Parcelforce nightmare!

trickyvickz

Hi everyone

I was wondering if anyone had any advice with regards to a courier issue that I am having an absolute nightmare with.

Basically I posted a TV broadcast tape to France using Parcelforce next day delivery. To my suprise the tape did not arrive within four days, and upon chasing it I finally discovered that it had not even left the country, and had been held up in their depot in Northampton.

What it emerged had happened, is the depot in Manchester had put the worng sticker on the parcel, which was actually for a service that doesnt even exist anymore. The next depot didnt know what to do with it, so just didnt do anything, even though there was a contact name and number for myself on the packaging.

Eventually the tape was tracked down and sent along, but we missed the first broadcast of the programme through no fault of our own, got in a lot of trouble with the broadcaster, and have lost other work as a result.

Parcelforce did not offer any insurance as they dont for next day delivery, and although their maximum compensation is £200, they are refusing to pay anything other than the cost of the service we paid for initially.

I have tried to appeal against this, but keep getting told that they do not cover 'consequential loss', even though the whole situation was directly the fault of one of their employees for attatching the wrong sticker to the parcel in the first place.

If anyone has any advice about this I would love to hear it as Im fed up going backwards and forwards with them.

Thanks for reading, sorry its such a lengthy one! x x

2nd_Time_Lucky

I do the freight for our company and we have had simialr problems with missing magazine deadlines the best we seem able to get is a refund/credit note for the service they failed to provide.

What i have learned is that some courier companies are far better than others with certain countries. I personally wouldnt use parcelforce outside of the UK. For France we find the one named after explosives and the Fab express service company significantly more reliable than Dont care/Help/give a to$$ attitude of others whereas a Kazakstan delivery would find my choices reversed. Royal Mail Airsure has been outstanding for reliability and price too- a great suprise for us.

I believe the T&C exempt them from any consequential loss

trickyvickz

Definately worth remembering thank you for your reply. Ive been using the one names after explosives ever since and touch wood it has all been fine, although they are considerably more expensive. Saying that by comparison to things just not being delivered I guess theyre pretty reasonable!

Just cant quite beleive that their own stupidity is covered by consequential loss, what a joke!

pinkteapot

trickyvickz wrote: »

Just cant quite beleive that their own stupidity is covered by consequential loss, what a joke!

Unfortunately no; it is definitely consequential loss cover that you need for the situation in your original post. It is the losses you have incurred as a consequence of their service failure (i.e. stupidity).

Even if you had used a courier who offered consequential loss cover, in this case it would have been hard to claim because it appears from reading your post that there was no direct loss (e.g. if the broadcaster had charged you £1,000 for missing it) but rather lost business. You would have a hard time proving exactly how much they were liable for.

smcaul

Its very rare in the courier world that consequential loss is covered, and if it is then there is normally a very hefty premium to pay for it, that would be on top of the hefty premium you had already paid for the 24 hr international service!!!

PF have always excluded CL, you contract them to deliver an item in xx time scale, if they fail to do that then all they have to do is refund you the cost of the failed delivery. Royal Mail Special Delivery can have consequential loss added to it for extra, but I would imagine the T&C's are rather restrictive on it!