Compensation for loss of documents: Six stamps

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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A BOOK of six first class stamps were offered to a Kingsteignton family by way of compensation after three birth certificates were lost in the post.

Royal Mail sent the book of stamps to Carla Magalhaes after she complained about the loss of the documents.

She will now have to fly out to Portugal to get replacements.

Carla, a care assistant originally from Portugal, has lived in Teignbridge for three years with her husband Joaquin Xavier, who works at British Ceramic Tiles.

Her children Ruben, 11, Fabio, nine, and Catia, five, moved over last July.

Struggling to make ends meet, Carla began to apply for child benefits and tax credits last year.

As part of the process she was required to send original copies of the certificates to the Child Benefit office.

But the documents never returned.

Carla says she will now have to fly out to Portugal to get copies of the children's birth certificates, which could costs her hundreds of pounds.

"I am upset because they had sentimental value.

"At first they said the delay was because the certificates were in Portuguese. I offered to help them translate the documents but they said no.

"The whole thing has been very stressful."

Carla has also written to Teignbridge MP Richard Younger-Ross.

A spokesman for HMRC confirmed they had been posted back.

The spokesman said he was unsure if the mail had been sent by standard first or second class post, or recorded delivery.

Royal Mail spokeswoman Jaquie Stenson said: "We are sorry there has been a problem and an item has not arrived on this occasion.

"It would have travelled along with the 75 million items of regular mail we handle daily and unfortunately we have no way of tracking these items as they travel through our system.

"Ms Magalhaes has contacted us and was sent stamps as a gesture of goodwill.

"The maximum amount of compensation available for replacing the certificates which were sent using this service is £39 and this is subject to strict conditions including the provision of detailed proof of posting, and proof of the cost of replacement documents."

[Lounge Lizard]

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A spokesman for HMRC confirmed they had been posted back.

The spokesman said he was unsure if the mail had been sent by standard first or second class post, or recorded delivery.

"

Yet again Royal Mail gets the blame even though it's HMRC's responsibility to ensure such documents are returned by an appropraite means. It's routine for the HMRC spokesman to 'confirm' that they had been posted but having no idea if by first, second or recorded suggests that they just don't know whether they were posted or not.

[Lounge Lizard]

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Royal Mail spokeswoman Jaquie Stenson said: "We are sorry there has been a problem and an item has not arrived on this occasion.

"It would have travelled along with the 75 million items of regular mail we handle daily and unfortunately we have no way of tracking these items as they travel through our system.

"Ms Magalhaes has contacted us and was sent stamps as a gesture of goodwill.

"The maximum amount of compensation available for replacing the certificates which were sent using this service is £39 and this is subject to strict conditions including the provision of detailed proof of posting, and proof of the cost of replacement documents."

Royal Mail tells the press about "75 million items daily" and then expects us to believe mail volumes are dropping 10% each year.
and the reason Proof of Posting is now needed for the £39 compensation is that too many crooks were falsely claiming that something they had posted had not arrived.

[POSTMAN]

A spokesman for HMRC confirmed they had been posted back.

The spokesman said he was unsure if the mail had been sent by standard first or second class post, or recorded delivery.

They usually send them back recorded delivery,in fact i think they have to as they are important documents.

[k979aaa]

A spokesman for HMRC confirmed they had been posted back.

The spokesman said he was unsure if the mail had been sent by standard first or second class post, or recorded delivery.

They usually send them back recorded delivery,in fact i think they have to as they are important documents.

Even so while i agree with you POSTMAN it is the lack of advice that these documents will cost more than what first class postage even when sent recorded will cost to replace and as such our government/HMRC need to offer advice and recommend that Special Delivery be used!.

[DGP1]

A spokesman for HMRC confirmed they had been posted back.

The spokesman said he was unsure if the mail had been sent by standard first or second class post, or recorded delivery.

They usually send them back recorded delivery,in fact i think they have to as they are important documents.

Whenever you send off your driving licence to be renewed they insist on you sending your passport which they send back as regular post and I'd class a passport as an important document.

[k979aaa]

A spokesman for HMRC confirmed they had been posted back.

The spokesman said he was unsure if the mail had been sent by standard first or second class post, or recorded delivery.

They usually send them back recorded delivery,in fact i think they have to as they are important documents.

Whenever you send off your driving licence to be renewed they insist on you sending your passport which they send back as regular post and I'd class a passport as an important document.

I am keeping old crusty in my desk do you think I'm am letting some toffee nose bureaucrat my passport and driving licence the passport can go out of date can't afford holiday abroad by my driving licence will stay where it is and will not go out of date till 70!.

[k979aaa]

Gonna take a different take on this and not blame HMRC or Royal Mail but a system that says its ok to send ANYTHING of VALUE through ANY POST that is not SD! In the blame culture we all live in and expect compo when it goes tits up why do we not pay for the value of the items replacemement in insurance that both employers (RM and HMRC.) pay for the f*ck ups? If your item is worth 39p (first class) 30p if (second class) then thats what you get! If its worth more then than that you use SD you get £500 insurance and buy extra insurance if its worth more. (to prove it you just give the reciepts for the cost of replacements!) ie going to Portugal! Any lawyer can do it but instead we have stuff going through the post of value that the tight f*ckers just dont want to pay for and they got caught out and then moan! Thieves are born but need fools to allow it to happen! Dont be tight when you send your mail! Send it to the worth of the item, or expect a book of stamps and a brush off, (how the f*ck do we know what you have sent because you have put a value of 39p on it?) An ideal world you would get everthing and NOTHING would be mashed or sent to timbuckto (yeah i know the spellings wrong and am sorry!) however we ALL live in the real world except some moaners but please dont moan about it after it goes wrong because you were to tight!

While i agree with nearly everything you say you can send it too them SD but you can bet they will NOT send it back that way even if you request it and pay for it!. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT GOVERNMENT THAT WENT OUT OF IT'S WAY TOO CREATE COMPETITION FOR THE SAKE OF COMPETITION!.

[johnsouthwales]

same lame excuses.. i doubt very much 75million items pass through the m.o it was close by enroute.

and there was a balls up when they said no to the translator.. they got their own translators there. probably goverment lot lost it somewhere, happens all the time.

great fookin britain

[axeman]

Certainly would not like to pick those bags up with 75mil in h&s would have a field day.Its a pity when they pick these spokespeople they don't have someone who doesn't dish out the same sh*t that emminates from victoria embankment (old st)

[TrueBlueTerrier]

same lame excuses.. i doubt very much 75million items pass through the m.o it was close by enroute.

Your right but any tracking system would have to be able to act on national basis and to do that it would have to track 75 ,000,000 every single working day. Right from the point of being put through the opening in a post box all the way to arriving on a doormat. I know of no system that would be able to cope with that especially if you only kept the records on line for 28 days (too allow for returns and kill offs) that would equal 1,800,000,000 items

[Lounge Lizard]

None of us actually knows whether HMRC posted the birth certificates and if they did whether to the right address, but I doubt it given that they mislaid a £400 payment I made to them a few months ago - £400 I paid to clear my Income Tax for the year rather than it affecting my code the folowing year, but that payment goes to a different office from the one that sets your code, so wrong code and me then having to contact them to correct it.

[johnsouthwales]

i suppose the extra 75p is worth recorded, but i thought they were on about the £5 sd ? loads of paperwork go missing from the government, especially jobcentre plus/sickness benefits. so another government department isn't going to make a huge difference.. why why why do governments pish off people all the time. all they had to do is get their interpreter in to have a look. red tape i suppose... hardly going to get an english version of a foreign birth certificate are they?

lot of data held that..