My daughter had her credit card swallowed by a cash machine on 13 July in Peru while travelling around South America. I arranged for a company called Parcel Monkey to deliver a replacement card to a hostel where she could be for five days to give them (I thought) a big window for delivery. It quoted a delivery time of four to five days. The parcel was collected from us on Tuesday 26 July but it then estimated a delivery time of 15 days (which took us into August by which stage my daughter was long gone).
I believe that I have been misled with a service that the company must have known it was unable to deliver. It told me that this was because the delivery was to a remote area. I am trying to have it delivered to Sucre, which is the capital of Bolivia – it can hardly be called a remote area. CJ, Cirencester, Gloucestershire
According to its website, Parcel Monkey was set up in 2009 with “the dream of bringing cheap parcel delivery to the masses”, claiming now to be well-established in the UK. But it is an agency, meaning that its business model involves sub-contracting out to local courier companies (which customers are invited to choose) over which it has no direct control, while delays with customs can extend predicted deadlines. We wondered why you had not asked your daughter’s card issuer (Santander) to forward it to her. But apparently when she reported the card lost it suggested she go to a local branch – and there are not many in Peru. She also asked if they could post it to her out there but they said it could only be sent to the address registered to the card.
We tested the Parcel Monkey site and it did indeed give us a four- to six-day quote for sending a package to Bolivia, so we asked it to explain what had happened. It said in a statement: “The item was held by Bolivian customs and as they could not trace the recipient [CJ’s daughter] direct, CJ had provided the contact number of the hostel her daughter was staying in and not a direct line number, which created the communication delay with customs officials.”
As a gesture of goodwill the company has refunded the cost of your order (£30.25). The lesson from this is to always take an additional card or payment method on extensive travels (and maybe not rely on your mum to sort out your problems). We also think the company should not be specifying delivery time frames that are ambitious, to say the least. It did point out that tracking services are provided to customers to monitor the movement of items, but this isn’t always helpful when people are travelling on this sort of scale.
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