Stolen delivery from M&S - left on doorstep

chris_k

I was furious with M&S after I returned home on New Years Day. My neighbours returned empty boxes, plastic bags and invoices for about £250 of goods that I had ordered on Christmas Day that they had found blowing around the street. It appears someone stole them when M&S left the goods on my doorstep or some other insecure location.

M&S customer services say they won't reship the goods until they have spoken to the delivery company and they have investigated. I got the maanger at M&S to commit to phoning me back before 5pm on Wednesday.

I asked if the could package the goods and not send them until Wednesday - they say they coudn't as anything that is packed is shipped. I asked if they could send them back to themselves in this case - they say they coudn't.

What annoys me is they don't want to help. I sat for over an hour on Christmas morning ordering these goods - and because the delivery driver coudn't be bothered to deliver to a neighbour or take them back to his warehouse we will now have to pay full price for similar goods from M&S.

I am now tempted to ask M&S to replace the goods with similar items whether they are in the sale or not.

Does anyone have any advice?

Dora_the_Explorer_5

It sounds tough, but I think M&S are acting sensibly by not shipping any replacements until their investigation is complete. If they shipped on the basis of a phone call saying goods hadn't been received - the world and his dog would be phoning them.
Once the investigation is complete they may be happy to send you the items or replacements if the originals are no longer available at a good price, but I don't think trying to get them to alter their shipping system just for you will work as it's the system that keeps the delivery cost low.

[Deleted User]

You should also report the theft to the police, if only for the crime number.

M&S should take it more seriously once they have a crime number.

What is their policy on getting the goods signed for? Did someone sign and pretend to be you? Did the lazy delivery driver simply dump them near to the house.

Should he have obtained a signature?

All these questions can be put to M&S.

Wig

Good point,

Report it to police and ask for a crime number, too many crimes go unreported.

withabix

Yes, report it.

That way your local police will get an unsolved crime on their list, to dent their statistics.

If we all reported crimes more often, the police would have to work harder and solve a few more!

It's not really M&S's fault anyway. It's the fault of the delivery company, who probably took on freelance donkeys from an agency for the busy period.

I had a lot of trouble last Christmas with parcel deliveries to a construction site I was running. The delivery driver (agency) kept reporting the delivery as 'nobody home' because he couldn't be arsed driving down the road where our site was located. Too much like work.

chris_k

I reported it to the police, who said it was M&S responsibility to sort. The policewoman gave me her collar number and name and said that M&S if required could talk to her. I didn't get a crime number though - I presume beacuse they didn't want to have it on their statistics.

The first customer services I spoke to siad it was M&S policy to leave goods on peoples doorsteps! When I spoke to the manager she admitted that this is not the case if it is visible to anyone passing, but a porch or hidden somewhere is acceptable.

Whether it is M&S or its delivery company should make no difference to me. What suprises me is M&S and it's delivery company delivery systems. Even cheap electrical companies such as Ebuyer use couriers who have a track system on their website. In fact Ebuyer even sent me an email to say that they had been unable to deliver.

My other concern is it was obvious to anyone that there was no-one at home which was an open an invitation for someone to burgle our house. In addition we had all of our personal details blowing around in the street on the packaging and invoices.

Wig

Insist on getting it logged as a crime, if neccessary go to the police station in person, and insist on a written copy of the reported crime. Don't let them get away with not recording the crime.

Them not recording crimes leads to a whole lot of problems for a great number of people later in life. It has happened to me and I will never leave a police station in future without some record of why I was there and what I was reporting. Also in the recent case of the murdered police woman in Birmingham? The police did not record a previous crime which happened weeks before that, which was very relevant and could have prevented the murder from happening!

But I would wait until you know for certain that this is what happened, they might not have delivered it and left it.

[Deleted User]

Insist on reporting it as a theft. If the stuff is missing and M&S say they delivered it - then where is it?

M&S also should be investigating up to the point when it was delivered. But AFTER it was delivered and crime has occured and it is a police matter.

Go higher.

CrazyChemist_2

If you're getting nowhere with M&S, try approaching your credit card company (did you pay for the good with a credit card?) as they are equally liable and will withdraw the payment from M&S once you put in an application to them. If you just phone your Credit Card company they should advise you. In case they ask, it's Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act that makes them liable for this too.

Sooler

Wait until 5pm Wednesday I guess, then tell M&S you're still waiting delivery of the items. It will be for M&S to prove succesful delivery, as this has not occured they have yet to fulfill the order.

chris_k

Thank you for all of your views so far - I am going to wait until 4:30pm tomorrow and if I haven't heard anyhting I will phone M&S. To make me feel better the Royal Mail left a parcel on my doorstep from Amazon this morning - at least that wasn't stolen!