Praise: FoneBank

aldredd

I've never used a fone-selling service before, and only ever hear bad things about them - losing your phone, dropping the price of offer etc.
But, I had a fairly new high end phone to sell, and FoneBank offered nearly double the lowest offer.

I sent the item Special Delivery on the Saturday afternoon (after last post), and acknowledged receipt & paid out the full amount on the Tuesday hitting my account Thursday morning.

Excellent service and would certainly use them again!

MrA2012

I've used fonebank twice and on both occasions received the full promised amount very quickly.


I've since read accounts of similar companies falsely claiming cosmetic damage as an excuse to pay less than originally indicated, so it's nice to know they don't all do it!

fallen121

They've lost my Playbook and it's impossible to contact them about it. Looks like I will have to put in a claim to Royal Mail. It was only worth £15 so not worth spending £7 to send by Special Delivery.


The packet service is a tracked service, but unfortunately I didn't get a proper tracked receipt because the bloke at the Post Office didn't know how to produce one and I only realised what he'd done 3 days later when I looked at the receipt. Fonebank won't respond to emails and have now cancelled the order because they say I haven't sent it. Links in emails which I supposedly could have used to say I have sent the phone do not work.


I don't know what I am supposed to do if I can't contact the company. I did everything the website told me to do including asking for a tracked receipt but I feel very badly let down by both Fonebank's poor customer services and by Royal Mail's failure to properly train their staff to produce the right kind of receipts.

mattyprice4004

How is it Fonebank's fault if they didn't receive it?
Hermes is £2.34 and includes tracking for future reference.

custardy

fallen121 wrote: »

They've lost my Playbook and it's impossible to contact them about it. Looks like I will have to put in a claim to Royal Mail. It was only worth £15 so not worth spending £7 to send by Special Delivery.


The packet service is a tracked service, but unfortunately I didn't get a proper tracked receipt because the bloke at the Post Office didn't know how to produce one and I only realised what he'd done 3 days later when I looked at the receipt. Fonebank won't respond to emails and have now cancelled the order because they say I haven't sent it. Links in emails which I supposedly could have used to say I have sent the phone do not work.


I don't know what I am supposed to do if I can't contact the company. I did everything the website told me to do including asking for a tracked receipt but I feel very badly let down by both Fonebank's poor customer services and by Royal Mail's failure to properly train their staff to produce the right kind of receipts.

What service did you use?

fallen121

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

How is it Fonebank's fault if they didn't receive it?

It isn't. But I don't think it's unreasonable to be unhappy that I can't contact them, they won't respond whatever method of communication I use to try and contact them (phone/email/twitter/facebook) and they sent me emails with links supposedly designed to update them on the status of my (now cancelled) order which didn't work. I also tried logging in to update my order status. That option wasn't available.

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

Hermes is £2.34 and includes tracking for future reference.

I am very aware of Hermes. Were you aware that the price that you just quoted doesn't include VAT?

Hermes just lost an eBay parcel of mine. The reason they lost it was that it wasn't scanned. The tracking just STOPPED and the parcel disappeared into thin air. They DID pay out after a bit of haggling. Buyer got his money back but wasn't exactly overjoyed.

Hermes WON'T pay out if you use their service to send mobile phones and/or tablets as they fall under the classification of electrical/electronic items. So I would NEVER use them to send an item to Fonebank as you can't exactly claim it isn't an electronic device, can you?

https://www.myhermes.co.uk/help/carry-guide.html

Anyhow, the service offered by Fonebank is a Royal Mail 48 hour fully tracked service with a 13 digit tracking number. And it's FREE, which is another reason not to pay Hermes.

The tracking relies on the PO counter staff knowing what to do, however, and despite my instructions the guy at the counter failed to listen and just plunked it in ordinary post with a bog standard receipt. My fault for not noticing, I suppose. but if I ask for something I expect to get it.

fallen121

custardy wrote: »

What service did you use?

The FREE service offered by Fonebank which I used is called Royal Mail 48 Tracked:

http://www.royalmail.com/parcel-despatch-medium/uk-delivery/royal-mail-tracked-24-and-48

It looks like a great service. Except the guy at the Post Office ignored the label, ignored what I said when I gave him the parcel and didn't scan the barcode to generate a 13 digit tracking number.


God knows where the packet is now. I dare say I can claim, but I'll need to wait 21 days and then about another month for them to reply. And somehow prove the value. As Fonebank have cancelled the order that isn't going to be easy as I no longer have any paperwork. Which is one of the things I was contacting them to complain about.

custardy

fallen121 wrote: »

The FREE service offered by Fonebank which I used is called Royal Mail 48 Tracked:

http://www.royalmail.com/parcel-despatch-medium/uk-delivery/royal-mail-tracked-24-and-48

It looks like a great service. Except the guy at the Post Office ignored the label, ignored what I said when I gave him the parcel and didn't scan the barcode to generate a 13 digit tracking number.


God knows where the packet is now. I dare say I can claim, but I'll need to wait 21 days and then about another month for them to reply. And somehow prove the value. As Fonebank have cancelled the order that isn't going to be easy as I no longer have any paperwork. Which is one of the things I was contacting them to complain about.

Just looked. You didnt use Tracked.
You used Tracked returns. A slightly different service. As you say,your POP should have a tracking number.
I note Fonebank state they dont cover phones for non receipt by this method.