£50 in the bin quite literally

Exodi

Okell said:

Undervalued said:

Exodi said:

Undervalued said:

FlaatusGoat said:

Ah so it's my fault the delivery was put in the bin. I loved reading the Olympic level mental gymnastics needed to reach that conclusion.

Well it is your fault that you ordered an item that was likely to be delivered when you were away and made no arrangements regarding a safe place or delivery to a neighbour!

Your claim is against the company that supplied the goods. If you take them to court and they can't convince the judge that "on the balance of probabilities" the item  reached your possession, you will likely win and they will be ordered to reimburse you for the item and the court fee.

How much is involved and is it worth it? 

£50 (thread title).

I would just reinforce that this isn't a BW or Evri problem - virtually every courier that delivers to me leaves parcels on my doorstep, round the side and occasionally (usually when it's raining) in one of the bins, with a note about it through the door.

It wouldn't matter if you ordered Creatine from BW or MyProtein or Amazon, there's no reason to think the result wouldn't have been the same.

That said I've never had a parcel delivered to someone elses bin as suggested in this thread. Nor has it happened while my bin is at the end of my drive for bin day.

One of the regulars on this forum will delight in pointing out that the legislation requires the item to be delivered to the personal possession of the buyer! As far as I am aware there has never been a test case in a high enough court to set a precedent about what constitutes this.

In practice it never happens! Before the proliferation of "couriers" even the (then) good old trusted Royal Mail's premium Registered / Special Delivery only guaranteed delivery to an address, not a person. Plus there is no legal requirement to have any form of ID, so how could any courier be certain of who they handed the item to?

The whole area is a mess. Everybody wants their items NOW, yet also wants the lowest possible delivery charge. 95% of the time it works OK(ish) but sometimes it doesn't. By and large the law protects the consumer and we all end up paying for that!

Rant over!

The relevant wording of the legislation is:

"29 Passing of risk

(1) A sales contract is to be treated as including the following provisions as terms.

(2) The goods remain at the trader's risk until they come into the physical possession of—

(a) the consumer, or

(b) a person identified by the consumer to take possession of the goods."

We know what it says, it gets cited ad nauseam every week, hence Undervalued's comment.

I am somewhat confused though, why, in reponse to a comment that this legislation gets quoted over and over and over and over again, you decided to reply with the legislation. We know what it says.

Undervalued even refers to the legislation before you cited it, so there was no uncertainly. We get it, it says 'physical possession' - yet we also know virtually no real world delivery ever meets this criteria, including items posted through the door, or even handed to someone that was not formally ID'd.

As said, and as I'm also aware, there's no big cases about it to form any form of precedent.

But that doesn't stop this vacuous discussion every time someone doesn't receive their parcel, in which the OP is encouraged to sue the retailer, citing some out-of-touch clause about physical possession.

Also rant over.

Okell said:
Although I think it would be better if we did go back in time so that when a delivery fails because the addressee is not at home, they have to go off to some depot to collect the item themself.

Well that's your view, but I personally greatly appreciate the convenience of parcels being left outside the house when I'm not in and not having to drive to the local sorting office which is inevitably in the middle of nowhere and open awkward hours.

RefluentBeans

Agree with Exodi fully. That passage is perhaps one of the most quoted extracts on this forum. The simple fact is that it is outdated and is not as clear cut as it seems. ‘Physical possession’ doesn’t account for safe places that are designated by the consumer. 

The issue of risk transference is complicated. We can all agree what is clearly wrong (dumping the parcel on the street before it even enters the property) and what is clearly right (asking for identification prior to delivery and handing it for one person to another person); but the line in the sand is clearly different. And it is also situational dependent. For example the treatment of an expensive laptop should be different than the magazine I have delivered. One I’d wait in for and the other I’d be happy to be left in my porch whilst at work. It also is dependent on the location you live in - a nice little village where you know everyone will be completely different to a City Centre where your parcel may be stolen if not secured. 

stu12345_2

screech_78 said:

Royal Mail never leave parcels around here. I wish they would! 

If im not in when a RM parcel is delivered, a card is put through the letterbox telling you to rearrange delivery or collect from the local sorting office (which isn’t actually that local). 

that is the correct rules 

stu12345_2

in a recent job I had , the receptionist would receive numerous parcels for staff that had ordered stuff online and put the delivery address as their place of work.
solved alot of problems of you not being at home when item delivered or potentially getting it dumped in a wheelie bin.

IvanOpinion

Okell said:
Although I think it would be better if we did go back in time so that when a delivery fails because the addressee is not at home, they have to go off to some depot to collect the item themself.

Please no!!  I live in an area where parcels can be safely left on peoples front steps.

Penguin_

Christ my postie leaves parcels with neighbours but often doesn't put the red card through the letter box.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Undervalued said:

One of the regulars on this forum will delight in pointing out that the legislation requires the item to be delivered to the personal possession of the buyer!

Hi! 

Undervalued said: we all end up paying for that!

Out of interest what system wouldn't we pay for?

Currently retailer covers the cost and splits it between everyone.

Flip side customer suffers the lose which "we" would pay for, you might think you are fine but it only takes a new driver on a round to mess up a delivery. Even if you are home 24/7 maybe they leave something in your neighbours bin by mistake on their first day on the job. 

Perhaps everyone should have secure parcel delivery boxes but "we" would still have to pay for them.

The current system is likely the cheapest "we" pay for, companies are massive these days, they are very efficient at being efficient, if there was a cheaper way they'd be doing that instead, maybe they are just waiting for an epiphany? 

Okell said:

One of the features of both the CRA and the CCR is that they weren't designed to be fair or to create a level playing field.  They're purposefully drafted to be in the consumer's favour and not the trader's.  they aren't meant to be fair.  If traders don't like that they should lobby Parliament to make the law fairer.

I think IMHO the view of what is "fair" is skewed, businesses are using many physiological tactics to get us to spend money, most people just don't see it, our products are poor quality, whether it's cheap components on TVs or rubbish pumped in our food, workers are paid as little as possible, competition is stifled by scale and the sheer size of some of these companies gives the ability to influence government, consumer rights are designed exactly to be fair, by readdressing some of the balance  

PHK

I don’t think it’s just that certain people post sections of legislation. But the unwarranted interpretation they often put on it. Often their arguments aren’t backed up by fact because of assumptions they’ve made. 

Physical possession being a very good example.  Taken literally, the majority of deliveries would be classed as not delivered and yet no reasonable person would say they weren’t. So it needs a suitable court to decide exactly how this should be interpreted. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

PHK said:

 yet no reasonable person would say they weren’t. 

Only a personal opinion obviously but, I don't think a reasonable person would find it acceptable for parcels to be left in bins or on open view on door steps, in a porch, shed or such and I agree it's debatable, even more so if the customer has requested a safe place.

Earlier posts say the company is pretty good so hopefully OP won't have to rely on trying to argue their case.

PHK said:

Often their arguments aren’t backed up by fact because of assumptions they’ve made. 

I think the courier insurance thread says a lot about misconceptions on about the forum really, ultimately I assume none of us a lawyers and the advice is free so it's going to a mixed bag with all of us (myself included) getting it wrong from time to time  

donnac2558

My current Postman does not even knock, just puts in the black box on my porch and puts a card through the front door.  The black box is for glass and no one touches it unless you leave it out to be emptied.

The evri guy does knock and then will leave in black box.