HERMES scam?

makemdano · 28 May 2016 at 11:46AM

I sold a guitar on EBay 2 months ago which with packaging weighrd 4.6 kg. Used the Hermes up to 5kg service and after depot received it I received an invoice for £10.80. Either I paid this or faced an Ebay refund claim so I paid up. Sold another guitar this week which weighed 6.5 kg so I paid for the 5-10kg service and guess what - same invoice for £10.80. I paid this but raised a question on Hermes saying I had paid under duress and wished to challenge their overwight claim. The buyer kindly agreed to weigh the item on receipt and has emailed me photographic evidence of the parcel weight. I have advised Hermes that unless they reply to my query I will follow this through my credit card supplier and paypal (not expecting much help from Paypal). In both cases I imported the parcel details from Ebay so Hermes know they have me over a barrel and I think they are using this fact to illegally extract money from their customer.

ballisticbrian · 28 May 2016 at 12:06PM

" Either I paid this or faced an Ebay refund claim so I paid up."

How can Hermes make you face an eBay "refund" claim, when you are the one who paid Hermes? There is nothing they can claim from you?

soolin · 28 May 2016 at 12:17PM

makemdano wrote: »

I sold a guitar on EBay 2 months ago which with packaging weighrd 4.6 kg. Used the Hermes up to 5kg service and after depot received it I received an invoice for £10.80. Either I paid this or faced an Ebay refund claim so I paid up. Sold another guitar this week which weighed 6.5 kg so I paid for the 5-10kg service and guess what - same invoice for £10.80. I paid this but raised a question on Hermes saying I had paid under duress and wished to challenge their overwight claim. The buyer kindly agreed to weigh the item on receipt and has emailed me photographic evidence of the parcel weight. I have advised Hermes that unless they reply to my query I will follow this through my credit card supplier and paypal (not expecting much help from Paypal). In both cases I imported the parcel details from Ebay so Hermes know they have me over a barrel and I think they are using this fact to illegally extract money from their customer.

Hermes also have size limitations and poor use of language means that they refer to exceeding the size limits as a 'weight' issue as well.

Were you compliant with the overall outer limit?

makemdano · 28 May 2016 at 5:37PM

ballisticbrian wrote: »

How can Hermes make you face an eBay "refund" claim, when you are the one who paid Hermes? There is nothing they can claim from you?

Ebay refund claim from the buyer ...not Hermes, that's why I said EBAY refund claim. If I don't pay they don't deliver so buyer quite rightly claims a refund. They don't allow customers into local depots either so you can't go and collect what is rightfully yours

mrcol1000 · 28 May 2016 at 5:41PM

makemdano wrote: »

Ebay refund claim from the buyer ...not Hermes, that's why I said EBAY refund claim. If I don't pay they don't deliver so buyer quite rightly claims a refund. They don't allow customers into local depots either so you can't go and collect what is rightfully yours

They do normally deliver the item when they issue an excess invoice. However if you do not pay the invoice I'd forget ever using them again. As above they probably mean it is bigger than their limits than the weight. A well packaged guitar would probably be bigger than they carry.

makemdano · 28 May 2016 at 5:46PM

soolin wrote: »

Hermes also have size limitations and poor use of language means that they refer to exceeding the size limits as a 'weight' issue as well.

That's their problem, if they say it was weight then that's what I'll pin my complaint on. If they change their mind they will be made to look rather stupid I think.

Were you compliant with the overall outer limit?

Yes its a standard size Strat box which I've used many times and I have it in writing from them that the parcel was charged because it was overweight. (this came from customer services online chat which I've cut&pasted and printed off) I have used Hermes for a good while shipping low priced electric guitars (although I wouldn't dream of using them for higher end instruments) and until recently there have been no problems. Fenders and Gibsons all go via Parcel Force, using the interparcel service as the agent and I will probably use them for everything now. Trawling the net I see there are a few complaints about Hermes, some from business users so it would appear they are just trying it on. If customers just vote with their feet it serves them right.

makemdano · 28 May 2016 at 5:50PM

mrcol1000 wrote: »

They do normally deliver the item when they issue an excess invoice. However if you do not pay the invoice I'd forget ever using them again. As above they probably mean it is bigger than their limits than the weight. A well packaged guitar would probably be bigger than they carry.

I'd heard that but wasn't prepared to take the risk of my buyer not receiving what he'd paid for so I paid up straightaway. As regards size I've been shipping guitars for around 2 years and never had the problem until recently....perhaps I've just been lucky or maybe they've changed their size restriction.

martindow · 28 May 2016 at 7:13PM

These are their size and weight limits

The maximum length parcel that we can accept for carriage is 120cm and the maximum weight is 15kg.
The maximum volume of your parcel must be less than 225cm. You can calculate this by entering the parcel dimensions into the following calculation:
((width + height) x 2) + length = < 225cm.

http://support.myhermes.co.uk/app/answers/detail/a_id/433/~/parcel-size

If you've exceeded these you are likely to be asked to pay extra.

spencer_aldred · 5 December 2017 at 11:31AM

We regularly send out parcels through courier brokers such as interparcel, "MYHERMES" are the worst offender for fake measurements, they charge us an extra £4 for every parcel they state is not correctly measured, the funny thing is we only have 8 standard size boxes that we use and the dimensions they give us are totally different to what we stock, plus all our measurements are logged every time, I believe they are doing this on a massive scale to thousands of customers every week earning them a massive extra revenue. This is fraud on a huge scale but what can you do about it, they have you over a barrel, you pay it or they do not deliver your parcel.

mrcol1000 · 5 December 2017 at 11:57AM

spencer_aldred wrote: »

We regularly send out parcels through courier brokers such as interparcel, "MYHERMES" are the worst offender for fake measurements, they charge us an extra £4 for every parcel they state is not correctly measured, the funny thing is we only have 8 standard size boxes that we use and the dimensions they give us are totally different to what we stock, plus all our measurements are logged every time, I believe they are doing this on a massive scale to thousands of customers every week earning them a massive extra revenue. This is fraud on a huge scale but what can you do about it, they have you over a barrel, you pay it or they do not deliver your parcel.

I send 100s of parcels through them and have only ever had a handful of overweight parcels. These have all been debatable and most likely my fault. UPS however, through Parcel Hero was claiming parcels were overweight every other parcel. Even though I was 99% sure they were correct. Since I swapped to Parcel 2 Go have not had a problem.

HERMES scam?

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free