Claim against DX delivery company

wealdroam

Dave82517 wrote: »

The long and short, to me, seems to be ive agreed to no blame for them by booking and the delivery company has no responsibility to me due to being a third party. Its like a nice little package designed to screw people should anything go wrong.

Did you bother to read posts #8 and #9?

Dave82517

Yes i read them, just because its written that theyre not liable doesnt make it legally enforceable. But doesnt that just get me back to the same point i am now but with a different company? I accuse them, they hide behind that bit of 'legality' and im back to the point where i need legal representation to push them for an amount that wouldnt offset what i paid to gain it?

or am i overthinking this?

unholyangel

You've over thinking it.

With the amount of money involved it would be small claims court - in small claims court you can generally not recover legal costs if you hire a solicitor but at the same time, the courts are more informal/relaxed so you don't require legal representation. The costs of filing & the hearing fee would be added to your claim if successful (unless you've been unreasonable in your behaviour - then a judge can award costs against you even if you technically "win" your judgement).

If they use that term as a defence in court then you say that you believe that term contravenes the Unfair Terms In Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

However, be aware that they need to have been negligent/failed to take reasonable care. If the item ended up damaged because you had it wrapped in paper only with nothing protective then thats not their failure. Insurance is there to cover situations where the courier has not been negligent/breached the contract but you shouldnt have to insure against their negligence as that would allow them to be negligent with impunity. it would be seeking to transfer inappropriate risks to the consumer - which is also an unfair term.

18.2.2 Particular suspicion falls on any term which makes the consumer bear a risk
that the supplier could remove or at least reduce by taking reasonable care
– for example, of damage to equipment that he himself operates, or the risk
of encountering foreseeable structural problems in installation work. Such a
term effectively allows him to be negligent with impunity. As such, it is
open to the objections to exclusion clauses which are set out under Groups
1 and 2.

Dave82517

I ran the small claims track against the delivery company and was at a hearing where the judgement was set aside on tues. To say that it was more relaxed/informal wasnt the case for me, both their legal opposition and the judge cited a bunch of legal sections that i had no idea about. The only upside was that i walked out minus the £60 it cost to run a claim against them. They filed for £350+ fees against me for the hearing but were denied because they had requested it and because it was unnecessary.

So do i run the same proceedings against the booking company or am i likely to end up in the same position im in now?

Cheers for this btw guys, i was really disheartened by this whole thing, like i had absolutely no chance of taking on these companies and getting anywhere. There's been some quality advice in this thread thats perked me up a bit.

wealdroam

Dave82517 wrote: »

I ran the small claims track against the delivery company and was at a hearing where the judgement was set aside on tues. To say that it was more relaxed/informal wasnt the case for me, both their legal opposition and the judge cited a bunch of legal sections that i had no idea about. The only upside was that i walked out minus the £60 it cost to run a claim against them. They filed for £350+ fees against me for the hearing but were denied because they had requested it and because it was unnecessary.

So do i run the same proceedings against the booking company or am i likely to end up in the same position im in now?

Cheers for this btw guys, i was really disheartened by this whole thing, like i had absolutely no chance of taking on these companies and getting anywhere. There's been some quality advice in this thread thats perked me up a bit.

It cost you £60 because you took action against the wrong entity.
Forget that... that's £60 wasted.

You are not likely to be in the same position if you sue the right people.

How much are your losses?

Dave82517

The claim i put in was for £675 (that the item sold for) £75 (the cost of the return delivery to me) and £60 to run the small claims track. I figured the more basic the amount the more likely i had of an outcome. That would still leave me out of pocket one tv which id have to pay out to have repaired of replaced.

As for taking action against the wrong entity, i tried to contact trading standards (which seems to run through CAB now) and they advised me to pursue the actual company rather than the booking company, hence the path i took.

CoolHotCold

Dave82517 wrote: »

The claim i put in was for £675 (that the item sold for) £75 (the cost of the return delivery to me) and £60 to run the small claims track. I figured the more basic the amount the more likely i had of an outcome. That would still leave me out of pocket one tv which id have to pay out to have repaired of replaced.

As for taking action against the wrong entity, i tried to contact trading standards (which seems to run through CAB now) and they advised me to pursue the actual company rather than the booking company, hence the path i took.

Yea, TS and CAB are useless, sad to say, you'll get more help and correct advice on here.

unholyangel

There are some instances where you'd chase the actual company - for example where the booking company are merely acting as an agent. In those cases there is no contract between you and the booking agent, but rather the booking agent has permission to enter the other company into an agreement.

Thats different to you buying from one company and them subcontracting the work to another company.

If you have legal cover on your insurance (on your car or home insurance perhaps?), you may be able to get legal advice from them. When you say you sold the tv.....were you trading as a business or was it selling an old TV you no longer want (as opposed to stock you have purchased with a view to selling it on)?

Dave82517

Sold my old tv on ebay. The booking company is parcelmonkey.com, think gocompare but for delivery companies. You put in what youd like to send and they give you quotes from various companies and you pick the most suitable.

agrinnall

Do a forum search for parcelmonkey and you'll see a lot of threads, some of them may give you some idea about how likely you are to succeed if you do sue them.