post office lost claims

patchwork_cat

Hi
I have so totally had enough. In sept I submitted quite a few claims for items lost during the summer strikes. All of which I have refunded and in fact 2 claims are from a posting on 1 day.

I have had to ring the post office every day this week - 1st they gave me a book of stamps value £4.08 for a £5.50 claim. They have replied that they will not pay anymore no reason why - I have informed post watch of this. Next no postage paid on another and today after providing paypal invoice they want proof of my purchase price or manufacturer.

They are treating every case differently - I am my wits end. I have another where they are contacting the buyer and 5 others I haven't heard about.

They lose a lot of my items particularly during strikes and I am facing another batch.

I am out of pocket by £60 and have 5 books of stamps which I don't use and my post office won't even take in exchange for franks.

patchwork_cat

Does nobody else have problems with claims then? Has anyone else had the post office ask them for a manufacturers receipt or cost of production!! I am not a factory I sell a few bits from my back bedroom. I was very upset when I posted to start with as I have had to ring them about one claim or another every day this week which is seriously frustrating, but is anybody there??!

borosteve_2

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Does nobody else have problems with claims then? Has anyone else had the post office ask them for a manufacturers receipt or cost of production!! I am not a factory I sell a few bits from my back bedroom. I was very upset when I posted to start with as I have had to ring them about one claim or another every day this week which is seriously frustrating, but is anybody there??!

Check with postwatch.co.uk. The Royal Mail come out with some right cr*p about what you have to accept and most of it - like their delivery service - is wildly inaccurate.
I hope you get your cash back, looks like I'm going to have to put in a claim for first class recorded for my mobile cashback posted ages ago that they have "misappropriated" - to be fair it could be lost, stolen or just thrown in the bin by an illiterate/depressed/moody postie so I don't want to accuse anyone without evidence.:rolleyes:
Good luck.

custardy

borosteve wrote: »

Check with postwatch.co.uk. The Royal Mail come out with some right cr*p about what you have to accept and most of it - like their delivery service - is wildly inaccurate.
I hope you get your cash back, looks like I'm going to have to put in a claim for first class recorded for my mobile cashback posted ages ago that they have "misappropriated" - to be fair it could be lost, stolen or just thrown in the bin by an illiterate/depressed/moody postie so I don't want to accuse anyone without evidence.:rolleyes:
Good luck.

nice :rolleyes:

borosteve_2

custardy wrote: »

nice :rolleyes:

Cheers - I had to put a :rolleyes: because I couldn't find a tongue-in-cheek one.

The first part of my advice was genuine though. It is somewhat annoying to be told to jump through hoops to get back what you're owed.

Colin2511

patchwork_cat wrote: »

I am not a factory I sell a few bits from my back bedroom.

if you buy to sell things (I apologise if I misread that bit), then you are a busines / self employed, regardless of where you sell from or your colume

they will only pay cost price (ie sales price less vat if vat reg. and less profit), this does vary from person to person dealing with it, but is becoming more common place

As you say you use franking? then this would also suggest to them that you are a business,

They will not refund the postage the customer paid, but at least now have started paying the postage you paid (thats the bit that used to really annoy me)

They will write to custoemrs as they don't want to pay out, you can make this easier by providing phone nos if possible, I have had a few this month where they say the customer did not reply (customer says they did not get it) - they are also treating ebay / amazon customers differently as they think we are fiddling them (or our customers0 - this may be true for a small % of people, but as I post nearly 1000 items a week, a few will go missing

I also always ring the local delivery office to see if the item is there, (in case postie not left a card), and put return address on outside, occasionally miracles happen and I get the item back.

peter_the_piper

""they will only pay cost price (ie sales price less vat if vat reg. and less profit""
This could be a bit difficult for me as I only sell plants which I propagate so therefore no original invoice. Oh well, just have to hope they don't get lost.

soolin

borosteve wrote: »

Check with postwatch.co.uk. The Royal Mail come out with some right cr*p about what you have to accept and most of it - like their delivery service - is wildly inaccurate.
I hope you get your cash back, looks like I'm going to have to put in a claim for first class recorded for my mobile cashback posted ages ago that they have "misappropriated" - to be fair it could be lost, stolen or just thrown in the bin by an illiterate/depressed/moody postie so I don't want to accuse anyone without evidence.:rolleyes:
Good luck.

You are going to struggle with that claim as you have no actual value to claim for. Recorded only covers physical items up to £34 in value , no consequential loss so all you can claim for is the cost of the paper. Recorded is only standard post with a signature required, it has no other benefits.

This may seem unfair but RM are quite upfront about what recorded does and does not cover and if you take a wander over the mobile phone board you'll see that there are huge problems with cashback companies and recorded delivery letters as they are never claimed for with many people now resorting to special delivery instead for security.

Een going to Watchdog or PostWatch won't help get any compensation if the wrong service was used, all you can hope for is a book of stamps as a 'sorry' and maybe further proof for the Postwatch files that recorded is barely ever worth the 70p extra.

soolin

peter_the_piper wrote: »

""they will only pay cost price (ie sales price less vat if vat reg. and less profit""
This could be a bit difficult for me as I only sell plants which I propagate so therefore no original invoice. Oh well, just have to hope they don't get lost.

Many of us would struggle with that, I'm waiting for a claim to be refused as I can't prove my merchant cost on it. All I did was submit my paypal invoice and a copy of the ebay auction page. My problem is that at the moment I am selling mainly books and nick nacks that I buy from auction in huge mixed lots.my item cost is not broken down at all. All I can show is a bundle of receipts for assorted items paid to an auction house with absolutely no way of identifying ndividual items.

For instance I bought several mixed lots of books, possibly as many as 800 in total (600 of which were junk, but that is another story ) I also bought some books at a charity shop and at car boot sales. How on earth can I show any actual cost for one individual book that has gone astray? All I can do is take the sale price as 'value' because that is the only time the book is identified individually. Obviously I could try it on and submit a claim for a brand new copy from WH Smith, assuming it is still in print and many books I sell are not, but no doubt the PO won;t like that either so I can't win.

Even the Inland Revenue don't need this much proof of value and my full annual accounts to the tax man are simpler than any claim I have to submit to the RM.

patchwork_cat

I have never been asked for merchant cost before it came as a surprise - that is even worse as they do not pay fees and you have to refund total to buyer.

I am aware that I am trading and I made a mistake saying franked - I don't frank. However when my profit is less than £200 a month you can hardly call that a business for their purposes It is what used to be called pin money- but I don't do much sewing so it is called clothes and christmas fund!

So from Soolin's post most of you are asked for proof of your purchase cost, because a while ago I had a long conversation with them about what they need and they said paypal invoice.

Soolin I did have a chat with a chap from the ebay team and he said to put that you source the goods independently and don't have a wholesaler. Which for most of my stuff I don't.

borosteve_2

soolin wrote: »

You are going to struggle with that claim as you have no actual value to claim for. Recorded only covers physical items up to £34 in value , no consequential loss so all you can claim for is the cost of the paper. Recorded is only standard post with a signature required, it has no other benefits.

This may seem unfair but RM are quite upfront about what recorded does and does not cover and if you take a wander over the mobile phone board you'll see that there are huge problems with cashback companies and recorded delivery letters as they are never claimed for with many people now resorting to special delivery instead for security.

Een going to Watchdog or PostWatch won't help get any compensation if the wrong service was used, all you can hope for is a book of stamps as a 'sorry' and maybe further proof for the Postwatch files that recorded is barely ever worth the 70p extra.

Cheers Soo, I'm doing cashback with dialaphone so they just need a copy of the recorded delivery stub to pay the cashback if your claim gets "lost" (I'm guessing it may not be the first time it has happened!)
To be fair the Royal mail site says "If you have an important item to deliver, our Recorded Signed For™ service gives you complete peace of mind with proof of posting and an electronic copy of the signature available online.", which you have to admit does make it sound like they are going to deliver your "important" mail.

I know postwatch won't help me in my circumstances but they did help a friend of mine whose recorded mail disappeared en-route and was told 4 different things by 4 different RM staff about how to claim/why he couldn't claim his compensation until he called postwatch so I just hope they could help the Cat.

I'm going to claim anyway, even if I do just get my postage back I'm not prepared to just give them my cash and get nothing back in return.