Courier "lost" high value parcels

Civic2056

turnitround said:

How do you intend to prove theft when its a mistake. Why was no-one from your brothers company checking what was being taken from the premises?

...it's our home. He's not even eighteen yet. 
I'm - we're - more interested in just getting the money back, the theft route is not going to be the first port of call

Civic2056

turnitround said:

Im more confused than ever. Are you saying there were 2 items which were meant to be collected by 2 different couriers and one courier has taken both, or are  you saying that courier A was supposed to deliver the item to courier B who in turn was supposed to deliver on to the customer?

2 items, each one to be collected by different couriers. The courier meant for one of the parcels took both of them, and they were unable to retreive the parcel they incorrectly took

HillStreetBlues

You could look at Bailment, as the courier  could be a  involuntary bailee

macman

So you left two high-value packages sitting on a driveway for collection, rather than arranging for the courier to be handed them by someone in the house?
How large was this piece of furniture?

Debbie9009

You left two parcels outside for different couriers expecting them to workout what they were suppose to take rather than hand each parcel to the correct courier.  I’m not surprised this has happened.

Couriers generally only have a couple of mins to collect a parcel, the courier will have seen the parcels and assumed they were to collect both, they don’t have enough time to call into an office and get someone to check.

Also I hope you are not calling them incompetent and morons when speaking with the courier companies, that’s incredibly rude.

I suspect you won’t get far in getting your money back as you left both parcels outside for collection rather than handing them over yourself.  It certainly won’t be theft just an understandable mistake.

powerful_Rogue

Civic2056 said:

turnitround said:

How do you intend to prove theft when its a mistake. Why was no-one from your brothers company checking what was being taken from the premises?

...it's our home. He's not even eighteen yet. 
I'm - we're - more interested in just getting the money back, the theft route is not going to be the first port of call

Shouldn't be any port of call. Would be an absolute waste of police time.

tightauldgit

OK so first of all no it's not theft. It's a mistake. Mistakes happen with couriers. The police will not want to know and even if they did that won't help get the item or your money back. 

Second, I don't see that the insurance policies of the courier that took the item are at all relevant. You had no contract with them to deliver the item, did not sign up to accept any of their terms and did not agree to them taking the item.  ETA: I'm confused here. You say 'he was insured' but how can he possibly be insured for an item he didn't ask the courier to pick up? 

Now assuming that the items were properly labelled and it was clear (or should have been clear) to the courier which item they were to take and which items were for someone else then your case is that their error caused you a loss and they should compensate for that loss to the value of the item. 

The matter over which company took the item wrongly is important. If you are taking the wrong company to court you won't get anything and the case will be dismissed. You need to take action against the company that wrongly took the item and made the error.

Flight3287462

"They saw two parcels on the driveway"

This is the bit that horrifies me.  Your brother left two items in the driveway, which I assume meant anyone could have taken them.  Why wasn't he there to ensure that each parcel was collected by the correct courier.

It sounds as if he didn't think ahead and cover all bases ie a note to parcel for courier A and parcel for courier B.

When he learns about Murphy's Law he will be a lot more careful.

Civic2056

tightauldgit said:

OK so first of all no it's not theft. It's a mistake. Mistakes happen with couriers. The police will not want to know and even if they did that won't help get the item or your money back. 

Second, I don't see that the insurance policies of the courier that took the item are at all relevant. You had no contract with them to deliver the item, did not sign up to accept any of their terms and did not agree to them taking the item.  ETA: I'm confused here. You say 'he was insured' but how can he possibly be insured for an item he didn't ask the courier to pick up? 

Now assuming that the items were properly labelled and it was clear (or should have been clear) to the courier which item they were to take and which items were for someone else then your case is that their error caused you a loss and they should compensate for that loss to the value of the item. 

The matter over which company took the item wrongly is important. If you are taking the wrong company to court you won't get anything and the case will be dismissed. You need to take action against the company that wrongly took the item and made the error.

This is the thing.
The parcels were booked via a comparison site which finds the cheapest courier site.
The comparison site subsequently hired the cheapest courier, namely Courier A.
Courier A arrived to pick up the parcel meant for them but also picked up one meant for another Courier, Courier B.
Courier A is arguing that the claimant, my brother, never entered into a contract with Courier A instead entering into a contract with the parcel comparison site, thus he cannot take legal action against Courier A and must take action against the parcel comparison site
However it's clearly got nothing to do with the parcel comparison site, it's to do with the driver simply picking up the wrong parcel, and Courier A not wanting to admit they made a mistake which would cost them £500, which is really a very insignificant amount for a company of its size

Civic2056

Flight3287462 said:

"They saw two parcels on the driveway"

This is the bit that horrifies me.  Your brother left two items in the driveway, which I assume meant anyone could have taken them.  Why wasn't he there to ensure that each parcel was collected by the correct courier.

It sounds as if he didn't think ahead and cover all bases ie a note to parcel for courier A and parcel for courier B.

When he learns about Murphy's Law he will be a lot more careful.

Flight3287462 said:

"They saw two parcels on the driveway"

This is the bit that horrifies me.  Your brother left two items in the driveway, which I assume meant anyone could have taken them.  Why wasn't he there to ensure that each parcel was collected by the correct courier.

It sounds as if he didn't think ahead and cover all bases ie a note to parcel for courier A and parcel for courier B.

When he learns about Murphy's Law he will be a lot more careful.

It's a safe area. 
And he was in school....