Chronopost Lost Parcel

Chronopost runs an ad to advise you to use their service to send your forgotten keys on your holiday location. I would definitively advise you against using their service for things with value.

Here's why.

(This post will be updated if anything worthwhile happens.)

I ordered some custom tee-shirts online and they were supposed to be delivered through Chronopost.

My order was supposed to be delivered on Friday 19/07/2013 between 9 and 13 at the address I gave for delivery.

On the preceding Thursday I received an email telling me:

"Vous pensez être absent à cette date ? Cliquez ici, avant ce soir minuit, pour programmer une nouvelle date de livraison ou demander une mise à disposition dans un point de proximité.

Sans instruction de votre part, Chronopost vous livrera à la date et à l'adresse indiquée dans ce mail."

So I changed the delivery address to the post office nearest to my work and received a confirmation email:

"L'envoi XW---------FR sera mis à disposition le vendredi 19 juillet 2013 dans le bureau de poste choisi. Un e-mail ou SMS vous avertira dès que le colis sera prêt à être retiré."

At 08:13 the next day, delivery started:

08:13 PARIS BD NEY CHRONOPOST
Envoi en cours de livraison

Then things went down hill..

At 10:59 the next day, the status was changed to delivered!

ven 19/07/2013
10:59 PARIS BD NEY CHRONOPOST
Livraison effectuée Nom du réceptionnaire:michel
ven 19/07/2013

Delivered to Michel ? Who is Michel ? Maybe the post office man ? I was confused but trustful.

Note that I never received a notification (email nor SMS). Strange, but why not.

• I went to the BOINOD post office at 13:00 and they didn't know where the parcel was and told me to come back
• I went to the BOINOD post office again at 16:30 and they told me the parcel was at Blrd Ney, a nearby Chronopost office
• I went to Blrd Ney (had to pay for bus/tram), and 'Olivier' told me the parcel was a BOINOD. And told me to go back and ask them to call him back. It was now over 1815, I didn't trust going back to BOINOD a third time, and I was already late for a meeting so I tried something else.
• I called support multiple times to try to get some information. Unfortunately I got cut multiple times (sometimes after queing for more than 10 minutes) and didn't manage to get more information before the phone service was closed. BTW, the automated voice recognition system is awfull, only picks up my instructions twice out of 14 tries, doesn't allow you to talk directly to a person (you have to spend ~2/3 min talking to their broken voice recognition system first, etc)
• I called support the next day (Saturday) and they told me the parcel was at La Poste Chateau Rouge. As again I had no way to check if the parcel was there without going there (no direct phone number to POST office). I travelled there (with my family...), queued and got told the parcel wasn't there. The person in charge told me she would call me on the Monday to let me know what was going on.
• On Sunday I left France... Goodbye simple way to retrieve my parcel.
• On Monday no one called me...
• On Tuesday I called Chronopost from Norway, and they told me the parcel had been delivered to the original address. That the ability to change the delivery address is only effective after a first failed delivery attempt, contrary to both what the email I received and the information on the web site. They told me the parcel was probably delivered to the building caretaker, while there's no caretaker at the delivery address. They took my phone number (again), and said they would call the next day after talking to the driver
• On Saturday, I called. Apparently they haven't talked with the driver at all. They asked me again for my phone number (3rd or 4th time!). I give up. Chargeback it is!

To summarize: chronopost doesn't deliver where I asked them to deliver, doesn't deliver to whom I asked them to deliver. Also employees understand the system features (delivery address change) in different ways, read the tracking statuses in different ways, are unable to communicate with each other in a timely manner, are unable to keep me updated when they said they would (not even sure they are able to keep track of my contact information).

No wonder they lose parcels.

On top of that, they have no email address for contact. (*)

I wonder if they even try to do things like e.g. Toyota (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way)

(*) a few cross search on Google and I have the CEO, Quality director and Client director emails. Mailing...

Update: my email helped it seems. Someone called me and a week later the parcel was found again. Note that I don't know where it was (neither Chronopost) and the statuses on the tracking page indicate that the parcel was delivered to the BOINOD post office the day after I went there!? And that information never made it into Chronopost's systems until almost 2 weeks after. Fishy...