to think that, in this day and age, it should be possible for ac ourier to give a narrower time slot

[SoupDragon]

...than between 07:30- 17:30.

I mean, really, how difficult can it possibly be?

Quite agree.

Although British Gas in this area has now changed from United Utilities, UU gave their visits as 0800 to 2000 which meant nothing could be planned, and I decided to sit on a fold-up garden chair looking out of the front door, in case I missed their visit.

Have to say that the second chap from UU, who came to replace an electricity meter, said there was no love lost because some of the information given by BG was hopeless and he had spent many unhappy hours driving around to find some addresses where the postcode info was wrong, etc.

Maybe it was UU that decided not to renew the contract with BG and not the other way around!

"My courier had a website showing that my items had been loaded onto the lorry that morning, but then...nothing."

Someone sent me an eMac last week by Parcelforce on a 24 hour delivery basis. Seller was on Ebay and used their service to send me tracking number.

Parcelforce web site complained it was an invalid number (ref I was given was ABCD123456789 and the example showed XY123456789GB) so I checked with seller. He said it was correct number, but they had not yet collected. Dumb website - should show 'to be collected' not say reference code is invalid!

Tracking it at 10:00 the next day, it showed 1800 in Manchest 'collected from customer', 20:45 (Manchester still) tracked out of local hub, then

17-02 00:04 National Hub Received and processed

17-02 03:32 Deeside Depot Loaded to vehicle for delivery

17-02 03:45 Deeside Depot Received at local depot

Madness - seems to have 'arrived' at Deeside after it was put on a van there. Never appeared to leave the Deeside depot at all.

I used Chrome with an 'auto update' tool to refresh th page every 2 minutes and right up to it being delivered it showed nothing about leaving the depot. Arrived here around noon and fortunately I could wait in for it that day.

I have no idea where they take things (the "National Hub" - is it Birmingham or somewhere? but by the way the box had been ruffed up it showed it had been given 5 hours of extra travel when Manchester to Deeside is probably 45 miles...

YANBU. I have had a lot of stuff delivered from Kiddicare and they text you on the morning of delivery letting you know a one hour timeslot in which the parcel will be delivered. So far it has always been accurate. If they can do it, its obviously possible, but expect most companies wont pay the courier for that level of service