Returned parcel delivered to neighbour, they sold contents on ebay. Legal case and evidence?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Undervalued said:

Okell said:

Skypist said:

Thanks for all your input guys. As far as your presumptions with the courier…you’re correct. I’ve sent so many rackets with this courier and never had a problem, and didn’t take out extra insurance (actually customer decided not to, but it didn’t even leave Uk to get to him!)...

@DullGreyGuy didn't ask if you'd taken out extra insurance - they asked whether you had declared the value correctly.

If you read all of the thread linked to by @the_lunatic_is_in_my_head you will see that it isn't necessarily that easy for the courier to avoid liability so long as they knew the value of the item.  It may not be necessary for you to take out extra insurance

That point has been debated on here nearly as much as delivery to the personal possession of the recipient!

Due care and skill is an implied term of the contract, delivering it to the wrong place is not due care and skill, there may be a debate around parcels being randomly lost, but it was without question careless to deliver the parcel to the wrong place (unless OP had their neighbours address as the return or nominated it as a safe place which the OP reads as if that wasn't the case) so breach the contract, suffer the foreseeable losses and 

Undervalued said:

Declare it as a sparkly hat worth £20 then try and claim its true value when DPD lose it!!

Apart from the loss being foreseeable* the value declared really doesn't make any difference, it's not as if DPD would say "sorry if it's over £50 in value you have top pay £x more or find another courier", put in £50, £185, £2000 the same thing will happen, they will accept the parcel without any extra fee and that was the argument in the other case, the true cost of the service is £x delivery + £x cover and allowing the consumer to purchase at the lower price is the courier's problem. 

*And for that reason there is no reason not to declare the correct value and ensure losses are indeed foreseeable. 

I find it strange people are willing to suffer such bad service and expect to be out of pocket for something they are covered under, or perhaps they only expect others to..... 

RefluentBeans

Exodi said:

Agree with all the objective opinions in this thread but I don't know why but this has caused an irrational anger within me.

I really hate that 'the police don't have time to deal with that' is so commonly used as a (valid) counter. That someone can just plainly steal their neighbours possessions, with clear evidence of the fact, and the police may likely still do nothing.

This is something I would be willing to pay more tax for.

Please update us with how the conversations with the police/neighbours go.

I generally agree but the police have never been interested in small value crime. The cost of sending a police officer to take an initial report, followed by a detective to actually investigate the crime, followed by the prosecutor to prosecute the crime (as well as statutory legal costs to allow the criminal to defend themselves) outweighs the £185. 

Which is why every crime should get reported but don’t expect every crime to get investigated. If there’s a pattern of this neighbour routinely stealing other peoples parcels, then the police may investigate it further. But it’s simply not a good use of taxpayer money to go after every petty crime. And given the raise of car thefts that go uninvestigated - I really doubt the police will have much time for a sub £1000 loss. 

OP you should still report it. But I think it’s on you to go after DPD. Unfortunately, it is your risk when shipping stuff and so it is on you to ensure the item is properly declared for value. Prior to this, did you get the racket appraised? Or check the market rate for that racket? 

Exodi

RefluentBeans said:

Exodi said:

Agree with all the objective opinions in this thread but I don't know why but this has caused an irrational anger within me.

I really hate that 'the police don't have time to deal with that' is so commonly used as a (valid) counter. That someone can just plainly steal their neighbours possessions, with clear evidence of the fact, and the police may likely still do nothing.

This is something I would be willing to pay more tax for.

Please update us with how the conversations with the police/neighbours go.

I generally agree but the police have never been interested in small value crime. The cost of sending a police officer to take an initial report, followed by a detective to actually investigate the crime, followed by the prosecutor to prosecute the crime (as well as statutory legal costs to allow the criminal to defend themselves) outweighs the £185. 

Which is why every crime should get reported but don’t expect every crime to get investigated. If there’s a pattern of this neighbour routinely stealing other peoples parcels, then the police may investigate it further. But it’s simply not a good use of taxpayer money to go after every petty crime. And given the raise of car thefts that go uninvestigated - I really doubt the police will have much time for a sub £1000 loss. 

OP you should still report it. But I think it’s on you to go after DPD. Unfortunately, it is your risk when shipping stuff and so it is on you to ensure the item is properly declared for value. Prior to this, did you get the racket appraised? Or check the market rate for that racket?

To be honest, my knee-jerk reaction was that someone successfully convicted should be encumbered with the costs.

But then I appreciate that people committing low-value thefts are unlucky to be high net worth individuals, so slapping someone who stole a Mars bar with thousands in costs is unlikely to achieve much of anything.

I guess it is hard to turn a blind eye to 'low' value crime. If I put myself in OP's shoes with evidence, I'd be absolutely furious. Especially when the conclusion is effectively laying the blame with the courier or the OP.

Jumblebumble

RefluentBeans said:

Exodi said:

Agree with all the objective opinions in this thread but I don't know why but this has caused an irrational anger within me.

I really hate that 'the police don't have time to deal with that' is so commonly used as a (valid) counter. That someone can just plainly steal their neighbours possessions, with clear evidence of the fact, and the police may likely still do nothing.

This is something I would be willing to pay more tax for.

Please update us with how the conversations with the police/neighbours go.

I generally agree but the police have never been interested in small value crime. The cost of sending a police officer to take an initial report, followed by a detective to actually investigate the crime, followed by the prosecutor to prosecute the crime (as well as statutory legal costs to allow the criminal to defend themselves) outweighs the £185. 

Which is why every crime should get reported but don’t expect every crime to get investigated. If there’s a pattern of this neighbour routinely stealing other peoples parcels, then the police may investigate it further. But it’s simply not a good use of taxpayer money to go after every petty crime. And given the raise of car thefts that go uninvestigated - I really doubt the police will have much time for a sub £1000 loss. 

OP you should still report it. But I think it’s on you to go after DPD. Unfortunately, it is your risk when shipping stuff and so it is on you to ensure the item is properly declared for value. Prior to this, did you get the racket appraised? Or check the market rate for that racket? 

Perhaps the Police should simply inform that campsite owners son that they are going to come and arrest him on suspicion of theft but if he pays the value back promptly they will not need to do .
( this happened to me when a buffoon lost his temper and kicked a dent in the back of by brand new car
The obviously experienced police sergeant attending informed said buffoon that he had the choice of agreeing to pay for the damage at a main dealer or  of being arrested for criminal damage
This focussed the buffoon's mind wonderfully and My car got fixed

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Jumblebumble said:

Perhaps the Police should simply inform that campsite owners son that they are going to come and arrest him on suspicion of theft but if he pays the value back promptly they will not need to do .
( this happened to me when a buffoon lost his temper and kicked a dent in the back of by brand new car

There was thread long ago about a tree surgeon cutting too far back on the boundary and the OP (unfairly in my view) ended up with some kind of order (forget the name of it now) which basically required them to make amends, not sure if such things still exist or apply to theft, but one of the options was to pay compensation to the victim which would ideally cover something like low value theft. 

Edited to add, this was the thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6252798/compensation-from-tree-surgeon/p1

and it was a community resolution the OP was faced with. 

https://www.redbridge.gov.uk/young-people/community-resolutions/

brianposter

RefluentBeans said:

I generally agree but the police have never been interested in small value crime. The cost of sending a police officer to take an initial report, followed by a detective to actually investigate the crime, followed by the prosecutor to prosecute the crime (as well as statutory legal costs to allow the criminal to defend themselves) outweighs the £185. 

This is a nonsense argument. The principal function of the police and the legal system is to deter crime, and the value of what they deter is probably well over ten times what the system costs.

As soon as it becomes apparent that they are failing to prosecute any particular form of crime that deterence disappears and the cost of ignoring the criminality is likely to become far greater than the cost of simply enforcing the law.

HillStreetBlues

brianposter said:

RefluentBeans said:

I generally agree but the police have never been interested in small value crime. The cost of sending a police officer to take an initial report, followed by a detective to actually investigate the crime, followed by the prosecutor to prosecute the crime (as well as statutory legal costs to allow the criminal to defend themselves) outweighs the £185. 

This is a nonsense argument. The principal function of the police and the legal system is to deter crime, and the value of what they deter is probably well over ten times what the system costs.

As soon as it becomes apparent that they are failing to prosecute any particular form of crime that deterence disappears and the cost of ignoring the criminality is likely to become far greater than the cost of simply enforcing the law.

I think we have seen that with shoplifting.

Exodi

HillStreetBlues said:

brianposter said:

RefluentBeans said:

I generally agree but the police have never been interested in small value crime. The cost of sending a police officer to take an initial report, followed by a detective to actually investigate the crime, followed by the prosecutor to prosecute the crime (as well as statutory legal costs to allow the criminal to defend themselves) outweighs the £185. 

This is a nonsense argument. The principal function of the police and the legal system is to deter crime, and the value of what they deter is probably well over ten times what the system costs.

As soon as it becomes apparent that they are failing to prosecute any particular form of crime that deterence disappears and the cost of ignoring the criminality is likely to become far greater than the cost of simply enforcing the law.

I think we have seen that with shoplifting.

I was going to mention this earlier, particularly in the US. Countless videos of people casually shoplifting in broad daylight while the staff patiently wait for them to finish so they can tally the loss and ring up the insurers. Considering IIRC the UK police don't attend for offences valued below £100, I'm suprised more shoplifting doesn't occur (that said I was suprised to notice that the £3.50 steak I bought from Tesco had a covert security tag hidden underneath the sleeve).

Skypist

DullGreyGuy said:

NUndervalued said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Undervalued said:
Despite the fact they didn't know what was in the box!

DPD will know what's in the box and its value, as per these input boxes on their website when booking a courier:



Interestingly when you have typed in £500,000 and add another 0 to get to £5,000,000 the field goes red and you cannot book it. Seems their website allows you to send something up to £1,000,000 as it stops once you get to £1,000,001

So clearly their website has rules built in to not allow things over £1m being sent which shows not only do they know what they are carrying and how much its worth but they've gone to the effort of ensuring it has rules to not exceed their limit. 

Exactly, but I think you get the point I was making!

Declare it as a sparkly hat worth £20 then try and claim its true value when DPD lose it!!

Assuming the courier the OP used has a similar booking in procedure he presumably didn't declare the Badminton Racquet's full value of £185 or had to agree to some other disclaimer?

With DPD put anything up to £50 it tells you that you are covered. Between £50 and £5,000 they say you can insurer it for £X. For over £5k and up to £1m it says you can insurer it for the value of £5k. Over £1m it won't allow you to proceed. 

The OP never answered my question of what value they declared it for, they simply said they didnt buy the extra insurance on it. So if like DPD website they put the correct value then it would have been covered for £50 by the insurance. 

If you read the MSE website however there is an argument that their duty of care makes the website statement irrelevant and they cannot discharge it by saying you didnt buy insurance. I know I disagree with a fair amount MSE put on their website as over simplified etc but personally on the fence on this one.

Apologies, I did forget to answer. I declared the full value of £200 when making the booking. As of now Evri are “passing my claim to finance” and it’s been two weeks.  The lack of duty and care should definitely be my leverage. It seems this type of action by Evri is commonplace. At the minimum they need to refund me the Customs tax needlessly paid when the parcel didn’t even depart the UK (£15) and their contractual minimum for loss (£20).

Skypist

Here’s an update on the situation. Police requested evidence that the serial numbers of the rackets were the same, and that I was indeed the owner. I didn’t photograph the serial number of the racket when I bought it (who would?) but the shop kindly gave me written proof. The culprit DID photograph the serial number when I put it on eBay though!  After this evidence was sent, it was passed to the investigations team who could take 3 weeks to respond.

in the meantime I was still corresponding with the eBay seller about another item and he divulged his address etc. I called him and asked again if he’s seen a racket. He squirmed but denied it, so then I hit him with all the evidence I’d sent to the police and told him what he needs to do right now : transfer the racket cost to my account and take a bottle of wine to my Dad’s house up the road for lying to him when he came round.

He then admitted what he’d done and was very apologetic, even emotional. Within 2 minutes I had my refund and he called me back to check and apologise further. So it was a successful resolution and a weight off my mind.