Royal mail sell off 'Lost in post' items

soolin

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462497&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=

Frankly I can scarcely believe this story..if it was April 1st I would know it was a fake.

However Royal mail admit to selling off items that get lost in the post and many make their way onto ebay :eek:

pinkgem

if royal mail have paid compensation to the sender for the lost items then the items are found they would then be the property of the royal mail since they would have paid for them

the bloke who sold the bagpipes for £1500 to a collector in belgium, lost £1000 because he only paid to have them insured for £500. shocking that they were sold on ebay for only £60 though

Cute_'n'_Quirky

Royal Mail should devote more time to delivering the items to the proper place instead of using this sort of thing as an excuse.

When I have complained to Royal Mail about their shoddy Recorded Delivery Service their response is "oh well you pay very little for it". That is no excuse. They get paid for a service that they do not provide.

pinkgem

i don't know what people expect the royal mail to do with lost items, sometimes people package things so badly that an item can be separated from the packaging and the royal mail would have no idea who the sender or recipient were so they can't return them to the sender or deliver to the recipient.

i know that the royal mail are also negligent and damage packaging and items themselves

i don't see it as a big deal that the proceeds from the sale of lost items goes towards running their return letter centre

mah_jong

i think they all do it ...sell of stuff ...

bumble bee auctions .... thats lost proerty and the like.

airlines and lost baggage (that included peoples papers with names and addy of owners and they still didn't forward it!!) I seem to recall you bought the luggage and all the contents!!!! :eek:

Royal Mail is just another one!

mah

I recall getting a parcel in a paper bag with band round it!! It was barely holding together by the time I got it!

Dave_Brooker

soolin wrote: »

Frankly I can scarcely believe this story..if it was April 1st I would know it was a fake.

However Royal mail admit to selling off items that get lost in the post and many make their way onto ebay

How is this any sort "scandal" as the mail puts it?

It's better that they sell off the lost stuff rather than just landfilling it...

And bagpipe man should have insured his parcel for the proper amount....

Dave_Brooker

soolin wrote: »

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462497&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=

Frankly I can scarcely believe this story.

Note how all 43 reader comments agree with the article...

I like the one blaming the whole thing on the EU....

"shame what the EU regulations have done to the RM"

digp

it seems to me that royal mail should be sued for this as it is plain and simple theft.

soolin

As someone who has gone through periods of having items lost en route then yes I am concerned. My items do not go into the post badly wrapped, I actually changed my wrapping at one point to those plastic tamper proof bags on the advice of Royal mail. My items go in a bag with a small packing slip that has my name and address. there is an able label on the inner bag, and a return address on the other bag as well. Yet my stuff was still apparently lost..and never arrived at the destination nor back with me.

The man in the original article used airsure so his parcel must have also had a return address, airsure has one of those sticky 'tracking' labels to return it to its originator in case of non delivery. That implies a scenario where an item is ripped from its wrapping at some point (which I've had happen) but then no one has thought to match the ripped packing with the item to either repack and return it, or send it on its way.

Yes we get compensated for non arrival, and I agree that the man with the bagpipes was foolish in using the wrong shipping method, but we rarely, if ever, get our postage paid back, so we are out of pocket as of course we reimburse our buyers in full.

The alternative to knowing that my items are being sold off (and why anyone would want the stuff I send my mother for her birthday I don;t know!) is that the items are stolen whilst in the hands of the RM. I'm not sure which scenario I think is worse.

soolin

One other thing has occured to me...don't 'normal' ie non ebay people report lost items?

if so, suggesting that these items are unclaimed is nonsense. Look at again from the man in the article's point of view. He reported this item lost..they were even tracked yet RM were so sure they were untraceable that they refunded him part of their cost. So on one hand the RM are saying we don't have any idea where these bagpipes are even though we were tracking them, whilst on the other hand they were saying 'oh look! bagpipes, let's allow someone to sell them on ebay'.

StaffsSW

"What an outrageous and scandalous policy!"

The troubled company sells the contents of about 75,000 undelivered packages every year, at the risk of enraging hordes of customers already frustrated that their post has gone astray.

Even customers who paid over the odds for premium 'secure' services to cover valuable items have been shocked to find their goods put up for auction, in an operation that could be netting the postal giant millions of pounds a year. The scandal was exposed by retired teacher John Beattie after he discovered that a set of antique bagpipes, which Royal Mail had lost, were for sale on internet auction site eBay.

(disengage Daily Mail readers Sarcasm mode..)

How much unnecessary hyerbole is used by the Daily Mail?? And the comments underneath are full of further Dailymailisms - astounded, monumental, expensive toothless quango, This needs to be stopped immediately, Totally unacceptable, It's a national disgrace, this state of affairs is a disgrace, How disgraceful, obvious incompetence - Breakfast tables across middle England were reeling from the amount of sprayed Earl Gray when this sensational piece of journalism was being read. :rolleyes:

It's nothing new at all. Is it really any different to the airports auctioning off lost luggage? Or Network Rail/TfL etc auctioning off lost property? If an item has no address, either the senders or recievers, then what exactly are RM meant to do with it? Knock on every household door in Britain asking "excuse me, are these Bagpipes yours?"

It never ceases to amaze me just how many items I receive from eBay sellers that do not have a return address or any correspondence within the packaging. I'm with Soolin - strong waterproof return label on outside, packing slip and business card inside, all with contact details for returning.

Obviously works, I've had a DVD returned to me from Japan within 3 weeks of posting. No idea why, it was written in Japanese, but a big Arrow pointing to the return address. Emailed the buyer and never heard anything back from them.