A cautionary tale regarding Royal Mail

[MrDinsdale]

A while back I sold an Origin Cali76 mk2 on here.

 

All going smoothly, dropped off with Royal Mail and paid extra to make sure it was fully covered.

 

Once it got to Gatwick the tracking stopped updating. Days went by with no word and there wasn't anything I could do until a full week had gone by.

 

I logged a complaint and provided a screen shot of the PayPal payment details and the sale DMs in the hope itd constitute sufficient proof.

 

Thankfully a mysterious package arrived at the buyers house with I “sufficient postage” so he had to spend another £7 to receive it. So he got the pedal, RM still had no idea that it had been received but I left it to see what happened.

 

3 months later I got a letter apologising for any inconvenience and these which it said we're the appropriate compensation:

 

The pedal thankfully arrived so no loss, it does show how much that Royal Mail cover is actually worth in practice when selling on peer to peer marketplaces sites such as this. I'd have been out of pocket £250 along with £15 postage. 

 

Very unimpressed. 

[Mrbigstuff]

I didn’t think Royal Mail tracking worked beyond our borders? It certainly didn’t 15 or so years ago when I was booking couriers regularly.

[Downunderwonder]

Perhaps they aren't quite as incompetent as all that and have refunded the insufficient postage?

[MrDinsdale]

9 hours ago, Mrbigstuff said:

I didn’t think Royal Mail tracking worked beyond our borders? It certainly didn’t 15 or so years ago when I was booking couriers regularly.

It didn't fly anywhere, I think they just have a depot there.

[MrDinsdale]

8 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

Perhaps they aren't quite as incompetent as all that and have refunded the insufficient postage?

I thought that at first but then the letter mentions the item not reach its destination.

 

I'll follow it up and report back if I hear anything.

[Sparky Mark]

Previously, I think RM wasn't allowed to leave items on doorsteps and had to leave a card so you could arrange another delivery attempt or collection from a local RM depot. It now seems that due to cost cutting initiatives and the employment of casual staff, RM really don't offer any better service than the other couriers and just leave packages wherever it fancies. I've recently received a RM proof of delivery photograph showing my package wedged in an unknown letter box. It's a real shame that RM seems to have joined the courier race to the bottom. 

[SumOne]

Was this via special delivery?

 

I worked for Royal Mail customer services for a summer many years ago and only had one case where a special delivery item got tracked part way and then disappeared - they got a refund upto the insurance limit. Nowadays that is £750.

 

 

 

[MrDinsdale]

23 minutes ago, SumOne said:

Was this via special delivery?

 

I worked for Royal Mail customer services for a summer many years ago and only had one case where a special delivery item got tracked part way and then disappeared - they got a refund upto the insurance limit. Nowadays that is £750.

 

 

 

Yeah, it was. I cant contest it because I know it arrived however I do want to find out more information on why they're refusing to reimburse the loss. I'll try and get in touch when I can.

 

The whole thing was very stressful, thankfully the person I sold it to was really understanding. 

[warwickhunt]

It used to be that certain RM services only compensated up to multiples of the postage cost but the detail was in the small print T&Cs.