Express Courier That Wasn’t Express – Extremely Poor Service

I had one of the worst courier experiences I’ve ever encountered with Aramex. I sent an Express Courier parcel from the Eastern Cape on Saturday, 3 January at 09:24 and was assured it would be delivered in Johannesburg by Tuesday, 6 January at the latest. According to the tracking, the parcel went out for delivery on 6 January at 07:56, but it was never delivered. At 20:58, the status was updated to “Delivery failed – driver out of time.” When I contacted the call centre, I was told the parcel had been sent out with a driver servicing the Boksburg area, despite the delivery address being in Randburg. This is a basic routing error that should not happen, especially for an express service. I then spent the entire 7 January following up via emails and the call centre and was repeatedly assured that the parcel would be delivered by close of business. This did not happen. I even attempted to escalate the issue by emailing the Aramex Country Manager, but received no response. In the end, after significant effort and frustration, I had to collect the parcel myself from Aramex, completely defeating the purpose of paying for an express courier service. This experience shows poor logistics, poor communication, and a lack of accountability. I am extremely disappointed and expect an explanation and appropriate compensation for a service that was clearly not delivered as promised.