trfh wrote:I've been using Parcel Monkey for some years as an Ebay seller, and I picked up this thread because I have a problem with them too. Surprisingly, this thread shows up on the first page of Google results about Parcel Monkey - no doubt they won't be happy with this sort of publicity!
Its a sorry tale of a company promising much - and failing to deliver. Then taking a ridiculous amount of time to give a refund.
But from the comments on this thread, some people are mistaking Parcel Monkey for a courier company. They are not. The couriers are companies like Fedex, TNT and City Link. They do the actual running around. If you go direct to one of them as a private individual, they will either refuse your business completely, or want quite absurd amounts of cash. You can
only get a good deal by going to "agents" like Parcel Monkey, Parcel2Go, Interparcel, etc.
In this case, Parcel Monkey were let down by their agent, City Link. And then they compounded this screw up by failing to provide a contact phone number, and taking far too long to process a refund.
A balanced view of all this is that Parcel Monkey provide a good value service (hard to find anyone cheaper in fact) - BUT things are going to go wrong some of the time, and they don't have the people or systems to sort things out quickly. If you have flown with EasyJet, you will know the sort of thing to expect - its great when it works, but when it doesn't, expect a major FUBAR and very little redress.
In general, if you have a critical shipping deadline, go with one of the big names, like Fedex, UPS, etc, and make sure you use a "guaranteed" service. And use an agent with a phone line! My recommendation is Interparcel at
http://www.interparcel.com. You have to book on line, but they have a phone number open normal office hours.
Richard
Richard
