Delivery nightmare before Christmas

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This article was published 09/12/2021 (1767 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Online shopping is usually a convenient and less expensive way to order Christmas presents, but it’s turning out to be a headache for several consumers in Brandon this year.

People who spoke with the Sun on Wednesday, along with users on the People of Brandon and on eBrandon.ca, are reporting that their packages from Amazon aren’t being properly delivered.

Roberta Henry, who lives in Alexander, usually gets her packages delivered to her workplace within the city of Brandon.

The trouble started on Nov. 27, when she received a notification stating the courier working for Amazon locally, Intelcom, had tried to deliver a package, but the business was closed and they would try again.

“At that point, I had reached out to Amazon on the Wednesday to say they hadn’t tried again,” she said. “They said give it a few more days.”

To her surprise, she received a notification from the courier last Saturday saying the package had been delivered at 8:45 p.m.

Since no one was in the building, she hurried down to the city to collect her order only to find nothing there when she arrived. On Amazon, her package tracking status said it hadn’t been delivered yet.

She has now received a refund from Amazon for the first package, but she would have preferred to receive the item, and now she’s worried about the status of two other orders she has on the way.

“We’re kind of running into crunch time now for Christmas presents,” Henry said. “That’s great I got my money back, but now I have to go find different things for my kids.”

Mikayla Madsen told the Sun on Wednesday she has four or five packages that Amazon’s tracking system lists as having been at the distribution warehouse in Brandon since Dec. 2.

While the packages had delivery dates between Dec. 5 and 8, none of them have arrived yet at her home in the downtown area.

She said she called Intelcom on Monday and was told by a customer service representative that he couldn’t provide her with additional information or the location of the local distribution centre so she could pick them up but promised everything would be delivered within 24 hours.

When she called Amazon after the packages didn’t arrive, a customer service representative for that company said they were unable to reach Intelcom and asked her to call them back to arrange for new items to be shipped by another method or give her a refund if they didn’t arrive within a day or two.

“I am very worried that they’re not going to arrive before Christmas,” Madsen said, adding that her experiences last year ordering from Amazon when everything was closed because of COVID-19 were better than this year.

“I would like to see them come out and explain to everybody what’s going on and why their packages are sitting here. I think honestly that [Intelcom] should give up the contract because they can’t do what they’re supposed to do, and it’s affecting a lot of people. If they can’t deliver [the packages], because they’re all in Brandon, tell us where the warehouse is and let us come and pick them up.”

Lanny Kaylen told the Sun via Facebook Messenger that they rely on Amazon to have a supplement needed by their newborn delivered and they’ve run out while waiting for Intelcom to deliver the latest package. When a previous courier company handled the deliveries, Kaylen said the service was reliable and even delivered on weekends.

“Super frustrating that it’s been sitting in Brandon somewhere for the past week and I am now out of my bottle,” Kaylen wrote.

Other commenters on Facebook also complained that their packages had been sitting idle in the local warehouse for a week or more with no progress and that they had received delivery notices but hadn’t received any packages.

Beyond that, there are complaints that packages are being left in snowbanks, being delivered overnight and left out in the open, and delivered in damaged condition. Some commenters living in Meadowbrook Village just outside of Brandon said they received notices that the courier can’t find where they live.

Later Wednesday afternoon, a couple of Facebook users said some of their long-awaited packages had arrived without explanation, including one that had been in Brandon since Nov. 24 according to tracking, and another that was delivered a week later than it was supposed to arrive.

In an email to the Sun on Wednesday, Intelcom said: “We are aware that some packages are taking longer than expected to be delivered out of the Brandon station and understand that this might have brought frustration to some customers. We are confident that things will improve very soon in this area, as we are adjusting our processes to make sure all parcels are delivered within the expected timeframe. People should feel comfortable ordering online and receive their package in time for the [holiday] season.”

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark