Can anyone help on my Cash4phones and the Royal Mail dilemma

mobilejunkie

Seems perfectly simple to me. As others have advised, send a formal LBA and if they don't pay up, sue. Any judge in a civil dispute decides the issue on the balance of probability and since the item was (according to Royal mail) delivered to the correct address it is up to the receipients to ensure that whoever is allowed to receive an item and sign for it on their premises is authorised to so do. Will be quite hard for them to claim it was never received when there is proof that it was. Many of these so-called "recycling" companies are blatantly dishonest and sometimes suing is the only way to get them to cough up (though most would do so before actual proceedings commence). In my opinion it would then be up to the dealer to sue Royal Mail if it thinks it can prove they failed to deliver it despite recording that they did.

Not so different to cashback claims; proof of delivery is always sufficient to sue and the dealers always pay up when their bluff is called.

grumbler

Nothing is perfect. If the legislation is not adequate for providing the sufficient proof than we either accept that the proof is insufficient or change the legislation.
It's OK if anybody at the given address can sign for the mail as long as the RM has a clear record about the identity of this person. Is it the company's (addressee) fault that they have no idea about the person who signed for the mail addressed to the company?
It's not that I am saying that this was the case. Just theorising. 75% of these phone buying companies are rogue.

mobilejunkie

Yes, it is. it's the address they tell customers to send things to so if they aren't in control of who's there and able to accept recorded mail it's their own fault. Otherwise no-one would ever be able to prove anything. Has worked for years with cashback claims - why not anything else?

funkyfifer

im-lost wrote: »

Send cash4phones a letter before action, giving 14 days to pay you or return your phone.
If they fail to do so file a claim at the courts for the full cost of the phone to replace.

They will have to prove that it wasn't delivered to them, as you have tracking to state it has.

They can either pay up and take the matter up with their insurers or royal mail, or they can
defend it in which case they will lose.

You will probably win by default. Then you have the long draw out process of getting them
to pay.

Oh if this looks like the only way I can go then I will do it, not only because it is a lot of money but because I am leaning more of the blame on this towards cash4phones. I am simply unable to accept the suggestions they have so far came up with. I will write them a letter in the morning, (send it recorded) and hope for the best, thanks for all your advice on this, I realise it is not the usual complaint against these types of companies and simply do not know how to go about trying to get a result!

mobilejunkie

Recorded is unnecssary for a LBA. Besides, you've found out they appear not to receive them despite being signed for!

funkyfifer

grumbler wrote: »

As I said above, I don't know how to handle this case. However, how can a recipient prove that something was not delivered to them? The recipient can only say this and the other side has to be able to prove them wrong.

Only a sender or RM can prove that it was delivered, but the 'proof' that RM have looks very doubtful to me.

Thanks for being honest and admitting that you also do not know where I stand, however I would like to point out that cash4phones told me they take deliveries of thousands of phones a week. Assuming, say half of these required a signature this would mean the postman would have a lot of signatures to get from the person who deals with the mail at that address
My point is this - would it not be quite simple for both cash4phones AND the Royal Mail to check the deliveries made for and signed by whoever, on the 19th December against my proof of posting, in regards to the time and the signature (obviously).
All of the deliveries requiring a signature should have one signature and it would not take long to look through all the signatures on a pc (I know this as I used to work in a haulage firm and I know as soon as these tracing devices are signed, they are logged and uploaded into the companies system) just to see if my delivery was the only one signed by a different person or if there are others. I do not know if anyone else has this problem with the company from that day, but they will know themselves. I just cannot understand the lack of interest, from both the Royal Mail (who could bring up that days delivery details within minutes) and from cash4phones (who could look at the deliveries received that day and see who signed for them and when) but they are both just telling me to blame the other party! which does not help me one bit! I have more faith in the Royal Mail than I do in cash4phones in regards to honesty but as far as helping me to trace this mystery signature, neither are prepared to help! I will put this in writing to both companies tomorrow, in the hope that one of them will take it upon themselves to try and sort this out!
It would have to be a very dodgy postie that would take one parcel (randomly) and sign for it himself on the off chance that the phone is worth a lot of money, it was well packed and as far as anyone knows it could have been worth only £20 or £30, but mine just happened to be worth £450! AND the postie would run the risk of being done with fraud and losing his/her job over it! Sorry for going on but it just seems so easy to solve this dilemma yet nobody is bothering, so I suppose I will have to force them to investigate with a claim raised by myself!
Thanks for your advice, and to everybody else who tried to help.:(

funkyfifer

custardy wrote: »

well for starters. RMs licence requires it to deliver to addresses,not people
so if you are in the property the item is addressd to,then its yours

So now you propose an entire change in the mail delivery system?
any item that requires a signature,would require the recipient to produce photo ID at the point of delivery.
So will you be looking for legislation to bring that in for couriers too?

Thanks for your replies, I just have one quick query hopefully you can help me with - this address, according to them, receive thousands of phones in a week, do you think it would more than likely be a regular postie delivering the mail to this address? Like up here in Scotland, my postie is the same the majority of the time so it seems to me like postmen have their own delivery routes (or maybe one or two postmen are assigned the route) therefore a quick check by Royal Mail would at least tell them who delivered the mail that day.
It just seems to me to be a pretty simple process to check these quite vital pieces of information and it would help me (and them) to find out who has whipped my phone, so I can have this whole mess sorted and get what I am entitled to!
Thanks in advance for any help you can give me, or even tell me whether you agree or disagree with my suggestions would be useful info for me, personally! :huh:

funkyfifer

Buzby wrote: »

I have many first hand issues where my RD mail has been signed for by a different firm at a different address, and only knew about it when they reposted it with a 'opened in error' message as an apology. As far as RM was concerned, the item was delivered.

As for the OP, these firms are well known for being 'flexible' so a court would need to see their records for inbound goods to check it hasn't been purposefully forgotten about.

Sorry, im not very knowledgeable on acronyms, can you tell me what an OP is please?

funkyfifer

mobilejunkie wrote: »

Seems perfectly simple to me. As others have advised, send a formal LBA

Not so different to cashback claims; proof of delivery is always sufficient to sue and the dealers always pay up when their bluff is called.

Thanks for the advice and I apologise for this but can you tell me what a formal LBA is please? I did google it but cannot find out what it means!
LETTER BEFORE ACTION! Sorry I just sussed it! thanks anyway!

custardy

funkyfifer wrote: »

Thanks for being honest and admitting that you also do not know where I stand, however I would like to point out that cash4phones told me they take deliveries of thousands of phones a week. Assuming, say half of these required a signature this would mean the postman would have a lot of signatures to get from the person who deals with the mail at that address
My point is this - would it not be quite simple for both cash4phones AND the Royal Mail to check the deliveries made for and signed by whoever, on the 19th December against my proof of posting, in regards to the time and the signature (obviously).
All of the deliveries requiring a signature should have one signature and it would not take long to look through all the signatures on a pc (I know this as I used to work in a haulage firm and I know as soon as these tracing devices are signed, they are logged and uploaded into the companies system) just to see if my delivery was the only one signed by a different person or if there are others. I do not know if anyone else has this problem with the company from that day, but they will know themselves. I just cannot understand the lack of interest, from both the Royal Mail (who could bring up that days delivery details within minutes) and from cash4phones (who could look at the deliveries received that day and see who signed for them and when) but they are both just telling me to blame the other party! which does not help me one bit! I have more faith in the Royal Mail than I do in cash4phones in regards to honesty but as far as helping me to trace this mystery signature, neither are prepared to help! I will put this in writing to both companies tomorrow, in the hope that one of them will take it upon themselves to try and sort this out!
It would have to be a very dodgy postie that would take one parcel (randomly) and sign for it himself on the off chance that the phone is worth a lot of money, it was well packed and as far as anyone knows it could have been worth only £20 or £30, but mine just happened to be worth £450! AND the postie would run the risk of being done with fraud and losing his/her job over it! Sorry for going on but it just seems so easy to solve this dilemma yet nobody is bothering, so I suppose I will have to force them to investigate with a claim raised by myself!
Thanks for your advice, and to everybody else who tried to help.:(

could they?