“You will know what I mean when you need to raise an issue with them. Then you will know what 'absolute bunch of monkeys' actually means.
I booked a parcel to be sent through parcel monkey and I selected a Parcelforce service to be collected by driver who would be bringing the labelling. I chose to pay a couple of quid extra for insurance as it was a valuable item. It was much cheaper booking through Parcelmonkey, even though it was still going through Parcelforce, which was suspicous and too good to be true basically. A rough and unkempt man came in a plain white van and took the parcel and did not give me any receipt of collection and told my son that it would be sent by email because it was booked online.
I tracked the parcel on Parcelforce's website about a week later and it showed that is had been collected, but was never logged in at the very next stop: the local collection depot.
I spoke to Parcelforce who were very responsive and the next day they confirmed that the parcel was irrecoverably lost and I should submit a claim through Parcel Monkey, which I did online on their website and uploaded a photo of the parcel, as well as the paypal receipt showing that the I refunded the guy who bought the item from me in full. They already have the tracking number and they can see for themselves that it is showing as collected and nothing further. That was on the 13th Dec.
That's when the talking to monkeys started. It is now 7th Jan and Parcel Monkeys say they are still chasing Parcelforce. For what exactly I don't know.
The parcel was insured, they lost it and now they are stalling trying every trick in the book asking me for descriptions of parcel, description of packaging, proof of collection etc.
Here is a summary of their Monkey responses, all of which I replied to instantly, and bear in mind that from the very beginning they already had all of the information requested, including what was in the parcel:
13th Dec: "courier looking into it"
14th Dec: Can you please provide a full detailed description of how the item was packaged along with a collection receipt if this is possible and the date you have advised the item actually left them.
17th Dec: "Did the courier provide a collection receipt upon collection? Please be advised that this information is being asked by the courier in order to further investigate this matter. "
17th Dec: "Can you please provide a full detailed description of how the item was packaged so that we can forward it to the courier."
21st Dec: "Do you have the collection receipt?"
21st Dec: "we are doing our best to expedite on this matter"
21st Dec: "Please can you also advise what is inside the item here?"
22nd Dec: "we have already rechased the courier regarding this matter"
7th Jan: "I will now forward this to the relevant department to assist you further in this matter."”
“Parcel Monkey should not be associating their name with the service from Fedex, absolutely terrible one-way useless customer service. Delivery promised in 4-6 days and heading for close to a month with no communication. I have used parcel monkey before and this is unfortunately the last, dont even try em.”
“ABSOLUTE DISGRACE!!!!!
Absolute disgrace, failed to pick up my parcels for the second day running. Tried online chat, email several times and nobody came back to me. If your business depends on your customer service then do not deal with these people. You have cost me a fortune, I am now off on a 16hr journey north of Edinburgh and back in one day because of your incompetence.”
“Followed your instructions re weighing and labelling of parcel
Parcel arrived ok
Week later email to say they were taking extra money as somehow parcel had increased in weight by 6kg .Took money without authorisation .How can I claim this back
Disgusted is an understatement”
“They are SCAMNERS. They don’t tell the technical terms in advance before you book your parcel. They keep their customers in dark. They are highly non trustworthy. NOT RECOMMENDED AT ALL.”
“absolutely shocking waited in all day and no comms, spent hours trying to rearrange (as this is my responsibility) and couldn't fulfil the next day either .. i can only presume that Christmas has come as bit of a surprise to them this year.. avoid like the plague.. i would love to know where the get the stats that 97% of parcels arrive”
“This is the second and last time I will use Parcel Monkey. Their online quote experience is good but after that the service is appalling. It was very easy to get the quote and book the collection. I had high hopes for a seamless service and full support. This lulls you into a false sense of security.
Once you have made the booking Parcel Monkey immediately send you an email to say 'Your order has been despatched' - this is before you even have a collection slot! It is hugely confusing. My collection did not happened on the date it was booked for and I spent a whole day waiting in for it only to find, after contacting the courier directly myself, that parcel monkey had NOT even booked the collection with them !!!
IF they do manage to organise the collection, once it reaches its destination country, the tracking information goes silent and there are no updates at all.
Beware - despite choosing a third party courier such as DPD etc etc you will only be able to communicate with Parcel Monkey and there are NO phone lines into the company so you are stuck with a live chat. Today I have had 4 different associates in one 20 minute chat. They have no direct phone lines out of their offices to their third party couriers and have to rely on a messaging service which we all know when it’s a busy time of year no one checks. I was told that the chosen courier would respond' sometime today', they were supposed to have been here by now !
If you contact the courier directly, because you have a Parcel Monkey order number, they will refer you back to Parcel Monkey, a company with no phone lines and an endless supply of Live Chat associates who cannot find a way to solve the problems and get action for you - they just keep apologising. I was told to keep watching my ‘dashboard’ for notes from Parcel Monkey with updates on my query.
It's really not good enough, they take your money for a service and then can't follow through with the appropriate level of support to give you peace of mind. My recommendation would be NEVER to use Parcel Monkey and to go to the couriers directly.”
“Awful company, booked a collection, label was meant to be e-mailed within 30 minutes, it never arrived. After messaging them (because there's no phone number to call) they responded the next day and sent me the label, but address on label was incomplete and they'd booked the collection date wrong. I messaged them to cancel, was told no problem and i'll get a refund. Guess what? Guy turned up to collect the parcel the next day, i told him it was cancelled, he apologised & left. Checked my bank account and ParcelMonkey have taken £41.00 out and they've stopped replying to my messages. I have to wait 15 days to raise a dispute with my bank to hopefully get the money back. Seriously stay away from this company unless you have infinite time to deal with nonsense.”
“ZERO stars. They lost my package over a month ago. FedEx asked them to send a waiver so that they can reimburse me for the lost items. It was a package of birthday gifts for my daughter. It's not that complicated.
FedEx wrote three weeks ago: The claim is still needing a wavier for the shipper for a settlement with you, at this time we currently do not have one on file.
AWFUL, HORRIBLE, UNRESPONSIVE - the worst shipping experience I have ever had.”
“I only wish I could select zero stars. Advice to others thinking of using: (a) don't; (b) if you really choose to do so then MAKE SURE they cannot charge you more money, weeks later, with no explanations. They offer Paypal, which I used. But this is an open situation - they just charged me £27 on top of the original charge of £65. Only contact is by 'chat' which delays by 2 days before a reply. These people should not be allowed to trade.Take no notice of the excellent reviews they get on Trustpilot - I suspect these must be rigged.”
“Absolute Jokers!
Quick enough to take your money but fail abysmally when something goes wrong.
No telephone number, no emails just an online portal which they answer within 48 hours.
Avoid.”
“Absolutely untrustworthy, I put a claim for the item delivered damaged, it has been more then 2 weeks and they have not responded to my claim. There are no Contact numbers to contact them directly. Would advise against using them if you want to risk then be a victim”
“Sent a signed boxing glove in a small box to the USA
The parcel weighed less than 1kg, after delivery I was billed a further £20+ for the parcel being overweight - 10kg!!!!
How many boxing gloves weigh 10kg?!!
This is the second time this has happened and they immediately take the money from your account unless you have photo proof of the weight AND dimensions of the parcel
Absolute scammers that I would definitely avoid at all costs. No customer service number to call and quite honestly they blatantly rob you as they please”
“Failed to deliver my parcel on the date requested and gave me the run around for a month afterwards rather than refund my delivery cost. They appear utterly unable to deal with any issue on a delivery as a third party agent and DPD (who actually took the parcel) refused to deal with me under the Data Protection Act as I was the sender, not the recipient!! Have now put in a claim for loss of service through Mastercard. Cheap if the parcel gets there, but too dangerous a risk to use again.”
“Do not use this company. The collection we arranged never happened and got no communication either from the haulier or Parcel Monkey to say the collection would not happen. Took the day off to be home for the collection. Cannot contact Parcel Monkey by phone (only online chat) and they won't contact the haulier - they just offer to reschedule the collection. Can't afford to take another day off and same fiasco happening.”
“Sent a parcel through parcelmonkey. Parcel force collected my parcel. Supplier not had delivery. Managed to get a parcel force tracking number which shows collected but then they lost it. It doesn't show on my parcel monkey account anything so I'm guessing parcel monkey didn't give parcel force any information and now it's gone astray. It's difficult to point the finger of blame but at least parcel force have spoke to me about it unlike parcel monkey.”
