Did you enjoy my first postal story, posted last month, about The Unexplainable Mystery of the Yellow Wheel Swap? Well, here’s part two—which includes ingredients as varied as an Advent calendar, a neighbour with severe memory loss, and of course a questionable courier.

Two postal workers (you may recognise Erling from last month’s story), undoubtedly scheming about how to best annoy the customer.

Shipping is difficult. I don’t entirely understand why it is so difficult, but it clearly must be.

I’ll start this story on a bit of a personal note. Back in 2018, I met the girl who would eventually end up being my wife. We started dating, and one day in November we were randomly talking about Advent calendars. My girlfriend mentioned that when she grew up, she was very envious of one of her best friends for having a homemade Advent calendar all of her own, with a little gift-wrapped present for every day in December until Christmas Eve. As one of six siblings, my girlfriend understandably always had to share her calendars with somebody else—imagine the work involved in making six custom Advent calendars!

But being eager to impress my future wife, I naturally saw this as a huge opportunity. So I started planning everything carefully, bought 24—as here in Norway we celebrate on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day—small (OK, I admit, some not-so-small) gifts for her and wrapped them meticulously in lovely wrapping paper. Then, when I was visiting her in late November, I pinned every present to her bedroom wall while she was at work.

What’s that? Some acknowledging oohs and aahs in the back? Well … in case anybody’s wondering: I can practically guarantee that doing something like this will get you thousands of boyfriend (or girlfriend) points.

(Now, this may be a bit too much for some, but I can admit that I also wrote a poem for every day, with hints regarding what was in the presents, and sent her one every night via Messenger while she was asleep, so she could read that before opening her daily present. I think I can safely say, though, that that isn’t really necessary. A simple Advent calendar will do.)

Repeating the Success

After my girlfriend moved in with me the following year (I must have done something right!), we agreed that we would make a shared Advent calendar for the next Christmas. We would give each other presents for every other day from the 1st to the 22nd of December, and then we would both have presents for the 23rd and 24th … obviously, because a) otherwise one of us would not get a present on the 24th, and b) duh! One more present for each!

Needless to say, the calendar you see in the image above did contain a fair share of LEGO. After all, I had to try to get her used to the fact that going forward, small plastic bricks would be a big part of her life. This was reasonably well-received, so I was going to include some LEGO again. I had some smaller polybags and things lying around my LEGO room that I could use—which probably sounds familiar to many of you—but as she is very fond of the BrickHeadz figures I also wanted to buy a set specifically for the calendar.

40274 Mr. & Mrs. Claus. A perfect Advent calendar gift for a non-LEGO significant other.

Having decided that the cute little couple above would be perfect, I went to LEGO Shop at Home and ordered it there on November 9th. I figured that as there were still 21 days left until the first Advent calendar present would be opened, I probably wouldn’t need to have it shipped by DHL Express. Hence I didn’t pay extra for that, instead opting for the standard shipping solution.

Let me phrase it like Capitano Alberto Bertorelli in the wonderful ‘80s UK sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo! undoubtedly would: “What a mistaka to maka.”

Order shipped, November 13th

Replacement shipped, November 26th

LEGO’s standard shipping solution, you see, is a French company called DPD, with which I have no beef. I’m guessing they are probably decent couriers, as a big company like LEGO choose to do business with them. In Scandinavia, though, they partner with a courier whose name shall not be named here, but whose unfathomable incompetence will, sadly, be familiar to any fellow Scandinavian AFOL who has ordered from Shop at Home.

DISCLAIMER: Bear in mind that all this happened pre-COVID—these days, that’s a perfectly good excuse for things going slowly, as calculating shipping times for goods traveling across borders has become notoriously difficult. Back in late 2019, though, most people were blissfully unaware of the global pandemic that would strike just a few months later, and accurate tracking information was considered good customer service that could be provided relatively easily.

The order was shipped on November 13th. I followed the tracking progress, and it only took two days before it arrived in Oslo, Norway. So far, so good! But this is when that other courier takes over, and their own tracking information can be seen in the screenshot on the right. As one single glance at this will tell you, it quickly got complicated, and I’ll condense it so you won’t have to read it all (also: It’s in Norwegian, which probably adds another level of difficulty for most of you).

My package apparently cleared customs in Oslo by November 19th, as it was “under transport” on that day. But then, for some reason, it was seemingly sent back to customs … before again being in transit on the 22nd. Then it returned to customs for the third time!

Customer Service at its Best

As there were no more updates by the 25th, I called LEGO’s customer service, which is normally impeccable, and this was no exception. The call went a little something like this (I have condensed this as well):

Are: Hi! I ordered a LEGO set from your online shop more than two weeks ago, with standard shipping. There is no sign of it getting to me in the foreseeable future, and I need it for an Advent calendar.

Agent: No worries, something must have happened along the way. I’ll make sure we send you a replacement with DHL Express, free of charge. It should reach you in time.

Are: Thank you very much, I appreciate that. But I’ve talked to some of my friends who are LEGO fans, and I get the impression that this happens a lot. Isn’t that tedious for you?

Agent: (sighs) Yes. There are not that many of us working here at Customer Service, and we spend most of our time fixing these shipping mistakes. If it were up to us, we would certainly prefer going back to our old courier.

After the call, I was promptly sent a new order confirmation. This was shipped the following day … and arrived in perfect condition, delivered in hand on November 27th, less than 48 hours after I had placed the call. Very impressive! Now I could finish the Advent calendar on time, and all was well …

… except I just couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to that other package if I simply left it alone without getting in touch with the courier’s own customer service.

DHL to the rescue! Photo (and custom decals) courtesy of Patrick Baroni (Flickr | Instagram | Website)

The weird thing, you see, is that the day after I talked to the LEGO agent, the package finally cleared customs (eleven days after it first arrived) and was seemingly headed for my home town of Bergen. A little devil perched on my shoulder told me that obviously, the courier must have a wire tap specialist on their payroll, somebody who listens in to the LEGO Customer Service phone calls only to figure out when there is no point in messing with the customer anymore, and then reports back to HQ: “You can release the package now. A replacement has been sent, so we’re not in control of this situation anymore.”

Anyway, I thought my little experiment would fall apart there and then because surely, now that the original order was so close, it would only be a matter of time before that arrived as well. And I was right: It was only a matter of time.

38 more days, to be exact.

Chillin’ at the Delivery Centre

According to the tracking information, my package did actually arrive at the parcel delivery centre in Bergen on November 27th, the same day as the replacement LEGO set was delivered by DHL. But this is when the road once again gets twisty. On the 28th, the package is supposed to be delivered, but on the 29th, it has returned to the delivery centre, and I’m supposed to be “contacted to make delivery arrangements.”

No rush! Those packages will be delivered. Eventually.

What they’re referring to is an SMS telling me they would deliver the package that same day. Fair enough, and the next update is that the package has been loaded onto the truck for delivery. But then there’s a correction, saying it would now be delivered on the next workday before 4 pm. That would be Monday, December 2nd. And then this happens:

2019-12-02 09:33 BERGEN, Norway - The shipment is at the terminal. Recipient will be contacted to make delivery arrangements.

2019-12-03 09:44 BERGEN, Norway - The shipment is at the terminal. Recipient will be contacted to make delivery arrangements.

2019-12-04 09:55 BERGEN, Norway - The shipment is at the terminal. Recipient will be contacted to make delivery arrangements.

2019-12-05 06:12 BERGEN, Norway - The shipment is at the terminal. Recipient will be contacted to make delivery arrangements.

2019-12-06 04:20 BERGEN, Norway - The shipment is at the terminal. Recipient will be contacted to make delivery arrangements.

That’s another week gone, with complete radio silence. Nobody contacted me “to make delivery arrangements”. One more update arrived before Christmas:

No London trip is complete without a LEGO experience. This is Finley the Dragon Christmas Tree, built by my friend Caspar Bennedsen who is a Lego Certified Professional, and displayed at the Savoy Hotel for Christmas 2019.

2019-12-16 16:03 BERGEN, Norway - The shipment is at the terminal. Recipient will be contacted to make delivery arrangements.

Then I honestly forgot about the whole thing. After all, the replacement gift had been opened at that point (she liked it! Yay!), we celebrated the holidays with our families, went to London for New Year’s Eve (remember when we could actually travel abroad just for fun, when we wanted to, on a whim, without having to worry about which colour code the country was?) … and returned to Bergen to get back to work.

Just in time, it turned out, for the final twist!

A Complicated Delivery

Out of the blue, I received a phone call on January 3rd. Lo and behold, it was the courier! After sitting at the parcel delivery centre in Bergen for more than a month, the package had now been loaded onto the truck (again), the driver was just a couple of minutes away from my apartment, and this was him contacting me to make delivery arrangements! Finally, the moment I had been waiting for!

I was, of course, at work, and my fiancée wasn’t home, which was to be expected, considering how difficult this whole process had already been. But at least I could give the courier clear instructions:

Are: Drive around to the back of the building, that’ll save you climbing five floors.

Driver: I hope I won’t have to walk a lot. I can’t be expected to walk a lot.

Are: No, you just walk up one flight of stairs and take a left turn, and you’re there.

Driver: Is it far?

Are: No. There’s a mailbox outside, see if you can fit it in there.

Driver: Is nobody home?

Are: No, but if it doesn’t fit in the mailbox, please just leave it on the doormat.

Driver: No neighbours I can ask?

Are: Please don’t ask the neighbour. Just leave it there. It’ll be fine, trust me.

Driver: OK.

Three minutes later, the driver called me back.

Driver: Hi! It didn’t fit in the mailbox, so I knocked on your neighbour’s door. What a nice old man! He agreed to hold on to it for you, so you can pick it up there.

Are: I told you not to ask the neighbour! He’s living with severe dementia …

Driver: Nooo, I’m sure it’ll be fine. He seemed perfectly OK.

So when my fiancée got back home, I asked her to knock on our neighbour’s door and ask for the package. By now it’s probably needless to say that he had never heard of any package, never met the delivery driver, and couldn’t help in any way.

Social Services to the Rescue

In Norway, in order to enable people with dementia to live at home for a bit longer before having to relocate to a nursing home, social service workers stop by several times a day to make sure everything is fine. The next day I heard one of their cars stopping outside our apartment building and went outside, explaining my predicament to the nurse. She agreed to have a look and see if she could find my package.

A little later, she rang our doorbell, wondering if I could provide a picture of what was supposed to be inside the box, and when I showed her Mr. & Mrs. Claus, she smiled and said, “I think I can help you.” Then she went next door and returned with this:

Little did I know that my confused neighbour was a wannabe LEGO builder!

My next-door neighbour had opened the package, and then proceeded to open the set, luckily leaving the plastic bags inside intact. Maybe he had a secret wish to build with LEGO bricks that had never been fulfilled? Anyway, let’s summarise:

55 days after I placed the order at S@H, the package finally gets delivered—to my neighbour, despite my specific instructions—and when it then gets to me, thanks only to a friendly social service worker, it has even been opened. How’s that for good courier service?

Post-Credits Scenes

A couple of other interesting tidbits: firstly, I took screenshots of the insane tracking history on the courier’s website, just for the record. I also went to DPD’s website, because they provide basically the same information, only in English, which I thought could be interesting to have—only to find this fascinating piece of alternate history when I looked up the tracking number:

Pretty much a straight-forward delivery, wouldn’t you say…?

Secondly, I was very happy to receive one of those cheery little text messages a day or two later, saying, “Hey, we just delivered a package to you! Would you mind giving us a bit of feedback to tell us how we did?”—and while I normally think it is a huge nuisance being prompted to give feedback on pretty much everything one does these days, from a store visit to a car service to a hotel stay, in this case, I certainly didn’t mind it. So I sent back a, let’s say, less-than-glowing statement and was rewarded with a call from a (very embarrassed) customer service representative.

In her defence, she sincerely apologised on behalf of the company, accepted the full blame, and said she would personally have a chat with the driver who left the package with my neighbour despite me telling him not to. She also said she was perfectly aware that their reputation was far from stellar, claimed that they were working hard to improve it, and urged me to keep reporting cases like these, as this was the only way for them to get better.

The Set that Refused to be Delivered

And that’s really the end of the story, but I feel that there’s still one more thing to add. I said that my fiancée opened the gift, but she didn’t build the set straight away, which meant that we had two copies of it sitting around for a while (albeit one of them opened by the neighbour). A few months later we hosted an online quiz for some friends, and decided that the intact one could be a good prize for the winner.

So we put it in a cardboard box and shipped it out—with a different courier, the one I would normally trust the most—only for it to return to our local post office three weeks later with a notice that it was never picked up by the recipient. Who, in turn, had heard absolutely nothing from the courier that the package had arrived in the first place …

Shipping is difficult.

Last laugh: Erling (see previous instalment for his story).

Do you have a frustrating postal story of your own? Could you give us a fascinating insight into the secret world of couriers? Or perhaps your friendly old next-door neighbour is a secret LEGO builder? Please share it with us in the comments!

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