Are Royal Mail legally allowed to do this...fuming!!!

bella4uk

I posted an ebay item at the beginning of May, I sent it recorded delivery, suffice to say the item did not arrive and also cannot be traced as it hasn't been signed for, so obviously lost.
I put in a claim with the post office and waited. I phoned up a couple of months ago and asked why I hadn't been refunded. At the same time I had been refunded for a non trackable parcel that was destined for France but buyer didn't receive. I was told that as the buyer had not responded to a letter from the royal mail asking her to confirm that item had indeed gone missing, that was why there was a delay. I asked if I would be refunded regardless of whether buyer answered or not and she said yes and was going to put this as priority. 2 months further on still no compensation. So today I phoned and was told that unless she responds I will not get compensated so asked if they would send her another letter, she said she would ask but they may or may not!!! So I tried to put it to her that the girl could have moved, no use. By this time I was angry and argued that as it had not been signed for it must be lost, which she tried to say that sometimes things are received without a signature...but surely that means they are not doing their job properly. And what the heck is recorded delivery for!!!
I am seriously thinking of taking this further as they get about £30 week postage from me and I think they have a blummin cheek.
Rant over but I'm fuming!
Has anyone else had this problem?

black-saturn

Yes I sold a laptop for £120 a couple of years ago by special delivery and the seller said he didn't get it. I refunded him the money and claimed from the post office who said that the item had been delivered without a signature. So I never got the money back but the buyer still maintained he hadn't received it.

bella4uk

black-saturn wrote:

Yes I sold a laptop for £120 a couple of years ago by special delivery and the seller said he didn't get it. I refunded him the money and claimed from the post office who said that the item had been delivered without a signature. So I never got the money back but the buyer still maintained he hadn't received it.

I definately would have taken that further. My claim only amounted to £17 but it is the principle I don't like...they have lost it but are trying to pass the buck and really what they are saying by this is we don't believe you.
I am a bit annoyed at the buyer too as I refunded her straight away and I said they would be in touch and could she please answer....maybe she has moved

bella4uk

Also you say royal mail said it had been delivered but without a signature...how can they say that......oooh I can feel my self getting annoyed again!

bella4uk

I asked for the chairmans address, they are very good points made there. I will use them and send him a letter and if I have no joy I will think about making a calim. Do you think I should mention making a claim in the letter.

rushnowt

I posted about this a week or so ago, i had contacted RM to ask where I stood with items going missing and was told then that a claim could be made but if the buyer/customer etc did not reply to the letter that no compensation would be paid and the claim clossed.

I said at the time i was concerned about it and now it shows my concerns about it are justified.

It seems to me that RM can basically do whatever they want and we're stuffed.

On another note it is also very very rare that i have ever been asked to sign for a recorded letter/parcel. Today i was returned important documents which contained bank account details, CC details, address, name, date of birth etc etc, everything you could ever need to steal my identity, sent recorded and just dropped in my post box which is located on the gate away from my home. I was livid, but what can i do :mad:

essexhoney

bella4uk wrote:

which she tried to say that sometimes things are received without a signature...but surely that means they are not doing their job properly. And what the heck is recorded delivery for!!!

Since living here i have never once signed for anything that has come recorded delivery Its not that they even sign for it on my behalf they just leave the sticker in place and either hand it to me or put it straight through my door - on the plus side for me its handy as if im not in i dont have to grab the kids n go traipsing down to the sorting office, but as you say what is the point of recorded delivery if posties do as mine does!

kevinyork

ts_aly2000 wrote:

I was thinking about this one in the car actually.

If it came to it, I think I'd small claims court them. For breach of contract.

Items sent recorded will be signed for. Else what am I paying for. That's the contract we're entering into.

And I would damn well have the postage out of them too.

For £30 to serve the papers, it would be an open and shut case.

Your contract is with them, not them with the buyer. So the buyer doesn't even enter into the equation. It's the corporate machine introducing beaurocracy.

Yes they're perfectly entitled to contact the buyer. Well actually, no they're not. They are not really entitled to open up ANY line of communication with buyer, since the buyer isn't their customer, the seller is. I'm sure this crosses over onto the Data Protection Act somehow.

The seller deals with the buyer, the seller's supplier of services doesn't. They're simply not entitled to do that under strict contract law. They're not a governing body or final authority with investigating powers. They're just a company, just like the rest of 'em.

Small Claims. Costs, Postage, Goods, Time.

Loads to think about here, thank you. I claim about twice weekly from Royal Mail and have just had the recorded signature scenario the OP describes...website track and trace doesnt confirm delivery or have a signature...buyer says never received item...Royal Mail say they wont pay because buyer hasnt returned confirmation. Im damn sure if the website showed an item as delivered yet we put in a claim they would use the website status as the reason for rejecting the claim without writing to the recipient but not when its the other way round.

I spoke to a Supervisor and asked where in their terms and conditions for Recorded Delivery it says they can do this. She sent me a cobbled together email basically saying they can do what they want...not terms and conditions just how her team operates!

Anyway buyer has now returned form and they have paid out but its a pity as I was definately going to test this one at the Small Claims Court.

The comment about Data Protection is very interesting and I would love to know if this is right. If it is we could include a comment on our claim forms to say that due to Data Protection Royal Mail CANNOT use the information given to contact the other person....God that would be nice.

RM customer service is appalling lately. When they send out these letters to the recipients they only give them 5 days (not working days) to return them before rejecting the claim yet by their own admission have a mail backlog of up to 3 weeks! So they are rejecting claims where the recipients confirmation could be in their backlog! Appalling.

bella4uk

I've had a little snoop and there is a watchdog group at https://www.postwatch.co.uk and they are independant from royal mail and they can deal with claims. I think I will try them and see how it goes, I'm not very good at expressing my self in words so I hope I can do it. I'm going on holiday so may have to wait. Also as it is so long since I sold this item there is no record of it on ebay and cannot remeber accurate prices and luckily I scanned the recorded delivery slip the RM requested as I would have no details at all.

soolin

I lost a claim once on a recorded delivery item as the postcode (an Oxbridge uni) di dnot appear in their database.

Th efact that this uni were given this postcode many years ago by the RM did not matter, if it is not in their database now it is not claimable against.

I rarely bother with recorded anymore as it is a waste of time and I resent paying 68p merely for a signature to prove something has been delivered.

Soo

kevinyork

bella4uk wrote:

I asked for the chairmans address, they are very good points made there. I will use them and send him a letter and if I have no joy I will think about making a calim. Do you think I should mention making a claim in the letter.

I wrote a letter to the Chairmans office a couple of months back. Basically I was finding that recorded deliveries were not appearing on their track and trace system for up to 3 months after delivery so I had no proof of delivery in case of claims of non receipt. However my main issue, and this is where it gets very interesting, all started when a customer said a Special Delivery hadnt been received on the day it should have arrived. I looked at the website-no trace. I called Royal Mail and they said the van had broken down and it would be delivered the next day...they also sent me a cheque for the cost of the Special Delivery becasue they had failed to meet the deadline. Anyway 2 days later I checked the website and the status had changed to 'this item has been delivered'....no date or time and when you clicked to view the scanned signature the time box next to the signature was blank. Therefore unless my customer had advised me about not receiving it when he should have I would have been none the wiser.

I then started monitoring Special Deliveries and noted that several didnt show a time on them. Again, the time box next to the scanned signatures were also blank so I contacted my customers for these non timed ones and guess what....they were delivered late!

It appears that their system is not showing the time of delivery if they have not met the 1pm delivery deadline! Why would this be-to avoid paying compensation under the terms of their Special Delivery guarentee?? It wasnt a conicidence, on every occassion a time was omitted from the system the customer told me the item was late!

Anyway the Chairmans office were useless. Fobbed me off with a 'this should not happen but occassionally' rubbish and tried to tell me it was not deliberate.

The moral is ALWAYS get a time of delivery for your Special Deliveries. If its not on the website and not shown on the scanned signature card then call them If they cant tell you the time of delivery you are entitled to your money back! Some operators there have tried to fob me off saying the delivery driver was back at the depot by 1pm so must have delivered it before then but the customer failed to fill in the time next to their signature. However the card actually says 'check time and sign' so the postie should be the one filling in the time....why would he leave it blank eh? Possibly because he was late!

Sorry about my rant, Royal Mail are my worst enemy at the moment, what with increasing postal charges as well, and the sooner their monopoly goes the better.