I returned a faulty item and the supplier's courier damaged it in transit

MarkParvin

I bought an SSD (computer drive) that became faulty under warranty.
I contacted the online supplier who sent me the RMA forms and the paperwork needed to send it back via their courier.
I wrapped it well in bubblewrap within a jiffy bag,
The supplier contacted me when they received it to explain that it was damaged. They supplied some photos that showed the drive had been crushed and the outer casing damaged.
They will not replace the drive as I did not return it in the original packaging - which I did not have - or as they advised it should be packaged. OK, hands up, they wanted it returned in a cardboard box and I put it in a jiffy bag. But, after working as both a postman and in a warehouse, I am happy it was wrapped well enough to survive transit - as long as it was treated with the usual care expected when handling parcels. It was certainly better protected than 90% of the stuff I receive from online retailers.
I believe someone had dropped a full pallet or some such thing onto it. I argued this with them but they are sticking to their guns,
Do you think I have any chance of taking this further or do I accept I didn't follow things to the letter of the law as far as they were concerned?
Thanks in advance on any thoughts on the matter.

George_Michael

IMO, bubblewrap and a jiffy bag is nowhere near the level of packing that should have been used and the supplier was right in saying that it should have been returned in a box of some sort.

theonlywayisup

If the terms of the warranty were that it should have been returned in the original packaging that is how it should have been returned.   To be honest them telling you to return it in a cardboard box is something that I would have taken as a 'given'.

MarkParvin said:

They will not replace the drive as I did not return it in the original packaging - which I did not have - or as they advised it should be packaged. OK, hands up, they wanted it returned in a cardboard box and I put it in a jiffy bag. 

MattMattMattUK

MarkParvin said:

I am happy it was wrapped well enough to survive transit - as long as it was treated with the usual care expected when handling parcels. 

I once watch a driver of the now defunct City Link couriers unload a van by reversing as fast as he could across the warehouse with the back doors of his van open, slam on the brakes so most of the packages flew out of the back then proceed to kick the rest of the boxes out the back of the van. It might only be one or two "bad apples", but when something is not packaged correctly or as instructed you run the risk of being held liable for damage. 

I also remember being told by various courier drivers that worked for entirely reputable companies "Do not put fragile tape on packages, the goods need to be packaged adequately for transit, or not sent with a courier".

MarkParvin said:

OK, hands up, they wanted it returned in a cardboard box and I put it in a jiffy bag.

This I think will be the issue, if they specified a box and you ignored them then you have a problem, especially as if the box was crushed it would show enough damage to identify the courier as the source of the damage. This is the main reason many retailers insist on boxes, if the box is smashed up then it is obviously the courier's fault.

MarkParvin said:

Do you think I have any chance of taking this further or do I accept I didn't follow things to the letter of the law as far as they were concerned?

It is not the letter of the law, I just do not think you stand a chance, you did not follow the packaging instructions so they have no way of proving the source of the damage was the courier. I do not know exactly how the liability laws relate in this section, but I think they would have more than enough room to argue that the damage was cause by the customer, rather than them or the courier.

baza52

as an ex postman myself i would never send a hard drive in a jiffy bag with bubble wrap.
I remember how parcels used to be thrown into bags when sorting them lol.

IvanOpinion

I am inclined to think that a couple of layers of bubble wrap and a jiffy bag should have been more than enough for an SSD.  I get the feeling that parcel football seems to be order of the day by some delivery drivers.

Aylesbury_Duck

IvanOpinion said:

I am inclined to think that a couple of layers of bubble wrap and a jiffy bag should have been more than enough for an SSD.  I get the feeling that parcel football seems to be order of the day by some delivery drivers.

I don't think it's parcel football as such, more a reflection of the incredibly competitive delivery market and the resulting pressure on price and margin which prioritises speed over care.

IvanOpinion

OK, I was bored this morning so I took an old 128GB SSD that I had lying about.  wrapped it in 2 layers of bubble rap and put it in a jiffy bag (one that amazon had used to deliver something to me.  I threw it out of an upstairs window onto concrete, had a quick game of football with it, threw it against a wall and then jumped on it a few times.  Most of the bubble wrap had popped but the SSD still works fine - not reporting any errors ???

MattMattMattUK

IvanOpinion said:

OK, I was bored this morning so I took an old 128GB SSD that I had lying about.  wrapped it in 2 layers of bubble rap and put it in a jiffy bag (one that amazon had used to deliver something to me.  I threw it out of an upstairs window onto concrete, had a quick game of football with it, threw it against a wall and then jumped on it a few times.  Most of the bubble wrap had popped but the SSD still works fine - not reporting any errors ???

There is not a huge amount in an SSD to go wrong from physical impact/shock, although with enough impact stress and/or deceleration/acceleration then it is possible microfractures could develop internally. With SSDs and impact/physical shock damage they tend to work or not rather than having an error state. 2.5" encased SATA drives are also a fair bit more resilient than M.2 drives because of the vast amount of extra material around them, rather than just a pretty bare board with chips and possibly a heat sink. Bubble wrap and/or a jiffy would largely be find if the item is dropped, but they do not have the mechanical strength to protect the item from physical damage such as crush damage and unfortunately do not demonstrate crush damage (or indeed drop damage) in a clearly visible way like most boxes would. 

To give you an idea dropping the SSD from waist height and ignoring the reduction caused by the bubble wrap, the G force experienced by the SSD when being dropped from chest height would be around 16g (although only for a microsecond).

I also have a vague recollection of an experiment I did with my nephews to show the difference in acceleration/deceleration and gravity when they were covering the basics of it in physics at school. I think it was only 4 or 5 layers of bubble wrap that were required to stop an egg braking when being dropped out of a second floor window, when without the bubble wrap the egg rarely survived a drop of 20cm. Where a constant pressure (weight) was applied to the egg it broke under roughly the same weight regardless of being a bare egg, or bubble wrap, with the bubble wrap only having a slight mitigating effect due to it's ability to spread the pressure over a slightly wider area, however using an egg-cup to do something similar, yielded similar results.