Terrible (TNT)

Member Name: jdidlock

Product:	TNT
Date:	30/04/02 (136 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Handling of consignments excellent

Disadvantages: Invoicing system awful

I export stuff to the Middle East and have for years used FedEx with only minor problems until, that is, they made the extraordinary decision to fix something that worked perfectly, they changed their collection and delivery agent from Securicor Omega to Business Post. I will discuss this move in the relevant place, but the upshot was that I (temporarily) changed to TNT.

As far as collection, delivery and care in transit are concerned, I cannot fault TNT. In my country area, the cut-off time for same-day collection was moved from the 2PM of FedEx/Omega to 12 Noon which was potentially a bit of a problem, but otherwise, that side of the deal went smoothly to the satisfaction of my clients (the main requirement).

BUT.

Their invoicing system has got to be the most useless in the business.

Their area sales manager came and visited me (which FedEx never did) and I was given a deal, a discount on list price. First problem, not one of the 4 invoices I subsequently received (I was quick to move back to FedEx) was calculated at the "deal" prices, one lot of arguments.

Then there was the question of consignment weights. I don't do enough business to warrant the purchase of weighing machines. I have kitchen scales up to 1 kilo and bathroom scales and we all know they lie, so I have to rely on the carrier. Not a very satisfactory arrangement, but when I started receiving invoices for 20 kilos when I had shipped about 2, a second series of arguments started. "Oh! You should weigh your consignments", "I can't, and besides, surely you wouldn't just accept what I said, you'd check?"

After a lot of acrimony from me and ( I might add) compromise, we sorted that out.

Then the final straw. Their statements were uniformly unintelligible but the best was one which mucked around coming up with an erroneous balance due AND THEN ADDED THE LAST CHEQUE I'D SENT, so incre
asing the amount due, not decreasing it.

Moral - At least try to estimate weight and then for goodness sake CHECK THE INVOICES. Then use a different carrier..

Summary: