QVC refusing refund of £399.00

p00hsticks

Manxman_in_exile said:

user1977 said:

I suspect the main difference between couriers and many other areas of business is that they don't really know what risk they are taking on unless you declare the type/value of the contents - does your parcel contain a Ming vase, or are you just sending your dirty laundry home to your mum?

Well if the courier has asked the customer to declare the value of the parcel contents and the customer has lied, then that is at the customer's risk - they can't expect greater compensation than they have declared.

But where the courier hasn't asked or where the customer has truthfully declared the value, why should the customer have to pay to insure against the courier's carelessness, incompetence, negligence or the outright dishonesty of their staff?

I'm not familiar with sending stuff by courier, but do they generally charge the same to send (e.g) a 20 kg box of dirty laundry as they do to send a 20k box of the same size containing a Ming vase ?

If so, it makes sense to me that they'd suggest insurance on top to cover the potential differnce in value if the item is lost or damaged, whether it's the couriers fault or not.

jon81uk

teresa7272 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

teresa7272 said:

I returned a Dyson hair straightener using Hermes / Evri as it was under the max weight to use this service - which is heavily promoted as a helpful QVC partner. I didn’t notice that I shouldn’t have used this service for any items which cost over £200. I got the tracking info from Hermes but it seems to be lost somewhere. Hermes say to contact QVC as it’s their problem and QVC say to contact Hermes & they are refusing a refund as they say I shouldn’t have used Hermes. I’ve contacted both Hermes/Evri & QVC CEOs by email but both keep saying to contact the other -   So I’ve lost £399 and I’m devastated. was my first ever purchase from QVC and will most definitely be my last. Any advice on how I might get my money back? 

How was the return booked in, did QVC book the courier as part of the returns process, or did you pick the courier and pay them yourself?

I booked it in myself but I didn’t see the part about not sending things via Hermes over £200 
im sure I don’t have a leg to stand on though 

Did you pay Hermes or did QVC pay for the return?

If you paid Hermes did you correctly declare the value and did it offer you the option to pay for a service that covers items of that value?

If QVC paid for the return, but advised not using that service for high value items then I think you are stuck.
If you paid Hermes they should refund you up to the value that you paid for, by default Hermes only covers up to £20.
Similar to if you paid Royal Mail for standard first class it only covers to £20, signed for to £50 and you need special delivery for items over that.

TELLIT01

Manxman_in_exile said:

TELLIT01 said:

if you arranged Hermes as the carrier, your contract is with them and any compensation for loss will depend entirely on their T&C.

But doesn't s57(1) prevent a trader from attempting to exclude liability where they have not exercised reasonable care and skill?

Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk)

For £400 I would certainly argue that losing the item is palpably NOT exercising reasonable care and skill.  And I wouldn't care what their T&Cs purport to say.

(I'm quite happy to be shown to be wrong.  I'm just amazed that couriers like Hermes etc seem to evade so easily liability for lost items that appear clearly to be their responsibility... )

How would the carrier know the value if the sender didn't declare it.  The T&C limit liability to £20 unless additional insurance is taken out.  That is all clearly stated in their T&C so I don't think the OP will be successful in any claim.  That doesn't mean they shouldn't try.

sheramber

My son sent a large box of Christmas presents with Hermes.

The parcel never arrived. Hermes advised it was lost.

He  sent in a loss claim as he had taken out insurance.

Two days later the parcel was delivered to a  different ( wrong ) address which just happened to be the home of the mother of one of the recipients friends. They brought the parcel round to the correct person.

Did some one  make an effort to search for it when a claim was made?

Manxman_in_exile

Diamandis said:

It does say on the hermes/evri site not to use the service for things worth over £250 too.

If that's the case then the OP should have no remedy if the lost goods were > £250.  I have no problem with Hermes having no liability if the goods exceeded their value limit.

Alderbank

Over at the Consumer Action Group https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/183-postal-and-delivery-services/
there are many interesting and very relevant posts about this issue.
They say that EVRi (Hermes) and others seek to deny consumers' legal rights by telling them when they complain about 'lost' parcels that by entering into a contract with EVRi their entitlement to any damages is limited to EVRi's restrictive T&Cs.
However they say that when, with the assistance of CAG, claimants have submitted properly worded LBAs, EVRi have paid up rather than face court challenge.

CAG give very detailed and experienced assistance to their members to enable them to claim successfully.

Manxman_in_exile

Money_Grabber13579 said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Alderbank said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

I'm interested in the law here as well, and you raise a good point.

I don't know what limits the liability of the Post Office/RM, but given the history I wouldn't be surprised if it's by statute.

What really annoys me is that you can enter into a contract with a courier - or whatever - and then they can say to you "Oh - by the way, you will need to take out insurance at an additional cost if you want your item to be covered against us damaging it or losing it because we haven't exercised reasonable skill or taken reasonable care of it whilst it's in our possession".

Why should the customer have to insure against the service provider breaching the contract?  That should be the provider's concern and at their risk - not the customer's.

And I'm not sure the CRA permits service providers to do that anyway.  (Although I'm more than happy for it to be demonstrated that I'm wholly wrong on this generally)

This led to a change of precedent - the carrier had to be 'negligent', meaning the owner of the goods had to package the goods reasonably well and the carrier merely had to show reasonable care and skill.

I guess it begs the question how do you lose a well packaged, clearly addressed parcel if you’ve been taking reasonable care of it?

Perhsps OP can confirm whether they were returning under QVCs 60 day return policy or had cancelled their contract within 14 days of receipt? 

It could have been destroyed in a traffic accident which wasn’t the fault of the Hermes driver or something like that, ...

lisyloo said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Alderbank said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

I'm interested in the law here as well, and you raise a good point.

I don't know what limits the liability of the Post Office/RM, but given the history I wouldn't be surprised if it's by statute.

What really annoys me is that you can enter into a contract with a courier - or whatever - and then they can say to you "Oh - by the way, you will need to take out insurance at an additional cost if you want your item to be covered against us damaging it or losing it because we haven't exercised reasonable skill or taken reasonable care of it whilst it's in our possession".

Why should the customer have to insure against the service provider breaching the contract?  That should be the provider's concern and at their risk - not the customer's.

And I'm not sure the CRA permits service providers to do that anyway.  (Although I'm more than happy for it to be demonstrated that I'm wholly wrong on this generally)

This led to a change of precedent - the carrier had to be 'negligent', meaning the owner of the goods had to package the goods reasonably well and the carrier merely had to show reasonable care and skill.

I guess it begs the question how do you lose a well packaged, clearly addressed parcel if you’ve been taking reasonable care of it?...

My point exactly.  I can't think of a more apt example of res ipsa locquitur in operation...

The burden of proof shifts to Hermes to show they had taken proper care of it - which I doubt they could.

This does raise a point I’ve been wondering about.

is it possible to “lose” items without negligence.
i believe it is - for example there can be theft (even if someone is taking care and not negligent), accidents etc.
so the question is whose responsibility are those cases where negligence is not involved...

so I am questioning the position of loss = negligence...

Yes.  Of course it is possible for items to be lost or damaged while in transit and that loss or damage not be caused by the courier's negligence or lack of reasonable care.

However, I would argue that the mere fact that the courier has lost the item (so long as the customer has complied with all the courier's requirements) is prima facie evidence that the courier has been negligent which then switches the burden of proof back onto the courier to demonstrate that in fact they did take all reasonable care of the item - even though they lost it.

I'm not suggesting that would be impossible for the courier to do, but I would suggest they might find it difficult.

In any case, my argument is that the OP has nothing to lose by suing or threatening to sue.  But if they do nothing they will certainly lose c. £400.  It's a no-brainer.

Manxman_in_exile

p00hsticks said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

user1977 said:

I suspect the main difference between couriers and many other areas of business is that they don't really know what risk they are taking on unless you declare the type/value of the contents - does your parcel contain a Ming vase, or are you just sending your dirty laundry home to your mum?

Well if the courier has asked the customer to declare the value of the parcel contents and the customer has lied, then that is at the customer's risk - they can't expect greater compensation than they have declared.

But where the courier hasn't asked or where the customer has truthfully declared the value, why should the customer have to pay to insure against the courier's carelessness, incompetence, negligence or the outright dishonesty of their staff?

I'm not familiar with sending stuff by courier, but do they generally charge the same to send (e.g) a 20 kg box of dirty laundry as they do to send a 20k box of the same size containing a Ming vase ?

If so, it makes sense to me that they'd suggest insurance on top to cover the potential differnce in value if the item is lost or damaged, whether it's the couriers fault or not.

I wouldn't use a courier whose pricing structure makes no commercial sense.

I'm a strong believer that providers of services in the private sector should charge a proper market rate for the services they provide and that there shouldn't be any cross-subsidies that may distort or hide the true costs* of providing those services.

Obviously, if a courier is going to transport a wide range of items of widely varying values, they must price their services accordingly.  If they willingly accept high value items to transport, then they should stand the risk of doing so and price their services accordingly.  They shouldn't be asking the customer to take out insurance against them - the courier - being negligent.  That's daft.  The courier should be buying the insurance.  (And that makes more economic sense anyway, as they'd get a better deal for it unless they were completely incompetent.  Oh - hang on...      )

On the other hand, if they don't want to take that risk and they have a policy of refusing to transport high value items, then I don't have a problem with that policy so long as the customer is aware of it.

*I'm by no means a green activist or supporter, but there's no doubt in my mind that not pricing services and goods appropriately inevitably leads to misallocation and misuse of valuable resources.  These sort of courier charging structures are small fry and relatively insignificant in comparison to global warming etc, but they are symptomatic on a small scale of the sort of behaviour that have led us into the mess we are in today.  But I'm beginning an uncharacteristic rant, so I'll stop...

user1977

Manxman_in_exile said:

Obviously, if a courier is going to transport a wide range of items of widely varying values, they must price their services accordingly.  If they willingly accept high value items to transport, then they should stand the risk of doing so and price their services accordingly.  They shouldn't be asking the customer to take out insurance against them - the courier - being negligent.  That's daft.  The courier should be buying the insurance. 

Surely they're not actually "buying insurance" (unless it's an immensely valuable item) - the courier is taking on the risk themselves, they're just charging in accordance with what the risk is for certain types/values of items?

Manxman_in_exile

TELLIT01 said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

TELLIT01 said:

if you arranged Hermes as the carrier, your contract is with them and any compensation for loss will depend entirely on their T&C.

But doesn't s57(1) prevent a trader from attempting to exclude liability where they have not exercised reasonable care and skill?

Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk)

For £400 I would certainly argue that losing the item is palpably NOT exercising reasonable care and skill.  And I wouldn't care what their T&Cs purport to say.

(I'm quite happy to be shown to be wrong.  I'm just amazed that couriers like Hermes etc seem to evade so easily liability for lost items that appear clearly to be their responsibility... )

How would the carrier know the value if the sender didn't declare it...

????  I already posted at 5:10pm yesterday before you even posted the above question that if the courier asks the customer to declare the value and that the customer either lies about the value or fails to state one, then the courier's liability should be assessed accordingly.  eg if the customer sends off an item value £10k but only tells the courier that it's worth 50p, then the courier's liabiity should be limited to 50p only.  OK?

TELLIT01 said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

TELLIT01 said:

if you arranged Hermes as the carrier, your contract is with them and any compensation for loss will depend entirely on their T&C.

But doesn't s57(1) prevent a trader from attempting to exclude liability where they have not exercised reasonable care and skill?

Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk)

For £400 I would certainly argue that losing the item is palpably NOT exercising reasonable care and skill.  And I wouldn't care what their T&Cs purport to say.

(I'm quite happy to be shown to be wrong.  I'm just amazed that couriers like Hermes etc seem to evade so easily liability for lost items that appear clearly to be their responsibility... )

... The T&C limit liability to £20 unless additional insurance is taken out.  That is all clearly stated in their T&C so I don't think the OP will be successful in any claim.  That doesn't mean they shouldn't try.

Why does it matter what their T&Cs say?  The CRA says that a trader cannot use their T&Cs to attempt to avoid liability for not executing their part of the contract with reasonable care and skill.  The courier negligently loses your parcel.  Sue them for it.

(See my posts yesterday at 12:37pm and 8:44pm)