What do I do next? Parcelmonkey & Fedex

Patevedrew

Hi All, 
Looking for general pointer as to my next action on a very specific issue. 

Used Parcelmonkey (who subbed to Fedex) to send Christmas gifts to daughter. Paid for insurance of £250 of goods. Parcel contained more than this but small items so didn't figure them in. 3 main presents=£250.
Due for delivery 20/12/24, no show.

We did all the chasing. Daughter waited in 2 days. Finally after being misinformed several times and finding it impossible to actually speak to a person, my daughter went to Fedex depot Christmas Eve. Told by manager there, parcel had been removed in a skip, along with many other parcels (a full skip is removed EACH day!) due to a rat infestation. He admitted they had changed pest control contract and were now overrun. Even the depot cat had disappeared! He apologised profusely. He gave my daughter their internal paperwork showing parcel marked as damaged 20/12, and sent for destruction 21/12. Parcelmonkey told then but they failed to admit issue to me at any point. He also gave her photos.

I was then left to beg a favour of my daughter's mother-in-law, that she go buy last minute (2pm Christmas Eve!) replacement gifts. These cost £120 and I gave her £30 to buy herself a nice bottle of wine as a Thank You for helping me out.

All the info was submitted to Parcelmonkey with receipts, photos, Fedex evidence, screendumps of WhatsApp messages early January. 

I have had to jump through hoops and do all the customer service myself. As I am so annoyed and my daughter so upset, I told Parcelmonkey that this was not an insurance claim but a compensation issue as parcel had been summarily destroyed  and as all the goods, £120 extra presents and £30 thank you, plus their fee and insurance comes to £489 that is what I want paid back to me plus a goodwill guesture. 

We were not given any chance to retrieve any goods from parcel due to Fedex's paranoia about being sued if we contracted Wiel's Disease from rat urine. Any sign of rat nibbling and parcel is in the skip!

Last week, i.e. 4 months after parcel was due, Parcelmonkey tell me they will only pay £250 I was insured for. I am spitting feathers.

The rub is, I did not know sending the following was forbidden in Parcelmonkey's small print:- chocolate, 2 Lindt bunnies, (wrapped paper, bubble wrap and tape, then more paper and tape), and glass - small bottle of Prosecco (heavily bubble wrapped, paper and tape) and 2 irreplacable (as in bought on a mother-daughter trip never to be repeated) Murano glass Christmas baubles (very well wrapped, bubble wrap, taped and further gift boxed and wrap). I was honest in my listing of parcel contents to Parcelmonkey and they are using that to basically tell me I am lucky to be offered anything.

With hindsight, and I'll never undervalue a parcel again, all the small things (including those above) amounted to c.£70. I have always undervalued parcels as the value is shown on outside of box thus making it a target for theft I feel.

I feel I am due full monies back (£489) at least. I would not have spent the extra £150 on 24th to make up for late notice of no Christmas presents being delivered. Had they told me on 21st I could've organised something else.  Everything was very well wrapped and had Fedex's depot not been overrun by rats the parcel would have been delivered (it was out for delivery on 20th but driver returned it to depot after noticing damage). 

Further perusal of Parcelmonkey's insurance T&Cs states that damage caused by vermin is not covered. 

Forgetting my noncompliance in sending chocolate and glass, the first issue in all this is the vermin infestation at Fedex. I told Parcelmonkey to take up this with Fedex and that they should pay me and recover their extra losses from Fedex. 

Surely, lack of vermin control is a crucial failure of Fedex and their consumers (direct or otherwise) should not be impacted by this? Parcelmonkey should also not be allowed to hide behind an exclusion clause for this?

Health and Safety laws alone should ensure a clean working space and failure to comply should negate their clauses they are trying to wriggle out via.

My question boils down to, what parts of the laws should I be quoting to Parcelmonkey to hold them to account and ensure they compensate me fairly?

As written, I feel this is not an insurance claim but a compensation matter. Knowing that I did send contraband (in their eyes) but offering me the £250 as insured for, could this be seen as an admission of liability on their part? I also want to pinprick their clause on sending foods and glass - how come you can get cream teas and bottles of alcohol through online delivery systems if it is such an issue? Smacks of double standards.

Any suggestions as to what to do next would be most welcome. Thanks for persevering in reading my long post.

eskbanker

I'd take the £250.

I don't believe there'd be any realistic prospect of anything more than this if that's what you declared as the value of the items - the money for replacement presents would obviously be expected to be taken from the £250, not included as an additional double-dipping claim, and the notion that a courier would fork out the £30 that you decided to give someone as a thank you is, let's say, highly optimistic!

born_again

It is not a insurance matter, as Parcel Monkey do not offer insurance (as this is a regulated area) (same as most other couriers) it is just compensation to the value you pay for (less any forbidden goods)

You will never get them to pay the extra £150, as that is not part of the agreement.

Mark_d

Your parcel was only covered for £250.  When they offered to pay you £250 I would have simply accepted that and moved on.  By persevering you might get an extra £30 goodwill gesture but I don't think you've got any chance of getting the £389 you're looking for.

Ergates

Patevedrew said:

I told Parcelmonkey that this was not an insurance claim but a compensation issue as parcel had been summarily destroyed  and as all the goods, £120 extra presents and £30 thank you, plus their fee and insurance comes to £489 that is what I want paid back to me plus a goodwill guesture. 

You can ask for whatever you like, doesn't mean you are due it or will get it.    Compensation should be based on your actual losses - which would be the cost of the contents of the parcel.  Given you insured it for £250 then it would be reasonable for ParcelMonkey to take this as the value of the parcel.  

You can't claim for the cost of the original items AND the replacements.  You can't claim for a gift you gave your MIL.

We were not given any chance to retrieve any goods from parcel due to Fedex's paranoia about being sued if we contracted Wiel's Disease from rat urine. Any sign of rat nibbling and parcel is in the skip!

This is a reasonable position from Fedex

Last week, i.e. 4 months after parcel was due, Parcelmonkey tell me they will only pay £250 I was insured for. I am spitting feathers.

Whilst it is obviously frustrating and very bad service it took so long, this is a reasonable outcome.

Patevedrew said:

My question boils down to, what parts of the laws should I be quoting to Parcelmonkey to hold them to account and ensure they compensate me fairly?

As written, I feel this is not an insurance claim but a compensation matter. Knowing that I did send contraband (in their eyes) but offering me the £250 as insured for, could this be seen as an admission of liability on their part? I also want to pinprick their clause on sending foods and glass - how come you can get cream teas and bottles of alcohol through online delivery systems if it is such an issue? Smacks of double standards.

I really don't follow your logic here.   You  *have* been compensated - they're paying your £250 to cover the cost of the items that were lost.

The follow up presents that you arranged weren't lost, and were received by your family, why would you be repaid for those?  You say you wouldn't have had to spend that money if the original parcel hadn't be lost - OK, but you're being compensated for the cost of the original parcel.


You might feel annoyed at parcelmonkey, but that doesn't entitle you to extra money.

Okell

@Patevedrew -  sorry but I don't understand the logic of your argument either.

You declared the value of your parcel to be £250.

The parcel got lost/was destroyed.  (Doesn't matter which)

They've offered you £250 - the declared value of the parcel.

What grounds do you think you have to want to claim "at least" an additional £239?

You can't claim the £120 for the replacement presents because you've have been (or will be) compensated for the loss/destruction of the original parcel.

You can't claim £30 for the bottle of wine because it isn't a foreseeable consequence of the loss/destruction of the original parcel.  You chose to pay it - you didn't need to.

Where are you getting the remaining £89 from?


I'd suggest you need to take two things away from this:

1.  Never under-declare the value of parcels;

2.  Assuming the carrier has been made aware of the value of the contents, there is a good argument to say that you should not have to pay anything extra for "insurance", and that if you do, the extra payment ihas been wasted.
Parcel protection insurance | MSE

savergrant

Okell said:

@Patevedrew -  sorry but I don't understand the logic of your argument either.

You declared the value of your parcel to be £250.

The parcel got lost/was destroyed.  (Doesn't matter which)

They've offered you £250 - the declared value of the parcel.

What grounds do you think you have to want to claim "at least" an additional £239?

You can't claim the £120 for the replacement presents because you've have been (or will be) compensated for the loss/destruction of the original parcel.

You can't claim £30 for the bottle of wine because it isn't a foreseeable consequence of the loss/destruction of the original parcel.  You chose to pay it - you didn't need to.

Where are you getting the remaining £89 from?


I'd suggest you need to take two things away from this:

1.  Never under-declare the value of parcels;

2.  Assuming the carrier has been made aware of the value of the contents, there is a good argument to say that you should not have to pay anything extra for "insurance", and that if you do, the extra payment ihas been wasted.
Parcel protection insurance | MSE

I believe op also wants to be reimbursed for the cost of undeclared items sent with the declarer items, and also the value of excluded items. Op also wishes to be compensated for the inconvenience they have experienced and the delay in compensation.

Aylesbury_Duck

As above, the logic of the calculation is flawed.  They're paying you the full value of the destroyed goods as per your own valuation, so why do they have any obligation to pay for replacement presents and a bottle of wine as well?

Bizarre.

visidigi

Just to clarify - they didn't sub it you did - based on the search you did for the size/weight of the package you wanted to send and then, using the discounted rates of parcel monkey you selected FedEx (which means you have zero rights to FedEx directly - the situation they had is not relevant to your case. As you bought directly from Parcel Monkey, so the complaint is entirely on their actions, not FedEx (if you wanted FedEx level services it would have cost you much more, and even then, they don't cover consequential loss).

Was the package going abroad? If it was the US it would never have arrived anyway (as I highly doubt your daughter would have the required liquor license for the prosecco (no matter how small a bottle), chocolate would have FDA processes etc.

I agree with Parcel Monkey, you are due what you insured, they don't cover the consequential loss and, if honest, I think, given what was in there (glass, alcohol etc) - which wasn't buried in terms, it was in the link of of the service and even has a search tool.

Patevedrew

Thanks for the feedback everyone. 

The undeclared items were small Christmas Stocking type items - not a lot individually but collectively they mount up. Had it not been Christmas I would not have arranged substitute presents nor inconvenienced another person. Had Parcelmonkey been on the ball customer service-wise I would have had time to sort myself. They failed miserably.

Parcel was going to Yorkshire. 

The situation has left me feeling that, had I not "protected" the dearer items by paying the fee, I would not be offered anything regardless of what was in parcel as Parcelmonkey's 'vermin infestation' clause excludes a claim.

If I had not taken the protection, why would it be acceptable that they can destroy my goods due to an infestation caused by their decisions and neglectful ineptitude and for me to remain uncompensated for any amount? 

How is that fair? Consumers contract to have a parcel sent with no control over the conditions of the courier's depots. It seems to me that the companies involved have a duty of care to handle and store our parcels carefully and this duty should not be overridden by their self-serving and self-protecting clauses. A depot so overrun by rats 'that their cat has disappeared' and a 'full Biffa skip leaves the depot everyday with items for destruction due to infestation' (Fedex manager's words) that, in my opinion, should be shut down until made safe (even if only for staff's H&S sake). 

Surely, Parcelmonkey have a responsibility to ensure their contractor operates safely? It is they who have the professional relationship with Fedex and they who decide to partner with them. I only chose the price point. As far as I am aware, the price only dictates the speed of service not where in their warehouse a parcel is stored. I could have opted for no protection and it still would have been infested. 

I still feel they should pay me in full. If parcel had been 'lost' I would be more flexible in my attitude as these things happen and I had it in my mind to worry more about the higher value items.

To accept a minimum, well below my eventual costs, is unpalatable as mismanagement due to lack of vermin control in Fedex's depot is not an issue of my making and is entirely avoidable by good husbandry. Vermin infestation is not something that should happen in a well-run depot. Regardless of what was in my parcel, it should have passed through safely.

And, to take 4 months to properly engage with me is ridiculous. I sent them every document they asked for and several times. They admitted they hadn't looked at the email inbox they told me to use so I had to do it again. Atrocious service. 

ThumbRemote

While other people have answered your questions, there's one potential line you could follow. If FedEx have a known problem with rat damage to parcels, it's surely negligent of them to be accepting parcels in that depot. 

However, this may be very difficult to pursue as your contract is with ParcelMonkey, and it would have to be in court.