Problem with Missing Package (PPI)

[Jamessss]

Hi,

Here is the timeline:

24 Feb 09: Customer orders electronic item £35 inc VAT & Delivery

25 Feb 09: I send by 1st class Royal Mail PPI ( not signed for )

03 Mar 09: Email from customer - package not received

03 Mar 09: I reply give it a few more days, if no package then I'll resend by recorded delivery.

Today 13 Mar 09 AM: Email from customer: No package received, they bought elsewhere so can I just refund the money to their card instead of resending..

Does this happen often to you guy's out there ?

Am I alone in thinking he may have received the item and hopes to pocket a refund ?

Should I just make the refund, smile and move on ?

I wonder if Royal Mail can look up how many 'missing packages' there have been for an address ( if anyone bothers to claim from Royal Mail)

Thanks,

James

BTW - While I was writing this the customer emailed to ask why I haven't replied to his earlier email today and can I make the refund ASAP. Grrrrrrrr !

 

[cycloneuk]

Refund, smile and move on. If they order anything in the future then be sure to send recorded. The last 1000 orders of ours i think around 6 have been lost, sometimes they find their way back in about a month.

 

[Rags]

I find it best to always require a signature. If the buyer is paying the p&p then it doesn't cost any more.

Saves all the doubt, suspicion and general bad vibes (man).

 

[quikshop]

I'd recommend sending anything above £20 in value by signed for delivery. Especially electronics, one of the most targeted markets for fraudsters online.

Mind you, we once had a special delivery return go missing. It was only after threatening the local sorting office with getting the Police involved that the item mysteriously appeared on our doorstep overnight.

When we finally got the paper record of the path of the item through the Royal Mail system, the name of the delivery bloke had been blotted out.

We've also had entire post bags full of orders go missing, but its only ever happened from one location... I wouldn't trust the Wolverhampton sorting office with a bag of crisps

 

[Jamessss]

I have very similar loss figures to cycloneuk, if not less, so it's not worth me sending signed-for, the losses are nowhere near the signed-for cost.

This is the first time I've had someone ask for a refund when a package doesn't turn up.

I wonder if I might ask him where he bought his replacement and give them a call..

J

 

[More4mums]

If you make a claim from the Royal Mail for a "lost parcel" they will contact the customer for confirmation. I am sure I read that they keep a record of addresses for claims so if they are a regular claimant they should be found out?

You will have to decide if "self insuring" works out cheaper with the odd "lost" parcel than paying the royal mail 72p for every parcel you send.

 

[.Spiralling.]

We had a spate of things go missing in the post a few years ago and although we regularly used two different post offices, all the missing items were sent from the same office and they went missing in batches. We mentioned it to the post office concerned who told us if we didn't like it we should take our custom elsewhere. We did. We now very rarely have postal losses, and those we do have usually end up back here.

More irritating though is when we send a parcel and it gets delivered to us the following day, because for some reason a big label with a clearly printed delivery address is not enough of a clue as to where to send it, and so instead it come to the address in the top left corner marked "Return Address". Had one just last week. It's only about the third one we've had, but still three in two years or so.

 

[dingbat]

I've had a couple recently. One was a high value item and I made the mistake of sending it Standard Parcel Service. There's no signature upon delivery but I'm sure in the past they would place a tracking label on the item and make you sign. Anyway, luckily I had increased the insurance cover and RM paid up.

I did have my suspicions about the buyer because of the way he addressed the whole problem and the emails he wrote. But it could have been genuine and just me thinking it. Anyway, even if someone is a serial claimer can RM do anything about it without evidence? I doubt it.

Regards Spiralling's point about stuff going missing - I also used 2 post offices at one time. 8 items went missing in a year from one office and one from the other. And yet the worst post office was only used 30% of the time.

 

[KateCB]

We use Recorded delivery - for everything going Royal mail end of story - the 72p we find is worth it as the customer knwos that the item is being tracked,Royal Mail pay up to100x the value of the stamp - we use PPI and always 1st class and we only send items wieghing up to 1kg RM anyway, so they are what we consider low value items. All higher value items are sent courier so we know these are trackable and signed for - we have had a few problems recently, however the couriers are on top of it and we have had it sorted - a new employee apparently had sticky fingers and was greedy - 4 consignments in 8 weeks - raised a few alarms bells!

Refund the custmer and move on - if he does order again make sure you use an isnured/signed for service and draw his attention to the fact that you CAN track it.

 

[MH1]

I only send by recorded, but in your circumstances ( it still happens) I tend to email them stating once they fill in the Royal Mail claim form and return it in the stamped envelope provided I will issue a full credit.

I also ask them to also co-operate fully with the on going investigation by Royal Mail and Police into their and other missing items, which the returned form will be included in as evidence.

Strangely, a lot of people suddenly receive their deliveries within the next day, or a neighbour is blamed etc for not passing it too them. Out of 20 claims for missing deliveries I have only been asked to process three in the last year.

 

[gibby]

for anything of value we use a courier and the customer pays for the delivery anyway.

We did have several problems just like this when we used to rely on royal mail.
We know most of it was down to to RM as a friend of mine told me how bad it was in the sorting office - but in their defence I know they have sorted most of this now.

Even if you dont use recorded/signed for as long as you get proof of posting you are covered anyway - although RM do make making a claim as time consuming & difficult as possible & you do have to keep chasing them

If only the post office offered a good service then they would have so much more business. we looked at PPI recently and it was so much work we had to leave it alone.

G

 

[stickylabels]

We send many items by PPI, and have just been through a bad patch of 8 missing items in the last 6 weeks - if you fill in the Royal Mail compensation form and get ready to keep moaning at them, you should get up to around £26 compensation.