dustandbarley Posted March 20, 2019 Author Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 hour ago, tauzero said: Out of curiosity, would you expect to pay the same for insurance on a ten year old Ford Fiesta as a brand new Lamborghini? If basic insurance on a Lamborghini covered you to the same value as a ten year old Fiesta, but paying out more increased the value covered to the actual value of loss, would you consider it fair or unfair that you had to pay out that extra amount? I'm not sure I understand your point. Regardless of my insurance cover if I paid for my Fiesta (or Lambo) to be delivered to a new owner, and they delivered it to Fords of Dagenham (one of their biggest customers - we'll have to assume its the 1980's) instead, then decided they wouldn't continue with the delivery or even call the Dagenham plant, then I would be looking to claim off their insurance the value of the car. If on the other hand I hadn't prepared my car for the journey by not putting oil in it and the engine broke then I think with no insurance I'd be responsible for my loss. Is this not more a case of insurance vs no insurance? I acknowledge there is a a compulsory cover that you can't avoid, but this isn't a consideration for me. How do you feel about the enormous profits made by courier companies on these dubious at best policies for shipping musical instruments? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
la bam Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 My take on it is.... 1. They must have written procedures to follow. Written by themselves. These are there to ensure the job gets done correctly. 2. They clearly haven't followed their own written procedures. AND they have admitted this. Therefore they are responsible not just for loss, but for being negligent and not abiding by their own procedures. 3. They're offering the standard cheapo payout because that's just what they do. It doesn't make them right. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 I think the only crumb of comfort the OP should take is that they admitted they posted it down the wrong chute. That may be enough to get some leverage from them. Goods sent by a courier can range from no value to very expensive. Couriers have a basic level of cover but this should not be considered to be insurance unless it covers the value of what you are sending. For example, Special Delivery covers up to £500 (I believe) by default; if you send something more expensive than that you can take out enhanced cover. ParcelForce offers £25 standard cover - make of that what you will as to the cate and attention they take with your parcel! Anything above the basic level of cover relies on their goodwill - and I’ve not seen much of that in the transit goods industry. It’s also far better to buy directly from the courier rather than use an intermediary like Interparcel - your legal contract is with a different company, and not the one who lost your parcel. My experience in this situation is that they just don’t want to know, UNLESS you have taken out cover to the appropriate amount. I ALWAYS insure goods via courier to their full value and won’t post if that level of cover is not available. Think of 3rd party motor insurance - it is basic cover and some think that means you’re “covered”, but if you smash your car up you’re not covered, that’s why fully comp exists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dustandbarley Posted March 21, 2019 Author Share Posted March 21, 2019 Update I've heard back fro the Managing Director’s Office of Parcelforce Worldwide as follows: "Following on from our telephone conversation earlier on this week, I am just wanting to let you know that I am still looking into your enquiry for your item with reference number of TG6115939. I do not have any further information at present, but will of course be in touch with you as soon as I have an update for you. Thank you for your patience and for bringing this matter to my attention." It seems they are doing something, hopefully a big search. Interestingly the ParcelForce employee who took my call asked if there was any distinguishing features about the parcel, and unfortunately there wasn't, other than fragile tape. Makes me think that if there is a next time and I still can't bring myself to pay for the insurance (musical instruments may not be covered, not value for money etc.) I would consider using a rattle can to spray the box a bright luminous colour before attaching the address labels. Anyway, thanks to all for your contributions I'll keep you posted... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dustandbarley Posted March 25, 2019 Author Share Posted March 25, 2019 Update... I checked the tracking this morning and was surprised to see that the details had been amended to say it was out for delivery??? I updated the buyer and he confirmed later that the parcel has now been delivered to him. Well I am relieved. Unless I hear from ParcelForce I can only guess as to whether or not contacting the CEO's office did anything or this would have been the natural order of events. Certainly the communications with InterParcel lead me to believe the situation was pretty hopeless. Thanks for all your messages and advice over the last weeks. It was posted... 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc S Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 Phew! Great news dustandbarley - really pleased for you sir The whole affair does make me rather nervy about posting items though..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bozzie Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 Ironically I'm waiting for something from Parcelfarce, Its been shipped from Canada using their postal service and is taking forever..... Ultimately glad to hear you parcel arrived though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
la bam Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 Good stuff. Does make you think though. This parcel was obviously not lost. It was somewhere in the system. So what would have happened if you accepted their £25 last week, then it turns up? Do they keep it? Sell it? Return it? Post it anyway? It's just not right. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkey Steve Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 3 minutes ago, la bam said: Good stuff. Does make you think though. This parcel was obviously not lost. It was somewhere in the system. So what would have happened if you accepted their £25 last week, then it turns up? Do they keep it? Sell it? Return it? Post it anyway? It's just not right. makes you wonder about the systems thet the couriers put so much faith in... I had an Amazon delivery that was due on Saturday, which they gave to DPD. Great, there's a DPD app which gives me a delivery window, a map that shows me exactly where the van is and how many stops there are before it gets to me, and even a little bio of the driver. At the end of the delivery window the app updates to say the driver's running late but the delivery will be with me shortly. then it updates to say it'll be two hours late. Then after two hours it sticks on still being expected at that time despite it being in the past. When it was an hour past then I thought I'd ask what was going on. The app lets me chat to a customer service representative. I got through two of them and had to ask close to a dozen times before they would answer what I thought was a fairly straight forward question - what had changed from that morning when they could tell me exactly where the package was, and that afternoon when they just kept repeating that they couldn't tell me how much longer it was going to take? It seems that these cunning tracking systems all depend on the driver correctly logging what he's done with the parcels and the depot updating the systems, and when things go wrong, both of them answering their phones. So they couldn't tell me what was happening because nobody was answering their phones. DPD's best solution was that I sit tight for the rest of the day and hope that the driver arrives sooner rather than later. I suggested that DPD were severely under valuing my time in thinking that I had nothing better to be doing, and as a quid pro quo how about I pop out to do what I had planned to do and if the driver arrives in my absence he could sit tight and wait for me to get back? They didn't seem to like that idea. I get Amazon involved, and between them and DPD the message of "deliver it ASAP and if it can't happen today make sure it's first thing tomorrow" got interpreted by DPD as "Steve wants to rearrange the delivery for tomorrow". I didn't. An hour after being told not to deliver the package because it's not wanted until tomorrow, the driver marks it as "refused delivery" (I didn't, I'd love to have had the chance to refuse the delivery but I never actually saw the delivery driver) and having done so the process is now to return the item to Amazon, so they can't deliver it on Sunday. DPD's complaints process is laughably called "Make It Right". It does not live up to it's name. Their response was very much "well, it's all gone wrong, but we're not going to take any responsibility or try and fix it" On the plus side, it wasn't essential that I got any of the stuff this weekend, and despite none of this being their fault (other than having handed it over to DPD in the first place) Amazon have bent over backwards to sort it out. I've had £10 refunded and £10 as a voucher credit (more than a third of the original price in total). I'd have more sympathy if they paid higher taxes, but I assume that Amazon will have some sort of claw back from DPD for those costs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 Great that you got it back, wee done for persisting. Over 50% of the courier deliveries to have arrived here recently have been damaged, this is the latest to get sent beck, the driver having tried very hard to cover the damage by the way he positioned the packaging when he asked me to sign for it. Courier companies are a complete joke. The content were quite an expensive violin and bow for my daughter, neither in a hard case, which does beg the question of why Thomann don't bother to put some FRAGILE labels on. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 1 hour ago, Beedster said: Great that you got it back, wee done for persisting. Over 50% of the courier deliveries to have arrived here recently have been damaged, this is the latest to get sent beck, the driver having tried very hard to cover the damage by the way he positioned the packaging when he asked me to sign for it. Courier companies are a complete joke. The content were quite an expensive violin and bow for my daughter, neither in a hard case, which does beg the question of why Thomann don't bother to put some FRAGILE labels on. It could explain why Thomann put items in their original packaging inside an outer box which is five times too big. The outer box is a crash structure. Did the violin and bow survive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 25 minutes ago, tauzero said: It could explain why Thomann put items in their original packaging inside an outer box which is five times too big. The outer box is a crash structure. Did the violin and bow survive? This was one occasion when they didn't funnily enough, I ordered some resin and fingerboard oil a while back and it came in a bigger box that the bloody violin! Anyway, the violin was in some bubble wrap in the box, and the bow likewise. I was really angry with the driver because he held the box in such a way as to hide the damage while I signed for it, and when he handed it to me it was clear from the damage that the very least that had happened was that the box had been trodden on quite heavily, and the list of possible worse scenarios is clearly rather long in the case of couriers. I asked the driver to remove my signature and return the box to the sender straight away. I then spoke to Thomann who said I should have opened and inspected it fully, but as the driver wasn't prepared to wait it would have meant me having to waste another day waiting for it being collected by the same driver in the same van (IMO there's no way that the contents weren't damaged in some way). Bloody couriers 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daz39 Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 How is full inspection possible given the delivery schedules the couriers have to meet? Plus instances like this where they are being duplicitous. It's ridiculous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 (edited) On 25/03/2019 at 16:19, Daz39 said: How is full inspection possible given the delivery schedules the couriers have to meet? Plus instances like this where they are being duplicitous. It's ridiculous. Thomann were also, for them, very unhelpful, telling me I should have signed for it, inspected it, and then sent it back, which puts the onus on me to unpack, inspect, repack (using a new box because the previous one was trashed), print labels etc and wait in all day for the return of the same idiots that broke it in the first place. No thanks Thomann Edited April 5, 2019 by Beedster Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NikNik Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 (edited) Deleted. Different issue. Edited April 5, 2019 by NikNik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreek Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 3 hours ago, Beedster said: Thomann were also, for them, very unhelpful, telling me I should have signed for it, inspected it, and then sent it back, All this while the driver waits patiently, with a huge smile on his face.... Bound to happen.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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