Wont deliver to Caithness

[Fran]

First Iwas refused a curry and nowI am refused furnitureI ordered on the internet.
I get so annoyed when firms think caithness is an island off the mainland. I explained we are mainland, 102 miles north of inverness, yet they disagreee. Surely i should know if I am on an island ,I live here.!!!
BecauseI live hereI am being penalised andI can't have the furnitureI wanted. I lknow i aM NOT THE ONLY ONE Isn't it annoying.GGrrr

[changilass]

You can't have everything Fran, you live in gods county, be gratefull for what you have and accept the things you cannot have.

[Invisible]

I feel your pain, charged extra for not being on the mainland, how long does it take them to look at a map or sat nav or route planner?

Such is life of the "remote" area of the Highlands

p.s. - I had a wee chuckle to myself when I heard that Dominoes would deliver Pizza to your house within 30 mins or your money back, no small print on the TV screen stating it had to be in the same town or whatever. I may just order a pizza, get it cold the next morning.

[Kevin Milkins]

I feel your pain, charged extra for not being on the mainland, how long does it take them to look at a map or sat nav or route planner?

Such is life of the "remote" area of the Highlands

p.s. - I had a wee chuckle to myself when I heard that Dominoes would deliver Pizza to your house within 30 mins or your money back, no small print on the TV screen stating it had to be in the same town or whatever. I may just order a pizza, get it cold the next morning.

I think the clue to the (get out clause) is, "or your money back".

I would guess that if you ordered a pizza for delivery, then it would be cash on delivery, so if they decided that you would be too far away to be a feasible customer, you just would not get a pizza.:confused

[Kevin Milkins]

First Iwas refused a curry and nowI am refused furnitureI ordered on the internet.
I get so annoyed when firms think caithness is an island off the mainland. I explained we are mainland, 102 miles north of inverness, yet they disagreee. Surely i should know if I am on an island ,I live here.!!!
BecauseI live hereI am being penalised andI can't have the furnitureI wanted. I lknow i aM NOT THE ONLY ONE Isn't it annoying.GGrrr

I have told you before Fran to stop Internet shopping with company's based in Orkney.

[Fran]

at least I could get it delivered on the Orkney ferry then.!!

[KEEP_ON_TRUCKIN]

whereabouts is it from ? You could give Stevens a call and see how much they'd be a pallet up ??

[M R]

I find this crazy aswell. I use the net to buy quite alot, mainly stuff i cant get up here. Find it very annoying being told that because the postcode is KW14, wich i think is the same as orkneys, then were classed non-mainland, total joke. Never been refused anything yet, but can always add on an extra £5+ for anything heavy-ish.

[Hibeechick]

What about Mackenzies Removals? They' ve picked up stuff for me before.

[katarina]

I've had that problem too, but after much arguing they eventually believed me and sent the stuff. You should not have given up until they agreed to send it.

[Leanne]

I found out that Virgin Wine club delivers to Caithness for no extra charge! You pay £20 per month and on the 3rd month they put £20. With this £80 you then select a case of wine (if you pick your own bottles it comes to a little more). We've just received 24 bottles as last quarter we were in the middle of moving and deferred :)

The wine is good, the service is good - forget furniture, get wine!

[Fstevens]

Hi Fran.
Yes, it is so annoying, I have just had battle with a seller in Yorkshire, was told on the AD that it was £9.95 main land, paid for the item as well, then got a email asking for another £8.50 because of the postcode, the Postage was nearly as dear as the Item.

agree we live in Gods Country, but |I also think we should not be penalised for it. Really browned off:mad::(

[cuddlepop]

I've encountered the same problem here Fran.
My catelogue company couriers refuse to deliver certain furniture to Skye so I'm just going to change companys.:Razz

[PantsMAN]

I get so annoyed when firms think caithness is an island off the mainland. I explained we are mainland, 102 miles north of inverness, yet they disagreee. Surely i should know if I am on an island ,I live here.!!!



I believe it occurs when a company uses an inaccurate postcode database which designates all KW codes as being based round Kirkwall (correct) and therefore assumes you must be on an Island (incorrect).

[Gizmo]

First Iwas refused a curry and nowI am refused furnitureI ordered on the internet.
I get so annoyed when firms think caithness is an island off the mainland. I explained we are mainland, 102 miles north of inverness, yet they disagreee. Surely i should know if I am on an island ,I live here.!!!
BecauseI live hereI am being penalised andI can't have the furnitureI wanted. I lknow i aM NOT THE ONLY ONE Isn't it annoying.GGrrr

Name and shame them Fran, so we know who to avoid.

It would be cool if there was comprehensive list of all firms who penalise customers in the far north, and also a list of 'Northern Friendly' firms, that way we could avoid the guilty parties and take our business elsewhere, i'm sure in time their policies would change if they were made aware that they were losing a lot of business because of them.

[kmahon2001]

I find this crazy aswell. I use the net to buy quite alot, mainly stuff i cant get up here. Find it very annoying being told that because the postcode is KW14, wich i think is the same as orkneys, then were classed non-mainland, total joke. Never been refused anything yet, but can always add on an extra £5+ for anything heavy-ish.

Orkney's postcodes are KW15-17, Caithness is KW1-14 - so there's no excuse for companies thinking we are in Orkney.

I honestly don't think this is actually the problem, I think it's simply an excuse to charge us more. I believe that those with IV postcodes are being charged extra for delivery too. Basically anything that comes under the county of Highland gets charged extra and often isn't included in any quote for UK Mainland postage - this may actually be against some kind of law or whatever because we are part of the mainland and therefore it should be quite reasonable for us to assume that any delivery quoted for UK Mainland includes us too.

I've actually seen listings on Ebay where they will deliver to Northern Ireland, and even the Republic of Ireland but they won't deliver up here, or they charge more to deliver up here than to NI or Eire - simply CRAZY!

You could understand additional delivery charges if it involves crossing a body of water, such as deliveries to the Northern Isles or Northern Ireland etc, but for deliveries that can go via road or rail all the way, there is simply no reasonable excuse for additiional charges. [disgust]

[kmahon2001]

Name and shame them Fran, so we know who to avoid.

It would be cool if there was comprehensive list of all firms who penalise customers in the far north, and also a list of 'Northern Friendly' firms, that way we could avoid the guilty parties and take our business elsewhere, i'm sure in time their policies would change if they were made aware that they were losing a lot of business because of them.

Surely these guilty companies don't care if we go elsewhere. That's why they are refusing to deliver up here, or are charging extra so that we will be put off ordering from them in the first place.

[kmahon2001]

If the Royal Mail strikes really do spell the end of the Royal Mail itself, that means we will all be facing the fact of additional delivery charges for each and every item we order - possibly even for letters too. Currently Royal Mail are the only company that charge the same price for delivery up here as they do for delivering from one side of London to the other.

[Gizmo]

Surely these guilty companies don't care if we go elsewhere. That's why they are refusing to deliver up here, or are charging extra so that we will be put off ordering from them in the first place.

There are obviously some, as Fran has pointed out, but i have not personally come across any firm that wouldn't deliver to me, but nearly all of them have tried to charge extra for delivery, they DO want our business, they are just ignorant to our location. So, these firms that are trying to charge us extra under the misguided belief that we are somehow not on the mainland UK, lets name and shame them, and if you feel the need, email them and tell them exactly why they are not getting your business. If enough people do that, they might sit up and start to listen.

[kmahon2001]

There are obviously some, as Fran has pointed out, but i have not personally come across any firm that wouldn't deliver to me, but nearly all of them have tried to charge extra for delivery, they DO want our business, they are just ignorant to our location. So, these firms that are trying to charge us extra under the misguided belief that we are somehow not on the mainland UK, lets name and shame them, and if you feel the need, email them and tell them exactly why they are not getting your business. If enough people do that, they might sit up and start to listen.

That's very true. I must admit that everytime I come across a company that wants to charge me extra for delivery, or won't deliver at all, I simply move on to another company that will deliver. I hadn't even thought of emailing that first company to let them know they had lost my custom and why, but I will do future.

I had someone actually try to charge me extra, when I ordered through Amazon Market Place. Fortunately Amazon intervened and pointed out to the company that they had signed up to Amazon's policy of same rate shipping costs to the whole of the UK.

I have, however, come across many listings on Ebay where they say they don't ship to the Highlands and Islands, or where they charge exhorbitant prices for delivery up here - and I'm not talking about private individuals selling unwanted items, where you can understand it a bit more, I'm talking about companies that list on Ebay. Sadly Ebay don't expect their companies to sign up to the same policy that Amazon do.

[Kevin Milkins]

My understanding of why it's expensive to get goods delivered to Caithness seems to be different to any that I have read so far.

Although the KW post code has been used to try and winkle a few more quid out of the job, My understanding is, (and I am sure someone will be quick to point out that I am talking a load of twaddle again) that there is very little goods produced in Caithness that can be transported South, so you have many more loads of goods coming up the A9, but very little in the way of back-loads going down.

Logistics is a very competitive industry, but you will get very few hauliers working for nothing.

[Rheghead]

Sometimes I wonder how these white van deliveries earn their money if they deliver up here. It is a 5 hour round trip of over 200 miles from Inverness, we only have 30,000 people here to support such businesses and there's quite a lot of them already.

If I want something delivering next day then I should pay for it but if I'm not bothered then I'm happy for it to be stored in Inverness until such time they get a decent van full of parcels to make it worthwhile to make the delivery, so long as I know that is what they're doing.

What irks me sometimes is that a van has come up with only a few items, what a waste in petrol time etc.

[Fran]

I agree, i wouldnt mind waiting for something to be delivered than no delivery at all I wouldn't even mind paying extra postage.. I dont know where they could deliver in inverness for me then i could get a van to collect.
When vans deliver up here, remember they deliver all over sutherland on route.

[poppett]

Even Inverness postcodes have a premium to pay, depending on the courier the company uses. The companies always blame the courier for the cost, but if they found one who didn`t charge extra for the highlands life would be so much easier.

[kmahon2001]

Even Inverness postcodes have a premium to pay, depending on the courier the company uses. The companies always blame the courier for the cost, but if they found one who didn`t charge extra for the highlands life would be so much easier.

Excellent point. Companies can use different couriers for different locations, if they so choose. Why are so many of them so inflexible that they are not even prepared to try and send something by Royal Mail, or another courier who won't charge a premium for delivering up here? If they cared about the customer, they would try to get the best deal for delivery instead of signing up with one courier company and accepting whatever their rates are. The same goes for any part of the country. If these companies never question the courier charges or shop around for the best deal, then the couriers will continue to charge whatever they want.

[kmahon2001]

Sometimes I wonder how these white van deliveries earn their money if they deliver up here. It is a 5 hour round trip of over 200 miles from Inverness, we only have 30,000 people here to support such businesses and there's quite a lot of them already.

If I want something delivering next day then I should pay for it but if I'm not bothered then I'm happy for it to be stored in Inverness until such time they get a decent van full of parcels to make it worthwhile to make the delivery, so long as I know that is what they're doing.

What irks me sometimes is that a van has come up with only a few items, what a waste in petrol time etc.

I agree. A few times I've had to wait an extra day or so for something to be delivered so that the van comes up full rather than half empty. I'm happy for that to be the case. I would rather that than being forced to pay high prices for delivery. If it's something I want urgently I would then accept that I'd have to pay extra for next day delivery service.

[The Pepsi Challenge]

Geography having the last laugh again.

[Bartlett Boy]

as far as i am aware caithness is in scotland and mainland yet delivery is always more how is this fair when a parcel is same weight and price no matter where sent in uk how can they justifiy this cheating folks out of money

[annthracks]

It amazes me that I can order something for £52 from China - zero postage, have it go through 6 different airports with UPS and get here in 4 days!! and yet if I want the same thing from south, it will cost me 70 odd quid - plus postage - and take up to 2 weeks to get here! Explain that if you can! (other than they order it from China paying £52, then charge me £20 for the privilege of having them order it)

[MR_A]

Orkney's postcodes are KW15-17, Caithness is KW1-14 - so there's no excuse for companies thinking we are in Orkney.


I'm KW15 and I'm in Wick :confused

[kmahon2001]

I'm KW15 and I'm in Wick :confused

Wick is KW1, so could the 5 be the digit from the second half of your postcode?