MSE Guide: Parcel Protection Insurance

langtoftlad

Would this Consumer Act protection cover me sending an item Special Delivery, the value of which exceeds their £2.5k compensation limit?

ParcelHelp

I think this is an excellent guide, well produced and welcome its promotion.

My main annoyance is that private courier firms are in effect unregulated by Ofcom and are therefore increasingly inadherent to Ofcoms stated 'rules' for delivery companies regarding routes of enquiry and complaints.

In your section How to complain if your parcel's lost, damaged, or stolen you mention that the consumer should Step 1: Contact your parcel delivery provider and Step 2: Submit a formal complaint if necessary. It should be noted that these steps are now being rendered near impossible. Courier companies are failing to provide a viable mechanism to record a complaint in the first instance. Ofcom state there should be a 'Fair, transparent, and effective processes for managing complaints'. Unfortunately Ofcom do not say what happens in the increasingly common event that courier companies decide not to do this.

Where do consumers go if courier companies simply block consumers from raising a complaint?

Specifically, I note that Evri and now DPD (and probably others) blatantly fail to provide a means of contact. They only offer chatbot/phonebot services both of which are nigh on impossible for the consumer to navigate. Having reread the 2022 Ofcom guidelines it appears to me that Ofcom's 'rules' do not stipulate the couriers provide any requirement for complaints to progress, only to display a potential route. This is incredibly toothless and Ofcom themselves do not appear to monitor (let alone fine) for a lack of provision.

This lack of process by which a consumer can progress/escalate a complaint forces the consumer to go the MCOL/Small Claims route knowing that the time and effort involved is likely to incur costs higher than the pecuniary value of the missing parcel contents, even when successful.

In an ideal world OFCOM would be forced to provide an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) scheme for all couriers in the same way that POSTRS is provided for Royal Mail/Parcelforce. This would then reduce, if not quite nullify, the need for consumers to go via the courts.