Royal Mail Compensation for loss or damage (the lack of)

[big68]

Just so that sellers are aware; in the event of loss or damage of an item you have shipped using Royal Mail they will ONLY compensate you for the cost of the item NOT the sales value so when the Post Office (or where you buy your postage) are asking the value of your item for insurance purposes bear this in mind.

Overall I find their delivery service to be very good. eBay and Royal Mail systems communicate very effectively but losing money (profit + administration to claim) through no fault of my own is really upsetting!

[therma-tec]

I've always received the full sales value from the Royal Mail whenever I've had to make a claim.

I get a cheque and apology letter in the post a few days after making the claim.

[tonvicar-0]

Question to everyone here - would you be willing to pay more for a delivery service if there was insurance built in to the shipping cost for loss and damage that guaranteed that you would be paid on the full retail value of what you were shipping that was paid on loss automatically i.e. you didn't have to track it yourself, i.e. if it didin't arrive it would automatically set off a claim. And for damage, it only required a photo to prove damage and took less than 5 minutes to put a claim in. Payments paid 98% of the time back directly into your nominated business bank account. By the way, did you know that couriers only, on average, pay 10-20% of the claims that are submitted?

[john8150_0]

This was challenged in a small claims court by an antiques dealer several years ago.

The circumstances were he had bought an item in auction and sold via ebay for a handsome profit. He shipped using Special Delivery paid at a Post office counter and fully insured for the sales price. Royal Snail "lost" the item and he submitted a claim. As part of the process you have to provide evidence of purchse cost so he scanneed the auction house invoice (obviously showing a lower value than the claim). He also provided evidence of the ebay sold price. Royal Snail only sent him reimbursement for the price he bought the item for plus the cost of his postage paid for SD. Small claims court found in his favour and RM were ordered to pay the full selling price he had achieved on ebay plus his court costs.

A couple of months later the same thing happened to him and he ended up in small claims again and won his case again. It was reported in the Antiques Trade Gazette and the dealer advised any people in similar circumstances to take RM to court.

Shame they couldn't actually be forced to change their policy!