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PostNL - useless
For those of us who live in Belgium, I cannot emphasise enough how utterly useless PostNL's service is. As a summary:
- When they lose a parcel they expect you to wait an indefinite amount of time before allowing you to claim on insurance.
- The insurance claim procedure is so secret that their staff refuse to answer direct questions about it.
- They do not have an internal complaints procedure and simply refer all complaints to the Belgian post regulator.
- You can only contact them by 'live chat' online and by no other method, and the chat is rarely available.
- If you manage to actually get someone on the chat, their knowledge of the PostNL process, especially when something goes wrong, is severely limited. Their advice is almost always, "I'll have someone investigate and we'll call you back." In my experience they never follow through on this. They have never called me back, and I have to chase them every step of the way.
- Their 'investigations' amount to nothing more than checking what the online tracking shows. I waited 2 weeks to be told, "yeah, it shows as having been dropped off at the Parcel Point but nothing since." Awesome. I told you that exactly 12 days ago...
- I once had someone ask for my bank details so they could refund me on the insurance policy, despite at no time asking what the value of goods was. When I pointed this out the person back-tracked so furiously there were scorch marks everywhere.
- They have parcel drop-off points all over the place in newsagents, tobacco shops, etc. but staff look at you as though you're stupid when you tell them you're there to drop off a PostNL parcel. Several times I've had to take my parcels back because they either don't know what to do or begin to process them as something else entirely (often a Kariboo return).
In short, DO NOT USE POSTNL if you're in Belgium.
- When they lose a parcel they expect you to wait an indefinite amount of time before allowing you to claim on insurance.
- The insurance claim procedure is so secret that their staff refuse to answer direct questions about it.
- They do not have an internal complaints procedure and simply refer all complaints to the Belgian post regulator.
- You can only contact them by 'live chat' online and by no other method, and the chat is rarely available.
- If you manage to actually get someone on the chat, their knowledge of the PostNL process, especially when something goes wrong, is severely limited. Their advice is almost always, "I'll have someone investigate and we'll call you back." In my experience they never follow through on this. They have never called me back, and I have to chase them every step of the way.
- Their 'investigations' amount to nothing more than checking what the online tracking shows. I waited 2 weeks to be told, "yeah, it shows as having been dropped off at the Parcel Point but nothing since." Awesome. I told you that exactly 12 days ago...
- I once had someone ask for my bank details so they could refund me on the insurance policy, despite at no time asking what the value of goods was. When I pointed this out the person back-tracked so furiously there were scorch marks everywhere.
- They have parcel drop-off points all over the place in newsagents, tobacco shops, etc. but staff look at you as though you're stupid when you tell them you're there to drop off a PostNL parcel. Several times I've had to take my parcels back because they either don't know what to do or begin to process them as something else entirely (often a Kariboo return).
In short, DO NOT USE POSTNL if you're in Belgium.
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Comments
frustating, but there is not an phonenumber ?
Because i can can contact them directly on a phone number, I always have my answers within a half hour or i get somebody with the specific information or even better they call me back within 24 hours with the answer
There rules are so odd and non-friendly that its a real pain the a**
The first ever answer on any claim or problem: wait 90 days!!!!!
They seem so well protected by there own *rules* and partly even the Dutch law....
for example, by Law it has been settled in Holland that the return value cant exceed 7 euro per lost kilo......... wich in case of LEGO is just to laugh about.
If you have a business account, as a seller, you are entitled to claim your purchase price.
However, as we sell parts and buy sets..... well, you can imagine the odd conversations with the after-sales-service-team.....
I simply resend or refund when a letter got lost, as it isnt worth it to file a claim at Postnl.
The arrogance of this company is at a level of big worldknown brands at the moment.
Only problem for us, we dont have a good alternative in Holland.....
Hang in there
cheers, George
ps : what a bad service in belgium grrr
I regulary use Kiala (UPS group now), for several years in Belgium and since this year (or late last year) also available for France, The Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg. Prices are fair, but mainly for 'sets' only as it's a fixed amount 'till 15 kg, insurance is optional however, I only propose the extra cost (or pay it myself) when the content has over 100 Euro Value, still a better price compared to Bpost and other companies. But a lot slower, that needs to be said. I probably shipped around 50 orders the past 8 years, and never had a problem with Kiala.
I suspect their activities will increase towards other countries in near future.
For low volume orders Bpost remains very reliable (and their international partners as well), costwise not great, but for low weight orders (minus 100 grams) it remains quite affordable compared to other countries (and now I'm going to adjust prices, as offcourse the 1st they increase LOL).
Sidenote: Bpost also has 'delays' when a tracked order gets lost, not 3 months, but 4-8 weeks is pretty 'common', so Dutch Post ain't that far off. What bugs me a little is that soon they think they are right (or you lack to follow up for a couple of days) is that they close the ticket, and they can't reopen, so a new ticket has to be created. Early this year I had to open 3 tickets for the same shipment (12/2014 shipment) :-(
But like I said, pretty reliable, even for non tracked shipments (and their tracking cost is waaaaay to expensive compared to many other countries -- ah well --).
Cheers, Eric