Please excuse the upcoming rant but it feels like it's forty degrees centigrade and I've had one in a long succession of bad experiences with Purolator deliveries.
Yesterday I received a call that the recall battery replacement from Apple for my iBook had been out for delivery but they were unable to get it to me, could I please go and pick it up? Ok, no problem. I check their website, type in my tracking code, and voila, it tells me to go pick up my package — but not where to pick it up. So, I check their website for the nearest location to me. Super, there's one about four blocks north of where I live. I call them and am informed that the package is actually conveniently being held down near the lake out in an industrial park almost thirty minutes away by bike (probably longer by car or public transit).
It's sweltering outside, but I figure I'll bike down there anyway and grab the darn thing. When I show up, I discover I forgot to bring the shipping number, but I've got an unusual enough last name and I know the street address so they can probably look it up. Nope, after twenty minutes in their unwelcoming cramped office they have no clue where the package is.
So... I sweat my way home on the old bike, grab a massive glass of water, and then check the website again to make sure I'm not going crazy. I check a little closer and the package went out for delivery on May 24 and I only got notified yesterday! So, I call their 800 number and speak to a very nice woman who managed to have the package moved to the location nearer me tomorrow, saving me the long bike again. She's the only good thing that happened in this whole ordeal.
If this was the only time I had a poor experience with Purolator I wouldn't mind so much, but this is just the latest in a string of craptastic service from them. A few lost packages, a few late deliveries, a terrible website, and this — it all adds up to a bad experience overall. Why can't they just be Fedex? Hold on, why don't I just use Fedex for all my shipping when I've got the choice?