Royal Mail Compensation

Ellie505

It used to be that Royal Mail paid compensation for lost items  sold on Ebay as long as you could provide proof of postage and the final auction page.
When did this change to proof of value being an original purchase receipt?

Is it right that you entrust an item to RM and if it is lost they can say 'have the postage back..in stamps'

Can we get this changed back to the way it was?

soolin

Ellie505 said:

It used to be that Royal Mail paid compensation for lost items  sold on Ebay as long as you could provide proof of postage and the final auction page.
When did this change to proof of value being an original purchase receipt?

Is it right that you entrust an item to RM and if it is lost they can say 'have the postage back..in stamps'

Can we get this changed back to the way it was?

It hasn’t changed, it depends on whether it was a truly private sale or a business sale. If RM have reason to believe sale was a business sale then you get back the initial cost of the item or the sale price, whichever is lowest. If it is a private sale then ebay will pay out the full cost , depending on the service used, on proof of refund to buyer and ebay sale page. I did one on my private account about 5 weeks ago, submitted a screen shot of the initial sale details and also of the managed payments page showing buyer had been fully refunded and got my cheque back in less than a week. 

Ellie505

Thanks for that. It seems that although I sent a snip of the payment received  and a screen shot of the final auction page it wasn't good enough and it's not PayPal now so I presume that was the information lacking. I have since sent a full screen shot of the eBay payment and hope this does the trick.
I have read in eBay community that compensation wasn't being paid but they must have failed to mention that they are businesses.
Thanks again.l

Kimsandra

I am having a problem, i sent an item 48 hour tracked via ebay ( so should it go missing i'd be covered ) i am a private seller and royal mail want the orignial reciept not the final sale price. it was £70 which to some people is not much but to me it is.  I am hoping they take the time to see that the same items are selling for that amount and more!  If royal mail don't pay up does anyone know what i can do about it? thanks  

soolin

Kimsandra said:

I am having a problem, i sent an item 48 hour tracked via ebay ( so should it go missing i'd be covered ) i am a private seller and royal mail want the orignial reciept not the final sale price. it was £70 which to some people is not much but to me it is.  I am hoping they take the time to see that the same items are selling for that amount and more!  If royal mail don't pay up does anyone know what i can do about it? thanks  

If you are really a private seller then go back to RM and point out that the value is what you received on ebay, upload the page showing what you refunded.

There have been incidences where Royal Mail have looked at someone’s account and decided they were an undeclared business , as of course they don’t have to go entirely by how someone was registered with ebay, neither do HMRC, but if it is obvious you are selling off your old unwanted items I would go back and argue with them. 

zackary71

I can speak from experience on this...as have had 3 claims in the last 6 weeks for damage. eBay listing number provided, but each time, the claim was knocked back as it was insufficient re value. I got all 3 settled in full, but only after providing my original purchase receipt. It seems that RM now are taking the stance of just returning you to your original position as if you hadn't sold an item. 
eg. Buy item for £20. Sell on eBay for £50 + £5.00 Postage and Packing. Item smashed to pieces in transit (again, speaking from experience !!) and claim submitted for £50 + £3.45 Tracked 48. Rejected. Submit purchase receipt for £20. Success - here's £23.45.  So I've not just lost the profit,  but I'm now £1.55 worse off.  Note to self - I'm in the wrong business. 

soolin

zackary71 said:

I can speak from experience on this...as have had 3 claims in the last 6 weeks for damage. eBay listing number provided, but each time, the claim was knocked back as it was insufficient re value. I got all 3 settled in full, but only after providing my original purchase receipt. It seems that RM now are taking the stance of just returning you to your original position as if you hadn't sold an item. 
eg. Buy item for £20. Sell on eBay for £50 + £5.00 Postage and Packing. Item smashed to pieces in transit (again, speaking from experience !!) and claim submitted for £50 + £3.45 Tracked 48. Rejected. Submit purchase receipt for £20. Success - here's £23.45.  So I've not just lost the profit,  but I'm now £1.55 worse off.  Note to self - I'm in the wrong business. 

Private sellers though have never had ‘profit’ taken into account , whereas we business sellers have always had profit excluded. Someone selling their own unwanted items doesn’t have a profit element and probably sell for less than they paid, so once they show that  the item sold for more than they originally paid, would probably get the eBay cost back as being the lower of the 2 prices. 

Also, assuming you insured using the correct postage method you should have got back the item cost plus actual postage , again though they won’t pay you for any ‘profit’ you build into the postage. You do also get your FVFs back from eBay so the situation is t quite as bad as it seems.

martindow

Do you think you need to look at your packaging?  I know that I have taken risks after being tempted to stay within the dimensions of a small parcel for instance, where ideally a larger box and more packaging should have been used. 

I'm slightly surprised that RM have not started refusing to pay out after a series of breakages and claims.  Unless parcels have tyre marks across them or other evidence of exceptionally bad handling, breakages are evidence of insufficient packaging.

zackary71

martindow said:

Do you think you need to look at your packaging?  I know that I have taken risks after being tempted to stay within the dimensions of a small parcel for instance, where ideally a larger box and more packaging should have been used. 

I'm slightly surprised that RM have not started refusing to pay out after a series of breakages and claims.  Unless parcels have tyre marks across them or other evidence of exceptionally bad handling, breakages are evidence of insufficient packaging.

Unsure if that's for me - but I actually get very good feedback on the packaging front. Anything fragile gets double boxed, with bubble around the object on inner box, and further cushioning bubble between the 2 cardboard layers and 'FRAGILE' tape outside. There's always an inherent risk I think if sending breakable items, but my damage rate is only about 1.5%. I guess I've just had a bad run !! 

martindow

zackary71 said:

martindow said:

Do you think you need to look at your packaging?  I know that I have taken risks after being tempted to stay within the dimensions of a small parcel for instance, where ideally a larger box and more packaging should have been used. 

I'm slightly surprised that RM have not started refusing to pay out after a series of breakages and claims.  Unless parcels have tyre marks across them or other evidence of exceptionally bad handling, breakages are evidence of insufficient packaging.

Unsure if that's for me - but I actually get very good feedback on the packaging front. Anything fragile gets double boxed, with bubble around the object on inner box, and further cushioning bubble between the 2 cardboard layers and 'FRAGILE' tape outside. There's always an inherent risk I think if sending breakable items, but my damage rate is only about 1.5%. I guess I've just had a bad run !! 

It was a response to your post, but reading it back, the tone is much blunter and accusatory than I intended it to be - sorry!  I am sometimes surprised how forthcoming RM are in paying compensation for breakages.  In their shoes, unless there was clear evidence of damage to the outer box, I woudn't pay compensation.  Most carriers avoid the problem by excluding all fragile or delicate items from compensation.

I regularly send fragile items and like you try to pack them well, but take responsibility for any losses on myself as when boxed they are too large for RM services so have to go with DPD and the like.

tightauldgit

Haven't had to claim off RM for a while but last time I did I provided the Ebay value and they paid out based on that. If RM changed that policy I'd have to reconsider using them - not least of all because I don't have receipts for the majority of stuff I sell. If I sell an item for £50 on Ebay then it's worth £50. Fair enough if RM can show they can go buy a new one tomorrow for £30 then OK but absent that the value is the value and I think RM would have a hard time justifying that policy. 

I suppose there is a possibility of fraud (get your mate to buy something cheap for a grand then say it arrived broke) but even still I don't see how they can insist on an original purchase receipt - what if you don't have one?