John Lewis lost my item, and refuse to refund me

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

savergrant said:

I think one problem is we now have a grey area. Post used to be 'signed for' or 'unsigned'. If something was of value or proof of delivery were needed it had to be sent 'signed for'. These days technology has given us contactless options like GPS and photo, which can prove delivery.
These also give convenience as many people simply do not want to wait in for a parcel, and collecting an undelivered parcel is a nuisance.
It is now customary for the sender to provide tracking information to the recipient, and using that information the recipient is able to instruct the carrier without reference to the sender. I've certainly received some updates which say 'we're delivering your parcel today. Not going to be in?' Etc
I suppose the answer is for the sender to only offer services which require a signature on delivery, or to prevent the consumer being able to give instructions to the carrier.

The issue with signed for is anyone can sign, Royal Mail do offer age verification which presumably requires some form of ID but I assume anyone rather than named on the parcel. 

Some retailers have the code to be given to the driver which is also a step in that direction but only giving to named person on parcel requires them to be home.

Obviously we benefit from the convenience of not having to be home to take the parcel but so do retailers (as we shop more because of that convenience) so if it were strictly enforced life might be more difficult for us (might not be a bad thing if all purchased a bit less stuff) but if it hits retailer profits beyond the losses of what replacing/refunding currently does you can bet they'd rather carry on as they are, ultimately what ever avenue (within the law) is more profitable is what will happen.


@businesstime

See this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6578798/child-car-seat-bought-from-john-lewis-in-august-2022#latest

savergrant

businesstime said:

Also the time from giving me a QR code to return the additional items and when they cancelled the return was less than two days. The time from when I was first informed that there was even a problem to the time the return was cancelled was less than a week. That's not a reasonable timeframe

There seems to be three things going on here;
They agreed to issue a refund but required you to send the accessories, which they then issued a returns label for

They then tried to contact you despite knowing you were returning the accessories, so presumably to withdraw their offer

Having not made contact with you they sent the item to an old address they had for you (not the address you gave them when purchasing the watch)

If you get the watch back it would seem unlikely that they will honour their offer of a refund.
If you don't get the watch back you will need to convince a judge that they were not authorised to send it to that address, and they may argue that the watch is worthless.

user1977

businesstime said:

2) I've asked them for their legal address.

Why have you asked them for it? You don't need to go further than the bottom of their website home page to find their registered office (and I presume it's on your order details).