RM won't let me claim for postal losses anymore

bylromarha

As I've now put "too many" claims through for losses, RM refuse to refund me for lost items.

They said they need a signed loss claim from customers before they'll refund me.

On my last claim, the forms RM sent to my customers, 50% of customers never returned to RM, so I didn't get paid for my losses.

Wondered how you all handle this issue?

Do you get customers to return a completed claim form to you before you refund/replace? This seems to me the only viable solution in order to claim successfully, but hacks me off when it happens to me as a customer as I want my goods and it isn't my fault the post lost them and I hate waiting even more time through no fault of my own!

So what do you do?

theonlywayisup

If you are selling via Ebay/Paypal then you cannot force your customers to return/complete a claim form.

Perhaps you need to send some items via a more secure means?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

How many claims have you made and how many items are you posting? How are you posting your items (over counter, franking, account with BPL code or a different code?)

darkrev

Could you make it part of your terms and conditions that a refund will be given when a claim for is verified by the royal mail ?

darkrev

or charge for a verifiable form of postage and any other postage is at buyers risk if you have a proof of posting ?

theonlywayisup

darkrev wrote: »

Could you make it part of your terms and conditions that a refund will be given when a claim for is verified by the royal mail ?

darkrev wrote: »

or charge for a verifiable form of postage and any other postage is at buyers risk if you have a proof of posting ?

None of these will work with Ebay/Paypal or DSR.

DaisyFlower

For them to refuse, you must be claiming a lot and more than their average loss/damage rate.

As a buyer, I would not be held to ransom over a claim form for RM. A refund is from the seller, who then may recover their loss from the courier if they so choose.

Perhaps you need to look into other services with full tracking.

soolin

I'm interested in how many is too many and whether this is on the back of no refunds for business sellers using franked mail.

bylromarha

Ooh, lots of questions!

Everything claimed for are items paid for and posted at the post office counter, so POPs all in hand, verified by the staff serving.

Recorded not used. I gave up with recorded as it only updates online about 50% of the time and Soolin pointed out ages ago that RM insure you for 100 x 1st class losses anyway standard post, so what is the point of recorded?

This is my 3rd bulk claim in 2 years. Each claim has between 6-8 items, each item averaging £10 - £30 cost price loss. This last claim to go through was £110 total (item + postage cost) for 6 items lost.

Full tracking means courier (minimum £5 post per item) or special delivery (minimum £5.90 from next week), so not an option as priced out of market.

Not sure there can be an average loss rate - RM have no way of knowing how much each seller is posting, so a claim of 6 lost items is different to a seller posting 10 items per month than a seller posting 10000 items per month.

I agree I cannot hold people to ransom for a claim form as per ebay rules - not the buyers fault, but RM will not refund me anymore without a completed claim form.

My thinking currently is if I send an 1st class SAE with claim form to buyers, then 95% will be happy to return the form and the 5% who argue about it I'll deal with on a case by case.

F&L

So you've made 20 claims in two years roughly? I spend £25k per annum on postage though a discounted RM account and although I've never, and now can't claim for losses I'm not sure I'd have reached that number. Whilst the RM don't know how many items you post, if you compare your postage costs to mine perhaps that will provide some indication as to whether your claims are higher than average?

Are your claims for UK sales as I gave up posting overseas due to the high number of items not received claims? Any large volume seller would surely not use a post office and perhaps the number of claims you're making for a "smaller" seller has attracted their attention?

marie-20

I also have a PPI account with RM and I currently spend around £4.5K to £5K a month (90% of my mail goes as a LL rather than a parcel plus I was also spending around £350 a week on SD through the PO due to it being cheaper than through my account due to VAT however as I'm now VAT registered it will go through my account so around £6 to £7.5K a month)

I currently refund around 5 items a month due to non-delivery and resend a further 6 to 10 so around 10 - 15 per month out of over 8 - 9,000.

I also can't claim for losses (and neither can any business sellers with a PPI account) however the losses are no where near enough to justify recorded delvery.