Delivery driver damaged our door

Purplepenguin88

On the morning of 22/04/18 an amazon delivery was fulfilled by DPD.
The delivery driver hit our front door with the package when it was being delivered. The door now has significant damage to it which a quote has indicated will cost almost £500 to repair the door panel.

We reported the damage to Amazon within 3 hours of the delivery. Despite chasing the complaint every 48hours (in line with their timescales each time), it took them almost 4 weeks to properly investigate the matter and contact DPD.
After over 4 weeks DPD were properly informed of the damage caused and investigated the matter. DPD interviewed the driver who denies all knowledge of the incident.

DPD have informed us that they will not pursue the matter as we do not have any CCTV evidence of the incident. Amazon have said that since DPD cannot find evidence that the driver was involved in the incident they will not be able to take the matter further.

It was amazon that specifically asked us not to contact DPD directly and to allow their internal investigations were undertaken and that caused the initial 4 week delay.

Is there anything we can do to continue this complaint and get compensation for the significant damage caused to our property?
Are we correct in assuming that since the goods were bought from Amazon (and they arranged the delivery) that we have to claim the compensation through them?

Any advice on this situation would be gratefully received.

shaun_from_Africa

Purplepenguin88 wrote: »

We reported the damage to Amazon within 3 hours of the delivery.

Did you see the driver actually hit the door with the package? and if so, did you say anything to him at the time?

esuhl

Do you have "legal assistance" on your home insurance...? I don't know, but maybe they could help you pursue a claim...?

Purplepenguin88

Yes we saw the driver hit the door with the package but did not realise the damage that had happened until after he left. The door was completely open.

We do have legal assistance, I've not spoken to them yet as I was initially pursuing this through the complaints procedure.

Fosterdog

Are you certain there wasn't already damage? It must have been an incredibly large and/or heavy parcel to cause £500 damage to a door unless the door already had a weakness.

Without any evidence though you will struggle with this, it took you 3 hours to report it and you didn't ask the driver at the time who now denies it happening, what about damage to the package? I'd imagining a bash hard enough to damage a door would have caused more damage to the package than the door so did you take photos of the damage to that?

Purplepenguin88

Yes I'm certain that the door was not damaged beforehand.

The package weighed 27.5kg according to the label and although it was very scuffed due to him dragging it along the floor there was no damage to the packaging itself.

We have photos of the packaging.

It was a very big box and he didn't take care when maneuvering it so he hit the external face of the door.

The damage is not visible from inside the house so it was not until we went outside the house that we could see the damage to the UPVC panel.

I'm astonished that the cost of replacing a UPVC door panel (not even a new door) is this much and I'm trying really hard to source alternative quotes.

Thanks for all your help so far.