Please take care when sending expensive bike parts through the post or with couriers.

I sold/sent some forks to someone through STW classifieds and they got lost by the courier, according to the courier they have limted liability for the goods and i’m only entitled to £15 per kg for the parcel weight.

I am currently arguing the case with them as I said I had requested insurance on the parcel up to £300, which they are saying they have no record off, luckily though I kept the drivers note.

This companies policy is that even if they lose your parcel and admit to losing it they only have to pay up for £15 per kg, not alot when a pair of forks weigh less than 2kg.

Also when you make a sale create yourself an invoice and send it with the goods, a word document stating date/goods/price/signed/delivery costs will be good enough. They will ask you for this if the goods get lost, if you can’t provide one it may result in no refund even if you have insurance.

The case goes on but i am currently £290 worse off 😥

Use as better delivery company?

Any suggestions ??

As far as I was aware this was a very reputable company, one of the countries biggest.

they’re all the same Frankers.

Parcels go ‘missing’ every now and again and as you say you need to make sure you’re covered if it’s you affected.

“Use as better delivery company?”

What, a delivery company that advertises that it will try very hard not to lose your parcel?

Very helpful, well done.

post office std parcels works well for moi

Wondering how many people when sending goods through here or ebay get the parcel insured and create a diy invoice ??

What I mean is use a service that covers you appropriately for the loss (if it happens) and makes sure you follow their procedures. A good company will sort this out for you

for less than £50 I tend not to, more than that I do the insurance thing.

Never done an invoice though.

Years of sending parcels with post office and various couriers i’ve not had a problem either Goog………until now 🙁

piedi di formaggio – Member
What I mean is use a service that covers you appropriately for the loss (if it happens) and makes sure you follow their procedures. A good company will sort this out for you

Check the small print, think you’ll find some won’t sort it out. As I have!

If you used Royal Mail standard parcels you can get cover upto £500.
It is very risky these days all round.You just have to cover your back.I sent a set of Avid brakes off 1st class cost £5 got there no problem but was risky only covered for £36 and was selling them for £100.The Hopes i sent the other day for a mate for £130 sent them special delivery covered for £500,mind that cost £8.25,+the guy wanted them ASP.

That’s crap, I usually send royal mail parcel post. Cheap and can insure for £500. Lost a pair of Reba’s a few years ago when sending them off. Got the full money back no probs just provided the printed parcel receipt.

Royal Mail Standard Parcels is a good service with good cover if you pay a couple of pounds extra. Anything I send of high value now is always covered. Any self respecting buyer should be happy to stump up the extra money just for their own peace of mind.
Just make sure you ask for the extra cover. The lady in my local post office said ‘you can’t get insurance on Standard Parcels’. I’m stood there in my Royal mail uniform and reply ‘you can’. It turns out she never even knew.

Whats crap?

Why not mention the name of the company? They sound like one to avoid.

Wiredchops – Member
That’s crap, I usually send royal mail parcel post. Cheap and can insure for £500. Lost a pair of Reba’s a few years ago when sending them off. Got the full money back no probs just provided the printed parcel receipt.

My parcel wasn’t with Royal mail who i have used before and had no problems, i was using a different courier.

Name and shame them?

It was TNT that i used.

I do understand that they don’t always know the parcels content and value and the system could be open to abuse which is why i’ve made my comments about insurance, checking the fine print and creating a receipt……just in case.

Whenever I sell stuff via the Classifieds I always send it Royal Mail Special Delivery (occasionally Recorded if it’s not worth much). It’s as much to cover the buyer as covering me. And keep all receipts until confirmation that the parcel has arrived and goods are undamaged.
So far never had a problem. Hope you get it sorted out with TNT.

Did you think about sending a parcel that weighed enough to cover the cost of the item inside?

A further point to note is if the parcel has been damaged or tampered with in anyway – it must NOT be accepted without a note from the delivery driver and should be opened in the presence of the driver to verify any damage. Most claims cannot be made on behalf of the sender once the consignment has been signed and accepted.
I’ve known of two cases where the damaged parcels were signed for and insurance could not be claimed.
This to me – is a huge get out clause by the delivery company. They must be getting away with a huge numbers of claims in this fashion.

Lesson learnt for those who never insure their items.

It cost me £25 to send some fox floats by special delivery, alot of money but it almost guarantees it won’t get lost or (cough) nicked!

jikes! I’ve just sent a set of forks via TNT, that said they have never let me down, we send stuff out on a daily basis and it always gets there, I’ve used them to send forks three times and as well as an entire frame and that was no problem, hell on these forks that I sent out today I forgot to put the recipients mobile number on the package, phoned up TNT and they contacted the Hub & the destination hub in Northern Ireland and said that they will track the package through and give the number to the driver when it gets there.

now if you’d have said it was Fedex, ANC or Citylink I’d have not been surprised!

You still need to be able to prove the value of the parcel if it goes missing. My wife had a bad experience recently with the post office. The stuff sent insured didn’t arrive so she tried to claim. Post office said without a receipt to prove the value of the goods all they’d give in compensation was a book of six first class stamps. No mention of needing to prove it’s value before posting though (we did actually have a receipt from the shop the items were bought in but as the items weren’t listed individually they wouldn’t accept it).

When I sell stuff on Ebay I always let the buyer decide on the level of postal insurance they want, I always get proof of posting and say that if it goes missing and the buyer didn’t ask for additional insurance it’s their problem (not had to test this in anger yet). Thing is I’m not paying for the postage and if you put the full insured cost on people won’t bid. Luckily most people buying expensive stuff from me so far have gone for the insured option.

Steve-Austin – Member
Did you think about sending a parcel that weighed enough to cover the cost of the item inside?

That Mr. Austin is a very good idea !! 😉

I have to say, regardless of what im sending (over £50 anyways) I’d always ensure item was insured to at least the value someone has paid you for it.

Frankers – I’m very sorry to hear that they are not coughing up. It was my address the forks were supposed to be delivered to (I was not the buyer in case anyone wants to know) and I have sent them back the claim form and detailed account of what they failed to do. In my opinion, and clearly I cannot prove it, their original delivery driver lied about trying to deliver the package. My parents were staying at the time and were in all day both days of the claimed delivery. We have an extremely loud front door knocker and they heard nothing. More to the point no card was put through the door to say TNT tried delivery so they have absolutely no case to defend in terms of service. I spent quite some time trying to find out where the package had got to and the TNT staff were entirely unable to tell me what happened or where the package ended up – in fact they seemed to have completely accepted that once off the radar it was lost and there was no point making any effort to find it.
I will not be using TNT ever again and hope you can get some joy on this.
Marcus

Am I missing something here? You need to send an invoice with the parcel to claim? Tell them you have and create one. You need a receipt for the goods? Tell them it’s something you have got a receipt for.

Hey Markus

Thanks for the comments

I read your emails through Mike and could see the trouble you went too, thanks!

These comments were mainly a heads up to folk sending expensive goods and assuming they would be covered if lost by a company as big as TNT….which unless fully insured and fully documented they are not.

The battle goes on to get my cash 👿

Cheers – Neil

I’m currently 3 months into a claim against Parcel Force for an insured package they claimed they never had (then I showed them the receipt) then they claimed it was lost and said I’d be covered by insurance for £50. I pointed out the extended insurance cover and now they’re dealing with my Solicitor as they’re being absolute twunts about the whole thing.

Lesson Learned – no more Parcel Force. If I’m sending anything bulky or expensive I use Interparcel.com and the DHL services mostly as they’ve been fantastic and are really, really cheap (24 hour delivery for a complete bike sub £12 inc VAT).

threaten them with small claims court and point out that contracting out of their liability for their own negligence is considered an Unfair Contract Term. Have found this worked with a household name courier in the past (who delivered goods with a forklift whole through them!)

good call Poly!

just out of interest, how were they packed, I’ve just sent some forks in a very obvious yet slightly tatty Fox Forks box. I’d be interested to know if yours were as obvious?