Unpaid Postage - Funny Story, Need Advice

jonnyfiasco

So a company I work for sent out postcards to various health professionals promoting our service to them.

Unfortunately on one of the postcards, postage was forgotten resulting in one of the health professionals having to pay for postage to receive something that he described as junk mail (which it was).

He said he had to pay £1.32 and then proceeded to tell us he would be seeking compensation of the postage, petrol costs (£2.70) plus 1 hour of his time (at his normal rate of £120) as he had to drive 6 miles and the amount of time spent writing the email complaint for a total of £124.02. He said my company had 30 days to pay or he will go to the small claims court and we would be liable for legal costs as advised by his solicitor.

We all were having a laugh in the office about it, and am sure we would have had no problem sending him the postage and petrol cost but his arrogance and aggressiveness caused my boss to pretty much tell him to go f**k himself.

I doubt he has a case, but am interested in peoples thoughts.

Judith_W

He chose to go and pick up the parcel, if he wasn't expecting anything he could have just left it and not been out of pocket! Madness.

timbstoke

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I can see the average magistrate taking a pretty sympathetic view of someone in his situation, especially if the company involved had refused to enter into any discussion over the matter. I'm not sure why you'd expect that he has no case.

Personally, I'd send a cheque for £15 along with profuse apologies for neglecting to pay postage. In the letter, I'd tell him that you reject his claim for his time, however as a goodwill gesture you have allowed for the costs of having an assistant/secretary fetch the parcel on his behalf. If he insists on going to court then, you have a pretty good defence that someone on £120 an hour shouldn't be collecting his own post, and covering the costs of an hours wages of the average secretary/admin person is more than reasonable on your part.

Edit: For the record, legal fees are generally not reclaimable in the small claims track.

arcon5

jull wrote: »

Good for you,

I hope he wins.

Any particular reason ?


I really cannot figure out on what grounds he will file a claim on. It would be compared to driving to Tesco for a loaf of bread then trying to reclaim petrol because they was out of stock.

If nothing interesting comes of this thread, you can sleep well tonight op knowing you made a few of us giggle

visidigi

would all depend if the mail you sent him was solicited or not - if you are spamming them with these cards without prior approval and you made the mistake of not paying postage then you are liable, although consequential loss may be harder to prove or account for - I think laughing about it in the office is all well and good, but put yourself in his shoes, you'd be pretty hacked off spending your time obtaining junk mail.

Your company were directly responsible for the costs incurred by the recipient through negligence in my opinion.

visidigi

arcon5 wrote: »

It would be compared to driving to Tesco for a loaf of bread then trying to reclaim petrol because they was out of stock.

Thats a poor example in my opinion - after all we're talking about personally addressed mail, not a generic loaf of bread - the guy couldn't get this items anywhere else and only had a limited time period to obtain it, additionally until the fee was paid the user wasn't able to know what it was he'd been sent - poor from the original company - especially if unsolicited.

Equaliser123

timbstoke wrote: »

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I can see the average magistrate taking a pretty sympathetic view of someone in his situation, especially if the company involved had refused to enter into any discussion over the matter. I'm not sure why you'd expect that he has no case.

Personally, I'd send a cheque for £15 along with profuse apologies for neglecting to pay postage. In the letter, I'd tell him that you reject his claim for his time, however as a goodwill gesture you have allowed for the costs of having an assistant/secretary fetch the parcel on his behalf. If he insists on going to court then, you have a pretty good defence that someone on £120 an hour shouldn't be collecting his own post, and covering the costs of an hours wages of the average secretary/admin person is more than reasonable on your part.

Edit: For the record, legal fees are generally not reclaimable in the small claims track.

It wouldn't be a magistrate.

And if a solicitor is used, costs of issue are claimable.

dzug1

He didn't HAVE to pay - he could have refused delivery.

I doubt if he's a case.

visidigi

I think the point is its spam mail, if unsolicited, if it was legitimate mail and they wanted it they wouldnt have complained to the same extent.

And the problem with this situation is the RM will not show you what it is before you pay as they are still having the cost of posting to deal with.

so to find out if it is legitimate mail DOES require the person to pay.

pinkshoes

jonnyfiasco wrote: »

He said he had to pay £1.32 and then proceeded to tell us he would be seeking compensation of the postage, petrol costs (£2.70) plus 1 hour of his time (at his normal rate of £120) as he had to drive 6 miles and the amount of time spent writing the email complaint for a total of £124.02. He said my company had 30 days to pay or he will go to the small claims court and we would be liable for legal costs as advised by his solicitor.

Anyone who sends a £120/hour member of staff out to collect something from the post office is clearly a fool!

Someone paid that much has a secretary who would collect it and write the letter of complain for them!

And if he took 1 hour to drive 6 miles and write a complaint letter, then let's hope he's more efficient at his £120/hour job!

I'd offer to pay the £1.32, petrol money, and 1 hour of time at minimum wage.

mazza111

He didn't need to collect it, he could have affixed postage stamps to cover the cost. Therefore reducing the amount of time etc. The most I would be refunding him is the £1.32. One of our local government parties done a bang load of them last year, to almost every address in town.... Bet they lost a few votes that year :rotfl: