Help UK Mail B2B Customer

naff123

Hi there

I am going out of my brain I launched my shop online last week an had some 50 orders and decided to work with UKmail to pick up parcels on a daily basis.

We've had no end of problems and I need to know what my rights are and how I can claim and recover the value of the contents in the parcels etc?

So to explain I've had 3 parcels vanish for different reasons, 1 Parcel my 2nd ever online order was signed for by the driver on behalf of the customer and GPS co-ordinates from the van suggest he dropped it off some 20 doors further up and I've lost those items and had to refund the customer in the value of £40 and they still can't give me an answer as to where the items are and if I will get them back.

Parcel 2: So this parcel was on next day delivery sent on the 9th of Jan and been chasing this one and so has the customer until I learnt yesterday that UK Mail destroyed the parcel without my consent or notifying me claiming damaged goods

Parcel 3: This parcel was sent on the 12th on next day and it still hasn't turned up I found out Friday it was Misrouted and sent to the wrong collection depot and was supposed to be upgraded to delivery to arrive before Noon today after complaining. Well now they've changed their story with the Collection depot saying that they sent it onto delivery depot on the 14th and the contact centre is adamant that it was still at the collection depot. Now the parcel is LOST with out a trace blaming the barcode for not scanning properly.

They have cost me £120 in refunds in just the 2 weeks I've been using them and is really harming our reputation as a reliable good cause with parcels also turning up much later than the 1 working day turn around time I keep getting promised.

What on earth can I do, to recover these funds and more importantly some of the goods that have vanished. I don't know what else to do I've made complaints and nothing is being done

paddyrg

Try dpd instead? I think to a large extent you get what you pay for with courier services. May cost you a bit more, but if you're not losing £120/month in failed deliveries it may balance out

da_rule

Where I used to work, we used UK Mail. They had a £50 excess for every consignment which made claiming for loss or damage pretty pointless. Even if the item sold for £60 you'd go through all the paperwork for the sake of £10.

Just to put it into perspective, we were shipping around 400 items per week.

We ended up leaving them and moved to Parcel2Go who find the best deals based on the size, weight and delivery address. We didn't have any problems going forward. It also links in to a lot of selling platforms (eBay etc) and will mark the items as dispatched and add tracking details.

bengalknights

I find transglobal express quite cheap and use DHL/UPS so reliable to

doningtonphil

Hello

So your rights are outlined in UK Mail's Terms & Conditions which you agreed to when sending the consignments. They will include Limits of Liability in case of loss or damage.

All carriers will offer you the opportunity to pay for cover of cost of replacement over and above those limits. When I use TNT Direct (actually parcel2go but with the advantage of TNTs call centre helping you out rather than having to go through a'middleman') you can't help but notice that they would really like you to take out their 'insurance' (it isn't actually insurance as that is a regulated product).

It does seem perverse that a carrier might ask you to pay them extra in case they 'fail to do their job properly' and damage or lose the consignment. But they will say that in the big scheme of things, there is always a risk. That is why even the major players get nicknames such as
'Drop it, Hide it, Lose it' or 'Tomorrow Not Today'

An alternative is to set up a goods in transit policy. We have one that covers all the goods we import while in transit, while in storage with us and while being shipped to customers.

martindow

doningtonphil wrote: »

An alternative is to set up a goods in transit policy. We have one that covers all the goods we import while in transit, while in storage with us and while being shipped to customers.

This is likely to have an excess that can make it rather pointless. I had goods and transit cover as part of a business insurance policy. As I was sending mostly items around £20 value it was useless as da_rule says.

If you are sending high value shipments an insurance policy could make sense.