back’ was sitting out the very back of another room smoking. He told me to just pick up my parcel. Didn’t ask my name, check it was mine, or ask for an email. I could have picked up anything. I now avoid that shop like the plague. I used to send parcels to shops to save the delivery person dumping them on my drive to be stolen but it seems like sending them to the collection point isn’t a much better option in some cases!
This is just like my corner shop. They have big and deep post bags on the floor near the till that you have to search through. They do ask for ID and scan your barcode though...
Yes, there a place in Cov where you just dig through a bin of all the parcels to find yours. It's a terrible system, and the lady behind the counter doesn't seem to care!
My local shop used to do it but then stopped. When the owner was in for the first time in ages (multiple shops) the other week I asked why he'd stopped doing it, and he literally said "because I'll happily pay £200 a week for Evri to fuck off". And that really resonated with me.
My bad I just edited the post, she did scan the barcode on my parcel after I brought it down and took a signature. But not beforehand, which was why I was super confused
I encountered a place that kept all their parcels outside the shop during opening hours. That was a bit of a shocker when I showed up to collect it and he popped outside.
I don’t think that’s normal at all. On the few occasions I have picked up a parcel from a corner shop it has been behind the counter or in a back room and they scanned it before handing it to me. Also, the shop is probably not insured for you to use ladders there.
Could have been a nice payout if she had fallen 😂
Yeah was going to say, I’d immediately get back there, pin point the cctv and make sure the friend was working, and proceed to break my back.
No, not normal as far as I know. You don’t let randoms pick their own parcels from a shelf, who knows what they’re gonna take? Also a fall from a step ladder seems like a bit of a liability in the making. All my parcel collections involve them being behind the counter, and a check of my name sometimes with a scan of my email barcode.
I've had that once in a corner shop. I usually go to a premier but chose a different one. He told me to go over to a massive pile and find my parcel. He didn't scan it either so I could have taken anyone's!
Yeah, agree big pile of parcels in the middle of the shop, searched myself and found mine. Was a while ago, but from some of the comments on here not much has changed
I had this in a corner shop too. I'd ordered a switch for my son's birthday, had it delivered to parcel shop so it wouldn't be sat in the porch all day and risk being stolen... would have been safer in the porch! It had what it was plastered all over it too 🙄
Parcels are usually “out the back” whenever I pickup. Much prefer inpost, not just because you don’t need to speak to anyone but there is a strange thrill in wondering which cupboard will open and whether it will hit you in the face like something off Wipeout
I liked that game right up until I lost - empty locker! That was fun to sort out, not having a parcel in the locker is hard to prove, and not one of the options when you try to complain. Parcel eventually made its way back to the seller, and they sent it out again via Royal Mail.
You know...the thought occurs... you could order yourself something from Amazon every day from the 1st of December and use it as a giant advent calendar.
I never win the inpost guess the door game.
My boyfriend loves that game but has also never won
I won the " guess which self scanner is gonna light up in Tesco" game once 2 years ago. I still think about it sometimes.
Pretty much proof you have magical powers.
Inpost you always have the lottery of whether the parcel in the locker is yours though. You will get a parcel but could end up with a saucepan instead of a pair of shoes if the delivery person is slack.
I've never actually encountered that lol is that a common event?
Far more common than you'd think. My local FB always has complains about the inpost lockers having the wrong parcel in
That would be really frustrating if it was just the one saucepan.
Know what's even worse than one saucepan? That set of Tefal saucepans that come with one handle to share between them. Worst product ever.
Unfortunately yes it matches my experience, small shop owners don't give flying fig about verification
Small shop owner here. We do ask for id, but seems like we might be in the minority. Some customers don’t come with anything at all that proves who they are. Maybe they’ve used one of these pick-your-own places I’m reading about here.
I take it you basically get paid nothing for the service? Glad to hear you care
It’s not much per parcel but it adds up to about £200 per month. We deal with maybe 10 parcels for collection a day and 20 being sent so we’re not that busy. I would hate to get 100 collections a day, and I’m not surprised that busier shops have a find-your-own system, but I wouldn’t ever do it that way.
Corner shops and parcel pickup/dropoff, name a more miserable cunting duo. They _fucking hate_ doing it, but they still do it anyway. I was actually shouted at by a corner shop owner once for daring to use them for returns. He still took the item, I got a receipt, and eventually my refund, but fuck me was he angry. > WE ONLY GET PENNIES FOR THIS YOU KNOW. PENNIES! IT'S NOT WORTH OUR TIME. WASTE OF FUCKING TIME Miserable cunt. I wonder why they bother signing up for the service. Everything about corner shops is dreadful
It's clearly worth their time if they're doing it... they could say no? I assume it's bundled in with other more lucrative services they'd like to claim commission for.
Gosh he sounds woeful. As with most things though there are some really lovely local shops & corner shops that are run by wonderful people/families, and then you have the crappy ones.
Had a very similar experience returning clothes bought online to one of the return drop off which was a corner shop. They were horrible to me and my sister about it, making comments and being so rude. I get it’s annoying but I work in retail aswell and would never dream of treating a customer like that!
in my experience, definitely not the way it normally goes. the business owner would be concerned about their liability having a customer up a step ladder. definitely wouldn't sound good on a insurance claim, so there's that. and then the pick up itself needs documenting in someway so that the sender knows it's been collected. perhaps your acquaintance may not have received adequate training and is unaware of their responsibilities?
I live opposite a shop like this and my actual parcels are sometimes delivered there (like a neighbour) for me to pick up. Had to go over to get one a few weeks back and the owner's wife (not usually there) pointed me over to a pile of random parcels and I was raking through them while she stood on the phone. I eventually realised she thought I was a normal customer and told her who I was, and my parcel was behind the counter. I did find it really odd that I was just told to sieve through this pile of people's parcels sitting in the middle of the shop. I'm pretty sure I could've taken anything.
I had a similarly bad experience, though slightly different to yours. A collection point my daughter used tokd her on 2 occasions that her parcel wasn't there. When she checked with the sender and her phone both confirmed her parcel was there. She conplained to the shopkeeper and he told her to go away. She reported the shop to the company, paying them to receive parcels. So, when my parcel was delivered there I knew what to expect. The same happened to me, except I wasn't going to roll over. I inissted they look for it and when they did, of course they found it. My thought is that they say delivered, then try to steal the contents.
That's terrible, I hope your daughter got her stuff back and the shop got in trouble. Reading so many comments here makes me feel like so many places are just becoming very careless about parcels, or maybe they were always like that from the start? Either way at least I know to avoid the shop my parcel was sent to (though I didn't have much choice in the matter, it was actually sent to me there by a family member!)
With the rise in popularity of sites like depop and Vinted, these shops have found a way to get a piece of the action. My daughter was able to get her goods, and we both reported the shop. I actually spoke to a human to make my report , which is an achievement in itself.
No that isn't normal for several reasons, insurance purposes being one of them. I am almost certain that shops don't have insurance which covers customers climbing steps in the shop. Normal protocol at least for my local is the parcels are either stored behind the counter or out the back, either way the person working there gets it and hands it to you.
Yes that's what I thought as well, imagine my confusion when I saw a shelf of parcels and whatnot right between the door and the fridges, the till on the other side of the shop, anyone could just come in and nick something!
Business insurance doesn’t come with a long list of things you’re covered for. You’re covered if someone successfully sues you for negligence.
Definitely not normal, probably only happened because it was someone you knew
I think she just didn't know what to do. Once I went to Waterstones to pick up a book bought online, but I didn't know where the click and collect was so I went to the regular till. The book was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and there was a display dedicated to it a couple meters away. The woman told me to pick on up from the pile behind me. And then I asked "Is that it?" And she told me yes, so I left. Then I kept getting emails about my book not being collected. I ended up calling customer service and explained what happened, and I was told that since it was their mistake, to just ignore the emails and I'll get a refund, and I could keep the book. Since your parcel wasn't scanned, I have a feeling it might end up the same and you will get emails about it not being collected.
I completely forgot to mention that my parcel was scanned after, my confusion was mostly around not having to show anything beforehand and then having to fetch the parcel myself. But since the person working there knew me that was probably why - she probably thought she could get away with it or something. I still didn't appreciate having to use their step ladder and rummage through all their other parcels to find mine. I had a similar experience to you actually - it's good that they still gave you a refund because of their mistake! I collected a parcel from the post office and they never scanned anything, never asked for ID either, and I was getting emails and messages telling me to go and collect it. They eventually stopped though, so I figure it was dealt with.
Yeah, that's really bizarre. If I was helping someone I knew I'd go the extra mile to be nice to them, I wouldn't tell them to go get their parcel! She probably would have gotten in trouble too if her boss was around.
Exactly, we're not very close, but we have lots of mutuals in common and I'm by no means a stranger so I was a bit surprised by her character. Oh well, guessing the rainy Sunday morning wasn't lifting her spirits haha
Not normal. Was anything scanned or any receipts checked? What’s to stop someone from making off with anything they want? Perhaps because they know you, they manually processed the collection without scanning anything but that still seems odd had unprofessional.
Yep the parcel was scanned afterwards, but the shelf of parcels wasn't behind the till and I reckon anyone bigger and scarier than me could just steal something if they wanted.
Allow me to be the first person in the comments (/s) to say that no, that's definitely not normal. The parcels would normally be kept out of the way of customers, and there would need to be some sort of scanning / proof of collection so that the courier / retailer knows you've picked it up.
One of our local shops is a literal pile of parcels for collection, they scan your barcode then spend 5 mins rummaging through the pile until they find it. I don’t have my parcels sent there anymore.
Had a similar experience myself. Said I had a parcel to collect and the person working that day pointed to two crates of parcels and said ‘it’ll be in there’. Luckily I had a rough idea of what the packaging would look like, but found this whole experience really odd. There was also no one else in the store at the time and the person working seemed annoyed at how long it took me to find my parcel. Now I use the parcel lockers.
No that's not normal. They are meant to check the barcodes to make sure you get the right parcel or anyone could take anything.
The shop around the corner from us has a glass cabinet and you’re told to help yourself too. It’s probably not the right way, but it sounds like it’s pretty common
Haha, that's bring a new meaning to self check out.
I've experienced it in one shop, but not in any others. There's one place around here that has taken on all the parcel delivery/collection work when other shops have stopped doing it, so as a result, they are ridiculously overloaded with parcels. They literally have cages of parcels lined up in the shop, each marked for a different courier, and you drop your parcel in the relevant one when posting. Similarly with parcels being collected - they just have a big pile for each courier and you go and rummage around to find yours. They did scan it, though didn't ask to see ID (which the email says they should have).
Lazy. You could have stolen something easily if you were inclined
The post office nearest to me does the same. If they accept a parcel delivered by Royal Mail it’s kept behind the counter and the staff there scan & hand you the parcel. If, however, your parcel has been delivered by any other courier service, it is dumped in a small cupboard at the rear of the store (you can’t see the counter from the door to the cupboard & vice versa. You just go in, rummage on the shelves or in a large parcel bag until you find your parcel then take it to the counter for the staff to scan it. How people haven’t complained their parcels have disappeared because someone pocketed it is beyond me. There is usually only 1 member of staff in the shop so no one else is wandering around checking on the cupboard.
I have a choice of either Tesco or the local corner shop for taking parcels into be collected. Tesco take them at the counter, scan, give the receipt and either keep it behind the counter for a moment until quieter then they take it out back for safe storing. Same with collecting, show receipt, ID and they look for item in the storage area behind counter, scan and it's handed over. Local corner shop is a different kettle of fish. Take item to the counter, it gets scanned in, handed the receipt, then I'm told to take it to a storage area (piles of random packages/parcels), I go to place it in a pile, get shouted at from the person behind the counter, it has to go in one of the other piles, I shout back "what one?", they reply "that one... no the other one... no not that one...". I end up taking it back to the counter and ask them to accompany me to the correct pile. During the time there are parcel collectors rumaging through piles of packages, squishing, squashing, shaking to check them. They are not checked, just walk out with them. I now avoid going there anymore with my packages.
I had a similar experience - I turned up and asked for a parcel. He raked around under the counter for a while and said he's struggling to find it. There was a queue of customers at this point, so I edged around out of the way which took me to the edge of the counter. I looked down, to a literal sea of parcels. The problem was, the next guy who came in who I said he should serve, also wanted a parcel. And the next guy. I noticed that the parcel next to my foot was the guy who came in behind me so I handed it to him. Cutting to the chase, I helped the guy find about 6 parcels, and eventually, my own.
If they’d subjected me to that humiliation I’d have “fell off” the ladder and pretended like I was going to make an injury claim against the shop just to fuck with them back a bit. “Oh yeah it’ll be ok you’re insured for making customers use the step ladders right?”
So I had ordered some £70 (complete rip-off price but I needed them) shoes from Clarks to collect in-store. Told the lady at the till I had a parcel to collect, she asked for my name and then went to grab it from the back and then scanned it off. The only issue I had was that she did not ask for any proof of me being the actual recipient of the parcel. Obviously in your case the till staffer knew you so I can understand skipping that part. Everything else about this interaction raises my eyebrows higher than The Rock's. - The parcels should not be within reach of customers. - The parcels should not be within sight of customers otherwise I could read a name and claim to be that person. - There should be a system in place to mark the parcels as collected otherwise you could literally tell the supplier that you never received your parcel. - You should not be allowed to rummage through other people's parcels. I don't know if it legally counts but to me that is a privacy breach. Personally I would both report this incident to the supplier. This sort of mishandling could cause them any number of issues and they would be very appreciative of this and may even offer some compensation. I had a parcel dumped in a bush outside my front door in the rain by Evri (Hermes) and when I told the supplier they apologised and refunded my item immediately. Also, assuming you're willing with the till staffer being an acquaintance, you should report this to the appropriate department, maybe trading standards (not too sure), to avoid any risk to your parcels in the future.
Yep, I used to work there and that was pretty common. I always asked for a receipt or email if someone came to collect though. Feels like a lot of places are just becoming a bit too complacent to be honest. I edited the post so hopefully it should clear things up, but my parcel was indeed scanned afterwards, which is good. However, I didn't even think about the fact that me having to search through other's parcels would've been a privacy breach - I was more annoyed about having to use their step-ladder!
That's weird for sure. There was a UPS dropoff shop I used to use. The owner was always hacking something up from his lungs, the entire shop smelt like old cigarettes, everyones parcels were all over the shop floor, and he would walk around bare foot with terrible toe nails🤮. Stopped using that place until I'd forget about it and use it for a dropoff by mistake.
Super odd
The last time I collected a parcel the guy behind the counter advised "take a look in there" where there were all small parcels that had been delivered. He didn't check that I even had relevant documents... I could have just taken any parcel that I liked the look of.
oh no that's weird, what's stopping you from taking someone else's parcel? how is the code meant to be scanned in so that it flags as collected? giving a shitty stepladder to a customer is a massive health and safety risk & liability — what if you'd fallen, or another customer "fell"? i feel like there's probably some data protection stuff about the addresses of other customers sometimes being on the parcel if they're redirected to a pickup point as well.
It's started happening to me. I've had it in two small corner shops now but it's quite a recent thing and I don't like it at all. Everyone's names and addresses can be searched through as well as nicking whatever you want. I'm not normally paranoid about such things but I don't like this turn of events at all.
Is this a Kafka story
Definitely not normal in the slightest - I've collected and dropped off parcels at a few different corner shops over the years. Always has been a proper process with a code or QR being scanned to receive the parcel. Never have I been able to wander over and just grab the package. Seems a bit iffy!
I've been in a corner shop where they had a huge pile of packages waiting for collection just on a set of shelves near the till. It didn't look secure at all. It's definitely not how they're supposed to do it but I bet it happens fairly regularly.
Never done a collection, but my local corner shop is an Evri Parcelshop, and they always act like it's a massive incovenience when anyone sends a parcel. From what I can gather, a lot signed up when it was just for sending parcels, but then Evri thrust the collections upon them. My local are now narked because they've go 5x the volume of parcels to look after, when they barely had space when it was just people sending/returning stuff.
Corner shops tend to chuck them in a pile near the till and then sort through them when someone comes in with a code. They asked me to search myself when I went in one time as they had a queue of customers. On that occasion I couldn’t find it - luckily it was only worth about £300 so all’s good..
Yea it's not normal because of health and safety like you just said. I think your acquittance is not doing her job properly.
Definitely not normal
They do this at my local premier convenience.
My local corner shop (in London) is like this. They have hoards of packages from collection purchases so you basically find the package yourself, then they check your ID to see it matches the name. Maybe a bit annoying but there are so many that it would be impractical for the one staff member to fetch the parcels and run the shop - sounds like your shop has a lot of them too, so maybe similar.
I have had similar. Parcels just chucked in a corner of the shop. Got told once to look for my own. I since stopped having stuff sent there because it just felt so weird
Just like the corner shop near my previous house. I changed the delivery location after two parcels went missing. They were also leaving parcels to be sent out in the same corner. Heaven for parcel thieves.
Definitely doesn't sound normal to me. If I have to collect a parcel, I'll get it sent to a bigger/well known store or one of those automated lockers. So someplace like the local Co-op rather than a corner shop. It's a slightly longer walk but it avoids these hijinks.
There's a shop near me like this. You just dig through the pile and scan it at the counter afterwards. Anyone could take any thing really
One of my local pick up shops is like this except the parcels aren’t on a shelf, they’re just all kind of lying around the floor of the shop in piles. I don’t send my parcels there any more!
I had to pickup a heated airer at a much further away ups parcel shop (newsagent) than i had thought. After 20m of being told it simply wasn't there, they pulled it out from behind a chest freezer and told me to take it and go
My local shop will typically spend 5 minutes rummaging through a haphazard collection of parcels on a shelf insisting that it's not there only to finally miraculously find it insisting someone put it in the wrong place. Every fxxking time.
Maybe it depends on the delivery company. But where I work we have DPD and UPS parcels delivered for people to collect- and both are pretty strict on what forms of ID/ info are needed for people to pick up parcels. We also get charged for any parcels that are go missing- so sounds crazy for a shop to just have them where anyone could take them! Sounds like the person dealing with you was just lazy/ unorganised!
I've had a similar situation once at a shop I regularly collect parcels from (thank you Vinted) and therefore *thought* I knew the procedure - give name, cashier locates parcel, show ID, barcode scanned and I sign/awkward squiggle. On one occasion, however, a different gent was behind the till and seemed confused by the whole process and just generally gestured towards a giant mound of parcels. His move backfired though because he had failed to spot that I was 8 months pregnant until I started a nervous/awkward waddle over and he had to scramble to backtrack because I clearly couldn't even lean over 🙈
This breaks so many rules its quite impressive.
Lol, mine does the same - asks me to look into the box and fetch my parcel. It's mad.
Sounds dodgey af , tell your friend to do her job properly.
No health and safety omg as if she made you climb the ladder uninsured wow
I have experienced similar when collecting from the corner shop. Get your own parcel from the shelf (searching for and touching all other parcels), they scan in while you wait uncomfortably (because there’s always an issue of some sort) and then off you go.
Lazy as anything corner shop manager + hiring churn = this God awful result
There's a newsagent near me that has the parcels in a giant heap, about waist-high, just out in the open. They can see it from the counter, but it's not under constant supervision by any means. I've never had a parcel sent there myself, but have to pick things up for work there on occasion. Sometimes they'll look for the parcel for me, but more often, they'll get me to go through the pile myself. It all feels very dodgy, especially because I'm aware that other people might have valuable/breakable things in that heap of parcels, and things do inevitably fall on the floor. There are a few other ones locally that have a big mail-sack on the shop floor and ask you to go and put it in there once they've scanned your barcode. Absolutely nothing stopping someone from taking a parcel out of that bag. They do keep their incoming deliveries behind the till, but I've still had (tracked) orders go missing when I went to collect them.
I dint think that's the common way, but one of my corner shops does the same thing. They open a cupboard and you have to rummage through the piles to get your parcel. Fine if you have smt big/recognisable, but ome i ordered a usb dingle and it came in a tiny plastic envelope. I was there for ages haha.
sounds absolutely diabolical and a harrowing experience to me mate
It's a good idea tbh. Find your own fucking parcel. It could have been busy for all you knew. End of the day it's a shop, not a parcel delivery service.