Courier nightmare Parcelmonkey and Citylink

someanonbloke

Hi, I recently sold an item on ebay and used Parcelmonkey to find the cheapest delivery. Citylink came out as the best option and I purchased the service.

Anyway, I followed all the necessary instructions for collection of the item with all appropriate address labels and barcodes etc. Citylink collected the item.

However, I was told by the intended recipient that he'd had the incorrect item delivered. I followed it up with Citylink and the problem appears to be that address labels got mixed up.

Anyway, I filled out a form on the Citylink site to make a claim and this is the response I got:

Dear Mr. X,
Thank you for contacting us. I can see that you wish to make a claim for this item. I have carefully considered everything you said but I am afraid that, as there is no contractual relationship between you and City Link, we are not liable to pay any compensation. We are clear in our trading terms and conditions that third parties (such as yourself) cannot assume any contractual rights under our agreement with our client. I can only suggest that you contact the company you booked the collection through (Parcel Monkey Ltd) to pursue a claim.
I will now close this case. However, if there’s anything else I can help you with, please do contact me. I would like to apologise once again, on behalf of City Link, for any inconvenience or distress this may have caused.
Kind regards,
City Link Customer Care

I thought it was interesting that by the wording Citylink have actually admitted they made a mistake but have weasled out of the responsibility by trying to defer responsibility to Parcelmonkey.

So, I contacted Parcelmonkey and this was their reply in a nutshell:

Dear Mr X,
Parcel Monkey conducts business in accordance with its standard Terms and Conditions of Carriage; these conditions can be found on the Parcel Monkey’s Website or at the time the order was processing. Please be advised that when you or your representative signed the ‘Shipper’s agreement’ section of the Terms and Conditions, you entered into a legally binding contract and agreed that Parcel Monkey’s Terms and Conditions were all the terms of the contract between Parcel Monkey and yourself.
Clause 5 provides that all missing claims must be reported to Parcel Monkey within 3 working days from the scheduled delivery date. Our records indicate that your shipment was collected by Parcel Monkey on the 15th of August 2013 and that your first notification to Parcel Monkey was on the 27th August 2013.
As this falls outside of the 3 working days, regrettably, we are unable to proceed any further with your claim.
Yours Sincerely,
Parcel Monkey Claims Department

Needless to say I'm pretty unhappy with all this and find it hard to believe that the conduct of both these companies is in anyway reasonable under law. It's hard to believe "Clause 5 provides that all missing claims must be reported to Parcel Monkey within 3 working days from the scheduled delivery date." Given they know that the vast majority of people won't figure out their rules until after the 3 days, it's pretty obvious what their policy towards dealing with claims is.

I'm at a loss as to what to do now.

unholyangel

2.4.2 The OFT is likely to object to a term that frees the supplier from his

responsibilities towards the consumer where the consumer does not make a

complaint immediately or within an unduly short period of time. This applies

particularly where:

(a) a time limit is so short that ordinary persons could easily miss it

through mere inadvertence, or because of circumstances outside

their control, and

(b) faults for which the supplier is responsible which could only become

apparent after a time limit has expired.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/reports/unfair_contract_terms/oft311.pdf


Providing you were dealing as a private individual and not in the course of a business - as UCTA apply to b2b transactions but UTCCR do not.

visidigi

someanonbloke wrote: »

Hi, I recently sold an item on ebay and used Parcelmonkey to find the cheapest delivery. Citylink came out as the best option and I purchased the service.

Anyway, I followed all the necessary instructions for collection of the item with all appropriate address labels and barcodes etc. Citylink collected the item.

However, I was told by the intended recipient that he'd had the incorrect item delivered. I followed it up with Citylink and the problem appears to be that address labels got mixed up.

Anyway, I filled out a form on the Citylink site to make a claim and this is the response I got:

I thought it was interesting that by the wording Citylink have actually admitted they made a mistake but have weasled out of the responsibility by trying to defer responsibility to Parcelmonkey.

So, I contacted Parcelmonkey and this was their reply in a nutshell:

Needless to say I'm pretty unhappy with all this and find it hard to believe that the conduct of both these companies is in anyway reasonable under law. It's hard to believe "Clause 5 provides that all missing claims must be reported to Parcel Monkey within 3 working days from the scheduled delivery date." Given they know that the vast majority of people won't figure out their rules until after the 3 days, it's pretty obvious what their policy towards dealing with claims is.

I'm at a loss as to what to do now.

Citylink are 100% correct. If you wanted the Citylink quality of care towards your shipment you had to buy from Citylink - they haven't 'weaseled' out of anything - you bought from someone else at a lower price than citylink would offer you direct. Pay the £'s get the service. Citylink have done nothing wrong here - they have absolutely NO contract with you whatsoever. What they said and did here was totally reasonable under law.

The three day term would be deemed unreasonable - so pull them up on it.

Just to check though, you did apply securely all labels to the package before handing it over to the City Link driver right? If the labels were just laid on top for them when they were collected and you were personally not present (e.g. you left it with reception at work) then you may struggle as PM may deem that you incorrectly labelled the shipment.

someanonbloke

Thanks for feedback.

It's my conviction the Citylink driver stole the item thinking it would be valuable but he would have been disappointed!

I took photos of the item before dispatching it. Absolute no question it was incorrectly labelled.

lucy03

I'm not sure that a small claims court would agree that ParcelMonkey have acted fairly here, so I'd sent a letter before action and note that you consider the terms as unfair. Personally I'd then take them to the small claims court, but you may want to get legal advice before doing so.

Although your contract isn't with Citylink you can also send them the letter before action and name both parties. I've seen in the past broadly similar situations where a company in Citylink's position contacts ParcelMonkey to ask them to resolve the situation. Neither company will want to be messing around with a case in the small claims court, it's potentially far more costly in staff time than just resolving the matter promptly.

visidigi

lucy03 wrote: »

I'm not sure that a small claims court would agree that ParcelMonkey have acted fairly here, so I'd sent a letter before action and note that you consider the terms as unfair. Personally I'd then take them to the small claims court, but you may want to get legal advice before doing so.

Although your contract isn't with Citylink you can also send them the letter before action and name both parties. I've seen in the past broadly similar situations where a company in Citylink's position contacts ParcelMonkey to ask them to resolve the situation. Neither company will want to be messing around with a case in the small claims court, it's potentially far more costly in staff time than just resolving the matter promptly.

Waste of time, effort and money involving City Link, they are absolutely nothing to do with the OP whatsoever.

visidigi

someanonbloke wrote: »

Thanks for feedback.

It's my conviction the Citylink driver stole the item thinking it would be valuable but he would have been disappointed!

I took photos of the item before dispatching it. Absolute no question it was incorrectly labelled.

Highly doubt that - with tracking now they can very quickly pinpoint where a shipment was last seen/touched, they may on the otherhand have got swapped in transit. e.g. someone else's label, not fully stuck down gets stuck to your box and delivered and or vice versa, it happens more than you think, especially as the majority of sorts are done on very fast moving belts.

arcon5

someanonbloke wrote: »

Thanks for feedback.

It's my conviction the Citylink driver stole the item thinking it would be valuable but he would have been disappointed!

I took photos of the item before dispatching it. Absolute no question it was incorrectly labelled.

It's more likely the intended recipient for the parcel they actually received, received your parcel.

lucy03

visidigi wrote: »

Waste of time, effort and money involving City Link, they are absolutely nothing to do with the OP whatsoever.

I'm not sure, bar one stamp, what those costs would be. If party A (Citylink) believes it may ultimately pay compensation indirectly via party C (ParcelMonkey) to party B (the consumer) they are far better kept in the loop if there is a legal action from party B against party C. With a potential threat of legal action this can sometimes provoke a response where those two parties contact each other if one believes it's easier to resolve the matter at this stage.

Writing to both parties is also never a waste of time on such occasions. It may be that Citylink have already paid compensation, and they might write to ParcelMonkey querying why it hasn't been passed on. Or it might be that Citylink might ask ParcelMonkey to resolve the matter, the OP is unlikely to know what the state of play is with the two firms. It might be that neither company is bothered, but personally I'd rather write to both companies just in case.

Such occasions aren't particularly rare, I posted last week after a certain national company admitted they had many complaints about Shoppers Discounts UK. Their official position is that it's nothing to do with them legally, but they admitted that they did contact Shoppers Discounts UK following every complaint and ask for it to be resolved.

Even if the letter is ignored it can at least be yet more part of the paper trail showing that every effort was made to resolve the matter before court action was taken.

visidigi

lucy03 wrote: »

I'm not sure, bar one stamp, what those costs would be. If party A (Citylink) believes it may ultimately pay compensation indirectly via party C (ParcelMonkey) to party B (the consumer) they are far better kept in the loop if there is a legal action from party B against party C. With a potential threat of legal action this can sometimes provoke a response where those two parties contact each other if one believes it's easier to resolve the matter at this stage.

Writing to both parties is also never a waste of time on such occasions. It may be that Citylink have already paid compensation, and they might write to ParcelMonkey querying why it hasn't been passed on. Or it might be that Citylink might ask ParcelMonkey to resolve the matter, the OP is unlikely to know what the state of play is with the two firms. It might be that neither company is bothered, but personally I'd rather write to both companies just in case.

Such occasions aren't particularly rare, I posted last week after a certain national company admitted they had many complaints about Shoppers Discounts UK. Their official position is that it's nothing to do with them legally, but they admitted that they did contact Shoppers Discounts UK following every complaint and ask for it to be resolved.

Even if the letter is ignored it can at least be yet more part of the paper trail showing that every effort was made to resolve the matter before court action was taken.

Your post would be great. If there was any relation between OP and citylink. There isn't. Citylink don't care waht action is brough or occurs between the OP and parcelmonkey, they work for parcelmonkey, not the OP.

Shopper discounts is no fair comparison, the retailer who offered them at the end of check out makes money from that being displayed and your subscription. This case has no relation to that process whatsoever.

In any case, middlemen such as parcelmonkey have their own compensation, the couriers offer no such service to middlemen.

This is the reason why there are able to offer the rates they do - there is no liability to parcelmonkey or the end user whatsoever.

Sending letters for the sake of it would not go down well if the case did end up in court.

lucy03

visidigi wrote: »

Your post would be great. If there was any relation between OP and citylink. There isn't. Citylink don't care waht action is brough or occurs between the OP and parcelmonkey, they work for parcelmonkey, not the OP.

Shopper discounts is no fair comparison, the retailer who offered them at the end of check out makes money from that being displayed and your subscription. This case has no relation to that process whatsoever.

In any case, middlemen such as parcelmonkey have their own compensation, the couriers offer no such service to middlemen.

This is the reason why there are able to offer the rates they do - there is no liability to parcelmonkey or the end user whatsoever.

Sending letters for the sake of it would not go down well if the case did end up in court.

We don't, or at least I certainly don't, know what the private relationship is currently between ParcelMonkey and Citylink. It is entirely possible Citylink don't want consumers moaning on at them and so ask ParcelMonkey to deal with complaints in a certain way. Given that I can think of parallels that have worked, and some that haven't, I fail to see why it's not worth the cost of a stamp.

The Shoppers Discount is exactly the same IMO, there is no direct contractual link and the consumer has no recourse to a refund from anyone other than Shoppers Discounts. Citylink make money from the poster of the parcel in the same way that companies make money from the consumers who subscribe to Shoppers Discounts, but they're not legally responsible as the contracts have nothing to do with them. The advice given earlier regarding not contacting someone not contractually related would not have received a refund in this case.

I also can't think of one judge I've ever seen that would complain a consumer had cc'ed in Citylink to a letter that they sent to ParcelMonkey. I'd certainly like some examples of that if they're available in similar contexts.