Poor service

I think that if you really needed industrial service, you needed to pay industrial prices and go to someone like J&L or Cromwell that are big enough to reliably achieve next day delivery. 'Course, you would have paid twice as much.

Mark Rand RTFM

If the item had been shipped as said, then they should have given Mark (1) the shipping tracking number as proof of shipment. lack of the number suggests they didn't ship it / they didn't have it it stock.

They took the order on the basis of next day delivery, so there should be no problem with giving the tracking number.

Peter

-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:

Mark,it`s nothing to do with industrial prices.These vices are sold by all the suppliers.I would not give Cromwell Tools your money.That is another company that does not deserve to exist. I stopped using J&L ten years ago when they told me they could not promise next day delivery to central Scotland and anyway J&L are selling the same crap as everyone else only at greatly inflated prices.(I suppose this comes back to the other Marks post the other day,maybe he could email them as well).I spend a minimum of =A31000 every month on tooling and over the years have found and stuck with some excellent suppliers but the ones that sell everything are never so good on fast delivery.The specialist companies are always so good you can set a clock by them.An example of this is WNT.Their head office in Sheffield has difficulty understanding the difference between invoice address and delivery address,so any orders I place come direct from Germany overnight and UPS roll up at 9.30am the next day with itI gat that service regardless of order value. The point of my complaint is not so much I didn`t receive the thing as the fact they won`t call back.Keeping in touch with the customer when things go wrong and doing what you undertake to do is what seperates a good company from an average one. Mark.

You must do good business with them - the minimum order charge is normally £50.

Farnell is moving in that direction :( On three separate orders in the last few months they have not actually delivered next day - despite promising that. At least CPC now SAY 2-5 days even though normally it arrives next day. Perhaps Farnell are going to start doing that as well to cover their backs :(

J&L used to 'promise' next day delivery, but I'd come to accept that it would just as likely be two days. When I looked into it, they weren't actually paying the carrier (Securicor/DHL) for next day delivery but for the standard sevice which would be 'next day' for

*most* people in striking distance of their delivery depots. Here it would be next day only if the right driver was on our run that day. Anyone else would ignore it on the first day, hoping it would be someone else's problem tomorrow. RS are just the same.

RDG used to be a friendly bunch running a secondhand tool shop, but they're more or less entirely importers & internet sellers now. It sounds as though they haven't entirely got their act together yet as regards the change.

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

Lester,had the same experience with Farnell.Took the money and then said "will deliver two tomorrow and rest in seven days".Pointed out they were diodes for a rectifier and two were no good and could I please have my money back,they replied that they couldn`t return the money.Did eventually though.It`s a shame as I much preferred Farnell to R&S. Who are CPC? Tim,I used to buy from J&L when they used the Royal mail for delivery,problems started when they went to Securicor who were seperate from DHL then.My experience is that DHL had the worst drivers on the planet but now have a local guy who is very good.I wouldn`t send stuff out with DHL though.Have you ever tried tracking a parcel they had. Mark.

Most of my business is with Farnell, but RS is the backup. It's only in the last 6 months I've had a problem

Another Farnell Premier company. Claim to be nothing to do with one another, but the shop software runs on the same computer :) CPC have a lot of domestic spares stuff and computer parts against Farnell's better component range. Only problem with CPC you get the 'seven day or we refer to solicitors' normally before you even get the statement they are demanding payment off. Since the 'solicitors' is another Farnell division I've stopped taking any notice :) ( Farnell normally don't send that letter until at least the following month so I do wonder if someone has a setting wrong :) )

With Securicor I would always get deliveries before 10 o'clock, who ever was using them at that time, I think both RS and Farnell used them once. When DHL took over RS deliveries went to pot, but that seems to have been sorted and we are back to a Morning delivery from RS. In fact I can order on-line at 19:50 and it will arrive on the door step 14 hours later! DHL does seem to have sorted at least some off the problems out.

Big firms no doubt get a very good discount with their delivery firms, in fact they probably could with many firms, so I wish they would give us some choice of delivery outfits. After all, any particular firm is unlikely to be good/bad everywhere. [ Well, I can think of one which is probably bad everywhere, but they're not all like that ! ] Peter W.

Rdg have always been puddled as regards mailing stuff I have now come to expect this of them now.. I think twice before ordering from them now of the 6 or 7 things Ive bought off them over the years. three not thru ebay

One thing they said was delivered to the wrong ebayer ...AND THEY SENT ME HIS ITEM ...THAT I HAD TO SEND BACK..total loss gave up....they refunded another thing got lost in the post ...they refunded another item (a big vice) took over A MONTH to come after me phoning them half a dozen times.

I would say that of the 7 items Ive had to make a phone calls to rdg ...on 5 of them

other stuff took at least 6-10 working days to come.

all this, and i never left them bad feed back ...because i thought maybe they would improve . and i didn't want retaliatory ones.

Can only say one thing good about them,that is, they have always honoured thire mistakes

al the best..mark

On or around 13 Jan 2007 01:58:07 -0800, " snipped-for-privacy@ems-fife.co.uk" enlightened us thusly:

whose cockup? carrier, or RDG?

Carriers are excellent these days at promising the earth and delivering somewhat less.

like the "before 10 am" option. I had something sent by this, and it got here about 11:30. I pointed, not entirely seriously, to the "before 10" sticker (I'm on good terms with the driver, he comes here quite often) and he said "they're havin' a laugh". fact of the matter is, it's pretty nigh impossible to get things here (fairly out-of-the-way area) before 10 - they don't have the necessary structure in place.

now, you could argue that they should have... my biggest complaint on this front is non-delivery of "saturday specials" where you pay extra for saturday delivery and they can't be arsed to send a van.

On or around Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:45:50 +0000, Tim Leech enlightened us thusly:

J&L use Omega now, AFAICS. mostly, the stuff gets here pretty promptly, but I've never actually specifically needed stuff next-day.

I thought Omega was part of Securicor, now taken over or run by DHL?

Cheers Tim

Dutton Dry-Dock Traditional & Modern canal craft repairs Vintage diesel engine service

J&L and RS both use DHL here now which I believe was Omega, so if I order from both I get same guy bringing both, at least our driver has stayed the same even though his van has changed

I can't fault them as we are at the start of his run and get deliveries by 9:15 at the latest.

Even though RS offer their free delivery I have only ever had following day on a couple of times, usually during school holidays when a replacement driver is on and he does the route the opposite way round.

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

Horses for courses. I have never had problems with J&L or Cromwell. Although it puzzles me that when I order from Cromwell from home, my delivery comes from a different branch than if I'm at work 2 miles away. At work we get a daily delivery by van from them.

If you are ordering over £1000 per month from them you should be looking for a decent discount, say 40%.

As for the lads at RDG not phoning back. That was my point about paying more. Firms that charge more can afford to spend time phoning people. Firms that charge less go bust if they charge lower prices _and_ waste time on the phone.

Mark Rand RTFM

In article , " snipped-for-privacy@ems-fife.co.uk" writes

Mark,

Glad you got your money back in this case. For general interest:

If you buy as a "consumer", you are entitled to reject any goods purchased remotely within 7 days without giving any reason whatsoever. You do have to bear the cost of return postage though, and return goods unused.

If (as seems to be the case with Mark) you are buying as a business purchaser, these protections do not apply to you, but if you state prompt delivery of the essence when placing your order (in writing), any court is more likely to give preference to that over any weasel words in paragraph 947 of the supplier's standard terms, so you could just reject the late goods and demand repayment/refuse payment.

Most businesses who follow bad practices will cave in before defending such a claim in court, and if you buy by credit card the credit card company will often cancel a transaction if it is disputed, leaving the seller to try to pursue you (which they won't).

If we all took a stiff line with those following bad practices, they would soon shape up or ship out, as it were. Of course, the seller could refuse any further business from you, but if he's such crap, so what?

David

In article , mark writes

This is a huge problem wit the eBay feedback system. If a buyer has a bad experience, he is very often reluctant to say so for fear of retaliation. IMO, is a buyer has paid the full price promptly he should be GUARANTEED freedom from retaliatory feedback.

In article , Bill writes

Viking (office supplies) have also been reliably prompt with deliveries, usually arrive by lunchtime next day, also free except for very small orders.

I know these are not tools (well, in Maplin's case they somewhat were) but both are likely to be selling things of use to many engineering businesses.

David

I had a strange thing with RDG - they were either brilliant, or lying to me. I bought a relatively minor lathe tool from them via eBay and waited..and waited..after about 12 days I e-mailed them and asked about it and they assured me it had been sent ages ago - it must have got lost in the post - we'll send you another. Then I waited and waited and still nothing. I contacted them again, and they said another had been sent and that it must have got lost in the post too. So they would send me a third one - now I don't recall anything of mine getting lost in the post before, and suggested to them that the problem might lie at their end, if they wanted to investigate it with the local post office I was happy to provide information as thieving within the post office is treated very seriously. They didn't respond to this. Then I noticed that in eBay I got a message saying your item has been dispatched. I hadn't had that before, and next day it arrived - first class post.

Either they are brilliant and sent the same item 3 times after two got lost in the post, or they lied about sending it and used the post office as a scapegoat until they could re-stock, or maybe they had somebody falsifying dispatch records and stealing the goods. Whatever went on, it is odd that the eBay notification that the item had been dispatched never appeared for the two that went missing.

This must have been 18 months ago. I have used them only once since, and that was fine.

Steve