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Couriers are wilfully stupid.

Roughly two weeks ago I put my ATM card in a Barclays Cash Machine that was under the weather, and it swallowed it without comment. After a few minutes of throcking the 'Return Card', 'Cancel', and assorted other buttons, I gave in to the realisation that I wouldn't be seeing my dear card again and bludged a coffee off Sarah.

When I got to work, being a suitably paranoid citizen I called Barclays immediately and reported that I had lost the card. Their policy is to cancel it immediately (fair enough) and arrange a replacement card (a pain in the arse, but again fair enough. Why take chances?). Regrettably it is also their policy to use a firm called Secure Mail Services (SMS) to deliver the replacement card. Saga, commence.

Predictably, SMS tried to deliver to my home address, which they had been given by Barclays. Predictably, as it was a week day during office hours, I wasn't there. So far so UK.

Instead of the de facto standard practice of leaving a note to explain the failed delivery, however, they sent me a letter via Royal Mail the next day; I didn't find out until two days after they'd tried. Clearly they don't trust their own couriers to deliver a note even when already at the delivery address.

When I found the letter upon returning home in the evening, naturally I called to arrange redelivery to my office. I was told the earliest they could do it was two days later—a Friday.

Come Friday I gamely set out my drivers' license and telephone on my desk, waiting for the inevitable identification check (or call asking for directions). Nothing. I called the firm at about 4.30pm asking where the courier was, and they admitted that it was unlikely anyone would be turning up at that stage. What?

I rearranged delivery for the weekend, noting that I was going to be out for large portions of it. I didn't dare hope they would even try to deliver my bank card, and sure enough, they didn't.

Yesterday I called early in the morning to make sure SMS would try to deliver it that day. "Yes," they said, "we'll be attempting another delivery today." Finally! When I asked to confirm the address, however, it turned out that they were attempting to deliver it to my home address, and that the courier couldn't possibly be given another address that late in the day (9am). It is at this point I realised that couriers are wilfully stupid. There can be no other explanation.

Today I received my bank card, a good twelve days after it was issued, in (I suspect) the last delivery of the day.