Can I take Hermes to court for my losses?

brightondave

Hermes are at the investigating the disappearance of two of my customer parcels already and now another has surfaced today making 3 in total.
Value of the 3 around £200
They are all showing as 'active still after 2 weeks
Example: If I post an item value £50
and I know my customer definately hasn't received it, I will probably end up refunding my customer £50 whilst after a while Hermes will refund me £50
BUT in my book I am still down a  £50 item because the item has disappeared into thin air at one of their depots.
So will there be any grounds for a small claims court claim against them because of the loss of my goods?
Anybody done this before?

Spoonie_Turtle

(Wrong board, I've asked for it to be moved.)

pramsay13

Yes in theory you can take anyone to court. 
Whether or not you will win is another matter.
In your example where you refund your customer and Hermes refund you you will definitely not be able to claim for another £50 as your loss has been covered. 

grumbler

brightondave said:

Example: If I post an item value £50
and I know my customer definately* hasn't received it, I will probably end up refunding my customer £50 whilst after a while Hermes will refund me £50
BUT in my book I am still down a  £50 item because the item has disappeared into thin air at one of their depots.?

You aren't down because you refunded the customer with £50 that you received earlier.

+50-50+50=50

The item disappeared, but you get £50.

It's Hermes that is down.

*see my signature

ariarnia

you have an item worth 50
you exchange the item for 50 
the item is lost 
you give the customer there 50 back
you are -50
hermes give you 50
you are back to as if the customer had received there item

you might even be better off if you can also reclaim the postage from hermes (assuming that wasnt included in the 50)

Jonboy_1984

Generally the sums as slightly different as couriers will only cover the cost You paid for the item,  not the price you sold it for so a more typical claim would be:

you have an item that cost you £25
you sell it for £50
item is lost
you return the £50 to the customer

you put in a claim for £25 (depending on couriers minimum claim value), jump through 6 hoops to provide evidenced cost such as supplier invoices, filling out a Byzantine form and sell the soul of your first born.

90-120 days later after their investigations are complete
 you receive a payment or credit note for £25 and the initial fee paid to them.

You write off the £25 margin(less any VAT involved) as a cost of business.

Three such claims in and the courier confirms they will no longer cover such items on your account and if you don’t like it you should find a new carrier…

olgadapolga

Jonboy_1984 said:

Generally the sums as slightly different as couriers will only cover the cost You paid for the item,  not the price you sold it for so a more typical claim would be:

you have an item that cost you £25
you sell it for £50
item is lost
you return the £50 to the customer

you put in a claim for £25 (depending on couriers minimum claim value), jump through 6 hoops to provide evidenced cost such as supplier invoices, filling out a Byzantine form and sell the soul of your first born.

90-120 days later after their investigations are complete
 you receive a payment or credit note for £25 and the initial fee paid to them.

You write off the £25 margin(less any VAT involved) as a cost of business.

Three such claims in and the courier confirms they will no longer cover such items on your account and if you don’t like it you should find a new carrier…

Evri will cover the selling price for an item (and refund the courier fee) providing that adequate cover/insurance was taken out, should the selling price be above £20. If the extra cover isn't taken out and the selling price was £50, then Evri will only pay out £20.

And Evri's requirements for paying out aren't has horrific as Royal Mail's, who require evidence of the purchase price and will only pay out on what the item cost you. Evri require a very simple claim form to be filled in, with the eBay item number as evidence of the item's value. Evri take about 28 days to issue a payment from the time they receive the claim form.

People bash Evri like crazy here but the few parcels I've had go missing, in years of using them, have all been paid out for. Unlike Royal Mail, with whom I've had so many parcels disappear that I very rarely use them as they are so unreliable. 

I also use UPS, who so far have a 100% delivery rate for my items.

Spoonie_Turtle

olgadapolga said:

And Evri's requirements for paying out aren't has horrific as Royal Mail's, who require evidence of the purchase price and will only pay out on what the item cost you. 

This is true for businesses, but not private customers (personal sellers on eBay) unless it's drastically changed since last I checked.

I will say I've not had any major problems with Hermes/Evri, thankfully.  It does seem to very much depend on locality though!

ariarnia

olgadapolga said:

And Evri's requirements for paying out aren't has horrific as Royal Mail's, who require evidence of the purchase price and will only pay out on what the item cost you. 

does that mean if i bought something for 50 new and sold it second hand for 25 i'd be quids in...?

MalMonroe

To answer your original question - no.

You'd be silly to take the matter to court because you'll have to pay £35 (up to £300) to take it there anyway and there's no case to be answered. You haven't lost anything. A waste of everyone's time, effort and money.

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/court-fees

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

olgadapolga said:

People bash Evri like crazy here but the few parcels I've had go missing, in years of using them, have all been paid out for. Unlike Royal Mail, with whom I've had so many parcels disappear that I very rarely use them as they are so unreliable. 

At one point we had over 100 items of mail a year going ‘missing’ with Royal Mail.

Then they brought in delivery confirmation and we went down to a dozen a year, 90% of which showed as delivered and the buyers went quiet after being given the tracking.

If you’ve had stuff with tracking / delivery confirmation go missing fair enough but for those who have suffered in the past during the days of untracked mail the problem might not have been Royal Mail……