I have been online shopping for quite sometimes, and each time something was sent to me via first flight there was problem, they never keep their tracking system up to date, they always take one or two days longer than any other courier company, but the story I’m going to tell is the worst of the worst by far and it just happened today.
I ordered a product from a great company online for my husband’s birthday on the 24th, it was shipped on the 26th according to First Flight in Delhi, by the 28th which was my hubby’s birthday the parcel showed it reached Mumbai, but only in the late afternoon, so I was expecting it to reach my place by Saturday.
This morning I entered the tracking ID once more, to see that they apparently attempted a delivery the 28ths but found my door locked! I stepped out of the house at noon for barely an hour to get some groceries to back a cake, if the guy came, he never left a notice of his attempt at delivery, and he never called my mobile phone to let me know about it, and how should I even know they were out for delivery, since the parcel reached Mumbai in the afternoon?
Furious I went on the contact us page on the website to call the office in Mumbai, it took 5 attempts before they picked up, the lady put me on hold 4 times while telling me to call another number, giving me two possible numbers. I dialled them, and both were: INVALID so I called the main office again, the lady gave me a third one whcih you guessed by now was invalid too, I tried to call again to the main office number, nobody picked up for 10 minutes, then I got put on hold without being talked to for an eternity, then I had to dial 5 times again to finally get the lady back on the phone, she informed me that no they never give invalid numbers. By then I lost it, and shouted at her, that ALL I wanted to know was WHEN they would come to try to deliver the parcel again, she put me on hold, after 5 minutes of crappy music I lost patience and hanged up, to dial again....10 minutes of no one picking up the phone, and when they finally did I blasted the lady, who told me that this was the corporate office and they don’t do any customer service. isn’t a courier company by default a service company? And if they don’t take consumer complaints, why is that the only number listed?
She added that they had problems with phones that will take a few days to fix so I should call on Monday to see if they worked! Geez thanks lady, but I want my parcel NOW! I blasted her a little more, she said I should talk to her manager, and she would give her phone number, I refused, telling her to go fetch that person herself as clearly they can’t be trusted with the phone number they give to customers, she told me that it wasn’t her job to fetch people or transfer calls! She then put me on hold forever and I lost patience after a few minutes, after that I sent an email, to the person who handled my order at thee merchant site who was as furious as me. And I continued calling irst Flight for an hour straight, non of my phone went through, I suspect they have caller ID and refused to pick up my calls.
Fortunately the parcel came later today, but nobody told me anything about, the website never mentioned "out for delivery" in their tracking system, and the two emails I sent first flight on top of my phone numbers are still unanswered. The positive, is that the merchant’s site appalled by my experience just sent me an email that they are efficiently discontinuing any shipping via first flight.
People if you value your customers, or your relatives do not use First Flight as a courier company, they will give you and the recipient a headache. These guys don’t value their customers, they treat them like garbage.