Incompetent Citylink Barstewards-advice Needed

antiquerose

*LONG SORRY* Could anyone with any consumer/legal knowledge please please help me with an issue we have had with the stupid, incompetent idiots that make up Citylink!!

When my DH and I were selling a lot of things through ebay last year we joined up with citylink as some things were too big to send via royal mail. We had an incident with an item arriving broken but it was just a small item so we reimbursed the customer and reported it to Citylink with no response. TO be honest we kind of forgot about it and earlier this year my husband sold a power tool on ebay for £180 to a guy in Ireland and sent it through Citylink again thinking the last incident was surely a one off.

Anyway, a few days later we get contact from the guy in Ireland telling us the parcel had literally arrived in pieces!! Furious that this had happened again we called Citylink who said they would go and pick the parcel up the next day in order to investigate. Next evening Irish guy emails to say no courier has turned up, phoned CItylink, they will send someone the next day - this went on for over a month with them promising to show up to collect the damaged parcel, the poor guys wife waiting in and noone showing. Eventually we complained to Head Office who were hugely apologetic and promised they would send someone out the next day to pick up said parcel. NO SHOW AGAIN. In disbelief i emailed again, getting very shirty and bascially telling them what I thought of them and that if she would put in writing that they would investigate this without needing to see the item in question then I would telling the guy in Ireland to dispose of it so as not to inconvenience him any further. She agreed to this and we then filled in a long and complicated claim form to claim for the damages to the item - we were now £180 out of pocket having had to reimburse the customer.

Anyway, after much chasing 8 weeks later we got a letter addressed just to our name with the postcode, which must have gone down every house in the street before it eventually got to us, saying basically its not their fault as the guy signed for it and it is therefore no longer their responsibility - they offered us a piddly £50 as a gesture of goodwill which we wrote back and said we were not happy with and they basically wrote back and said tough!!

They are now chasing us for the £67 courier fee and I'm guessing if we don't pay them it will affect our credit rating but the thought of paying them even more money after losing so much money because of their unbelievable imcompetence just makes me want to punch something quite frankly!! Does anyone know what our rights are here or have any advice on how we can proceed with this?

Thanks if you have read this far and I really hope someone can help as I am getting so wound up with this whole thing.

Blacksheep1979

Won't affect your credit rating unless they take you to court, win and you don't pay within 7-14 days (can't remember exact timeframe). Would write to them recorded delivery, state you case concisely and clearly stating what resolution you would like and the timeframes you want this to happen in. Point out that they didn't make it clear to the recipient of the package that once signed for that they no longer are held responsible for the condition of the package and that if they don't meet your expectations within xx days you will begin legal action to reclaim your losses.

brightonman123

dont they have a duty of care / insurance, for these type of things?

antiquerose

Blacksheep1979, is that right about the credit rating, I thought that even if you made late payments it aversely affected it. If that is true then we definately will not pay - they can take us to court, the whole thing is an absolute joke. We have emailed them, stating exactly what we would like to happen and this was their response;

We refer to your email dated 4th June 2008 and have noted your comments although, there is no evidence to show that the damage was sustained during the course of transit or that the liability of our company is involved to the extent claimed.

The consignment was signed for in good order and condition and therefore, liability has not been accepted on this occasion.

We remain prepared to conclude this claim with you as previously notified upon receipt of your written acceptance of our offer.

Regards
Transit Liability Department
City Link


Brightonman123, what does a duty of care mean? That it is their responsibility if a package gets broken. In all honesty I have never known such appalling customer service ever but they are denying all responsibility.

Thanks for taking the time to respond by the way.

olly300

antiquerose don't wait for them to try and muck you around do as blacksheep1979 said and take them to court yourselves first.

The reason for doing this is that you can get them bad publicity particularly if you win.

Write them a letter stating what they propose is not acceptable. If they send you a cheque DO NOT cash it as it will be seen as you accepting the issue is sorted it. If they send you another payment immediately send them a letter stating that the issue is not resolved.

olly300

antiquerose wrote: »

Brightonman123, what does a duty of care mean? That it is their responsibility if a package gets broken. In all honesty I have never known such appalling customer service ever but they are denying all responsibility.
.

Duty of care - is a legal obligation imposed on an individual requiring that they adhere to a reasonable standard of care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm others.

In future ask all your customers to put on the form when they sign it or even if they sign it on an electronic pad next to their name - "Not checked". That way the courier you use cannot try and wiggle out of claiming they didn't break it in transit.

Blacksheep1979

If the sum is in dispute they can't do anything to your rating, also missed payments etc only really count for periodic payment things ie mobile phones and banks/credit cards etc. Might as well put in the above mentioned letter that you dispute the charge that they're making as you didn't receive the service paid for.

antiquerose

But Blacksheep they have denied responsibility for the breakage, therefore, still holding us liable for the courier charge - dealing with them is like banging my head against the wall, their stock answer is just basically, "its not our fault!!" The sum isn't in dispute, the charge is their courier charge which we have in writing, I am not referring to the value of the powertool.

Olly300, we have definately considered taking them to court over this but where do I begin and do you think we would have a good case against them? Thanks for the info about duty of care and advice but its not really an issue as we will never ever use them again, although will certainly bear it in mind if we ever have to use another courier service. To be honest the whole things put me off selling on ebay as its all just too much hassle.

Its not even about the money anymore, its the principle that they shouldn't be allowed to treat customers like this and get away with it.

mute_posting

I have a different name for them, starts with s and rhymes with city. next to useless.

It got to the stage whereby if the method wasn't listed on eBay, I would ask who the seller intended to use before bidding/buying, if they replied S****link, I looked elsewhere.

MP

Blacksheep1979

antiquerose wrote: »

But Blacksheep they have denied responsibility for the breakage, therefore, still holding us liable for the courier charge - dealing with them is like banging my head against the wall, their stock answer is just basically, "its not our fault!!" The sum isn't in dispute, the charge is their courier charge which we have in writing, I am not referring to the value of the powertool.

I realise that - but you're not going to want to pay for the courier service either when they've not provided the service that they were meant to. It's irrelevant if they deny breaking it, if you have enough proof then the court case would go against them - kind of like me going to court for armed robbery where people see me doing it, just because I say that I didn't do it doesn't make it true or that a court will believe it.

antiquerose wrote: »

Olly300, we have definately considered taking them to court over this but where do I begin and do you think we would have a good case against them? Thanks for the info about duty of care and advice but its not really an issue as we will never ever use them again, although will certainly bear it in mind if we ever have to use another courier service. To be honest the whole things put me off selling on ebay as its all just too much hassle.

Its not even about the money anymore, its the principle that they shouldn't be allowed to treat customers like this and get away with it.

You begin by writing them a letter like I said above, then if they ignore/don't pay write them one more saying that you will be commencing court proceedings without further notice on xxx date. The log onto moneyclaim online and fill out the forms - done.

antiquerose

Ok, thanks everyone for the advice. I have devised the following email to the only member of customer services who was remotely helpful (a different department to the one dealing with the claim but I was getting nowhere with them) - could you tell me what you think?


[FONT=&quot]I am coming back to you in desperation as feel like I am banging my head against the wall dealing with your transit liability claims team.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] It has taken them 8 weeks to investigate (your normal response time apparently!) and come to the conclusion that as the parcel was signed for by our customer they bear no responsibility for it and offered us a paultry £50. The package broken by your courier was worth over £180 in value (and that is the amount we have had to reimburse them) and your accounts department is now chasing us for the £67 odd courier fee.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] I am just left astounded at the way this whole situation has been dealt with – to review;[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We sent a package (and a very well packaged one at that) to a customer – he received it broken. We informed you, you said you would collect and investigate the matter – you didn’t. We called you again, you assured us the package would be picked up, it wasn’t. This to-ing and fro-ing continued for well over a month with assurances of collection and an angry customer breathing down our necks until you wrote the email below telling us you would process the claim without the package. We filled in a very complicated claim form and waited and waited, on chasing up your claims team we were responded to with a very terse “the 8 weeks investigation time is not up yet” so we waited some more all the time being hassled to pay you the courier fee for an item which was not satisfactorily couriered, until eventually we received a letter from your team addressed only to Mr *****, PO* *** so it went all the way along our street before very luckily reaching us a couple of weeks after it was sent, only to be told their 8 weeks investigation had told them that the package had been signed for by our customer so you bear no liability for it – we told you that information at the beginning of the process!!!

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Do you not have a duty of care to your customers? Even if you were to find that you were not liable (and how you can possibly do that with any good conscience is beyond me) then surely for all the hassle your customer service has put us through we deserve at the very least to have our costs reimbursed. We also are absolutely, categorically not paying you the courier fee for this whole shambles and kindly request you sort this out with your accounts team!!

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]If you are unable to authorise this could you please give me the details of your MD so we can escalate the matter with them. Everyone around us is advising us to take legal action on this which I feel is a bit extreme and am hoping someone with a bit of sanity and some customer service skills can nip this in the bud and deal with this properly once and for all.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
I await your response[/FONT]