Lost Royal mail Special delivery parcel

pop80_uk · Post by **pop80_uk** » 15 Feb 2018, 15:03

Good afternoon all,

I am new here, but I need some advice and guidance please.

Basically I sold a watch , which was an unwanted christmas gift. I sent it royal mail special delivery insured up to £500
I sent it in a box and then in an official royal mail poly bag.

Then royal mail lost it, they confirmed it was lost and advised I should put in a claim.

I have the receipt for postage and screen shots from the sale page of the watch, as they requested.

I put the claim in 3 weeks ago, I have heard nothing from royal mail, the buyer who I have had to refund in full has heard nothing from royal mail.

So my questions are:

1) Is this normal in terms the amount of time? or am I being led a merry dance?

2) I assume royal mail will not try and wriggle out of paying? If so how do you think they could? and what is my course of action? Small claims court?

I always assumed special delivery parcels were the gold standard in posting via royal mail, and that claims would be resolved quickly. I was wrong!

Thanks for any help / advice.

Post by **Snaggletooth** » 15 Feb 2018, 17:26

pop80_uk wrote:Basically I sold a watch , which was an unwanted christmas gift. I sent it royal mail special delivery insured up to £500. I sent it in a box and then in an official royal mail poly bag.

Then royal mail lost it, they confirmed it was lost and advised I should put in a claim.

Just to check ... if it had a battery in it, did you follow all of the rules on sending batteries in the mail? It is very easy to trip up on this, leading to official destruction. It would only take one or two missed tracking points and a long queue at the National Returns Centre (neither impossible) and it would look like it was lost rather than treated as dangerous goods.

pop80_uk wrote:I put the claim in 3 weeks ago, I have heard nothing from royal mail, the buyer who I have had to refund in full has heard nothing from royal mail.

1) Is this normal in terms the amount of time? or am I being led a merry dance?

They won't contact the intended recipient. For you, it is at the top end of normal. But please bear in mind that there is often a claims backlog after Christmas and there has been flu going round.

pop80_uk wrote:2) I assume royal mail will not try and wriggle out of paying? If so how do you think they could? and what is my course of action? Small claims court?

Royal Mail are very good at paying up, if occasionally slightly slow. If you are unhappy, you need to follow the escalation procedure on RM's website, which ends with the regulator in the unlikely event that it gets that far. My understanding is that you have no recourse to the small claims court because, as a Common Carrier, RM do not come under normal contract law.

pop80_uk wrote:I always assumed special delivery parcels were the gold standard in posting via royal mail, and that claims would be resolved quickly. I was wrong!

No, you weren't wrong about the gold standard part. Special Delivery is officially the most reliable service in the industry, with more than 99% of items delivered on time, in one piece etc. But as various customers have told me over the years, RM is more reliable than the private couriers when it comes to delivering the item, but the private couriers have better customer services when something does go wrong.