E-COMMERCE COMPANIES - STAY AWAY FROM THE COURIER GUY!

One star is not even good enough for The Courier Guy. After more than 10 years of our business using TCG daily for our e-commerce orders - not to mention thousands of rands spent with them - they've made a HUGE error by changing to a new system which, IMO, is going to be their undoing.

In the past, their admin department was always pathetic, and we spent so much time trying to reconcile the accounts because they made so many mistakes. Telephoning them was futile as the majority of them don't even understand your requests, and nor do they care. When we ask for invoices that they've forgotten to send, they send us statements. They take forever to pass a Credit Note for an error they've made, BUT they're insanely quick to put your account on hold until payment is received. Our account was recently put on hold due to a mere R2 owing. R2 !!!!!!

Fast forward to mid December 2021 when the new system kicked in, and it's a TOTAL DISASTER. Firstly, we have lost ALL our address details of previous customers and suppliers - because TCG say they were "unable to migrate" this across to the new system. How come they didn't warn us in time, so that we could somehow save these contacts. No, we are merely told to start building up our address book from scratch! (Hmmm ... wonder what they'll be doing with all those contact details.)

When making a booking now, you cannot just fill in the delivery address, as in the past! Now you have to search the address on a map, which is supposed to PIN IT so you can drag it into the booking. Well - we've tried that but the Map keeps saying "unable to find the address". We even tried a family member's address, and it could not be found. This useless system does not allow you to type in an address ... so you have no choice but to use the map, which in most cases, doesn't work.

A few months back, TCG said that if we did a booking and did not insert the correct suburb, we would be fined X amount. Imagine how much we'll be fined now if the address ends up wrong due to the stupid map pinning that doesn't work.

And if that's not all, the billing system is crazy. Before, you'd need to keep a credit amount of R115 in your account, and keep topping it up. This worked okay for us as we were with Nedbank, like TCG was. Then they changed last year to Standard Bank, so we were emailing Proof of Payments. Now with the new system, they won't take your account off hold until payment has "cleared" in THEIR bank account. We now have to wait up to 3 working days before we can book another delivery. How is an E-Commerce business supposed to run like this, where we are sending out orders daily? We cannot wait for TCG to go through their bank account to ensure our payment is in their bank. Especially since we've been a client of theirs for so long ... surely we qualify as a "credible or credit worthy" client?

When we called in December (when they were still taking calls ... unlike these days) the person we spoke to said the reason they changed to this new system is because some customers would run up R40 000 worth of debt, and TCG was losing money. What? How can a business even allow that to happen when our account is put on hold, as said above, for a mere R2?

We started using The Courier Guy when they were small, and drivers would arrive in their own vehicles to collect parcels. Now they've gotten too big and too greedy. Wouldn't be surprised if admin staff start getting laid off now, because the way things seem, we as the clients have to do most of the admin work now ourselves. Look at Pudo ....

So, stay away. Don't use this courier company!