Royal Mail refusing to compensate for lost recorded delivery item

adriandilly

Hi,
I bought an item on ebay back in October and it did not work. I contacted the seller and asked to return it. He said he's sorry about the fault and to send it back, to an address in Ashford. I sent it recorded delivery with Royal Mail on 1st November and according to track and trace it still hasn't arrived.
I gathered all the evidence required for lost items by Royal Mail, and sent off a claim last week.
I've just received a letter from Royal Mail saying that unfortunately because the recipient's address was not recognised they cannot offer me compensation!!

Is the ebay seller or the Royal Mail at fault here?
What can I do for compensation?
I can't leave a feedback comment for the seller because the transaction was too long ago now

Thanks in advance

theonlywayisup

If the address is not recognised then they cannot be responsible. Have you checked it on their database? http://www.royalmail.com/postcode-finder?gear=postcode

adriandilly

I have just checked, it is not on the database. Should I take this up with the seller? The fact remains his address is not recognised.
Royal Mail said if something is undelivered and does not have a return address it is opened to try and determine the sender's address.
Is it possible that the item will be returned to me (even after all this time) now they've denied me compensation?

FlowerCup

Sometimes happens with non-valid post office addresses (usually new-builds). I work for the co-op bank, and its the same really in the sense that no matter what we send out to a customer, we wont accept responsibility for anything that does not arrive to them if they register a non valid p.o address with us. Would be interesting to know whats actually happened to your package though.... you would think they would hold them for a while? After all you have the tracking number.

soolin

I had the exact same thing about 7-8 years ago, I sent a book recorded delivery to a library at a major UK uni and it failed to arrive and I was denied compensation as post code was wrong. Uni stationery and online presence all showed this post code and they told me they had problems with Royal Mail all the time.

I never did get my compensation

k66yla

Did you put your address on the reverse of the parcel?

adriandilly

k66yla wrote: »

Did you put your address on the reverse of the parcel?

I'm not 100%

I've just now ordered some custom return address labels on ebay so I can be sure next time though! (That's if Royal Mail can manage to deliver those :rotfl:)

adriandilly

Is it now expecting too much of Royal Mail to correlate a complaint-with-tracking-number to a missing-parcel-with-tracking-number, and send it back to me?

soolin

adriandilly wrote: »

Is it now expecting too much of Royal Mail to correlate a complaint-with-tracking-number to a missing-parcel-with-tracking-number, and send it back to me?

Yes it is as they don't have your address if it is not on the outer wrapping, there is a graveyard of 'lost' parcels in Belfast (I think it is Belfast) and I don't think it realistic to expect RM to pay someone to match all missing parcels with no return address with claims.

Pembroke

My Post office won't send items recorded delivery without a return address on the package, and I also thought that their system would flag up an invalid address when they scanned in the barcode on the RD label.

Your problem also depends on what part of the address is incorrect. If it's just the postcode then you should be able to ascertain the nearest sorting office to the address and give them a call to see if they can tell you anything about your item. It may be that it was delivered, or it may be sitting on a shelf in the office.

KxMx

The Post Office address system verification is rubbish.

When I sent a RD to my local Hospital of all places it had a big "no" under address validated. There is no way my Hospitals post code and be classed as not valid under a decent system!