Making a Royal Mail claim? Value?

[Mantle]

Hi

Long story short, I sold a few Warrior pouches for £40 and sent it via International Tracked & Signed to Germany which cost £11.60. They were sent on the 25th of March. The tracking keeps saying it is either at Heathrow or "On it's way to GLS Germany". It has said this 3 times. First on the 25th March, then 10th April and again on 21st April. Starting to doubt it will ever make it and the buyer is understandably requesting a refund as it was meant to arrive in 5 - 7 days.

I have taken a look at the lost item form for Royal Mail and it is asking for proof of the value of the item. It was a private sale, sold at a price I set. How do I prove the value? It also says "item value" and "actual item value" (cost to make etc), not sure how I am supposed to know the "actual" value, what am I supposed to do there? The only proof of the transaction would be the PayPal transaction and the postage receipt. Anyone dealt with this in the past and can shed a little light? Would like to get it resolved as quickly as possible and I do not want to cause a delay because I potentially make a mistake on the form regarding value.

I did leave a return address on the back of the parcel, will it ever actually be returned to me? Any idea how long that takes?

Thanks!

 

[ak2m4]

GLS is useless....

Generally getting money back from RM on international tracked services is easier than normal.  I recently had to claim on a parcel sent to Portugal recently, however I did have the original wholesale invoice.  If you don't have these then simply state you purchased retail and try to provide evidence of the purchase.   I sent something to Germany with GLS few months back, no tracking past Heathrow, nothing on the GLS website, however never heard back from the customer so assumed it got delivered.  Luckily customer was pretty honest, however some aren't and could have taken that opportunity to get a free item.

You have to wait 20/25 days I think before you can make a claim...

Take screenshots of the emails etc buyer saying that item hasn't turned up.

Hope that helps.  I recently stopped sending parcels to EU with RM since they insist on using GLS to some countries.

 

[newsh]

When i had to make a claim for a non-airsoft item (it was a collectible toy), for the bit where i had to provide item value i just put what i sold it for, and for the actual value i used the RRP as proof. I got my money back from Royal Mail without any hassle .

With the paypal details and a postage receipt you should be good.

To be fair it was about 18 months ago but hopefully the form is pretty similar if not the same

Good luck!

 

[Tommikka]

As above, quote the warrior retail value and your sale amount 

international tracking will have a delay to allow it to work around the system so check out the website for when you can claim

let the buyer know the claim date and that you will follow tracking etc

if they aren’t happy they can raise a PayPal dispute to claim back, in the time it takes to process the package may arrive

make all the comms through PayPal messages etc and that shows you are going through the process

I recently had this sending to transilvania from an eBay sale.  We kept in comms through eBay, the package was late but we kept monitoring the tracking and claim date.

i was about to initiate the lost package claim when the buyer dropped me a message that it arrived 

 

[Mantle]

Cheers guys!

Also had a package go missing back in Feb and ended up giving a refund straight away, I suppose I will make a claim for that too. Sending internationally with RM does not seem to be going well...

 

[Duff]

Having worked as a postman for Royal Mail in the past I can quite categorically say that they're a bunch of useless asshats that couldn't give a single fuck about their job or your parcels, management included.

 

[MisterG]

Having worked as a postman for Royal Mail in the past I can quite categorically say that they're a bunch of useless asshats that couldn't give a single fuck about their job or your parcels, management included.

Present company excluded ? :lol:

 

[MisterG]

Actually one just turned up with my DPM Shirt/Jacket.  Had to re-order as the last one went walkabout.  So if you see one of your ex colleagues wearing camo ...

 

[MILITATED]

Submitting international claims are a PITA. Up to 90 days for investigation and even then, it may not be successful!

If it is successful, then they send you the details and payment via mail - this will also probably get lost in transit ?

I did have a similar issue some months ago with the whole GLS thing and it seems to happen because the parcel was "violated"/tampered with - this happens often, according to the post office clerk. 

Their support staff are also clueless as I remember calling on three separate occasions before making a claim and received three completely different and conflicting answers; goes without saying, none of the answers were of any use. I suppose they were just trying to avoid saying "I have no fecking clue and do not give a shite" ?

Best of luck with your claim.

Edit: For proof of value, I just took a screenshot of the PayPal transaction.

Edit 2: Return addresses seem to be meaningless, I don't think I have ever had something returned by RM.

 

[Tommikka]

Submitting international claims are a PITA. Up to 90 days for investigation and even then, it may not be successful!

If it is successful, then they send you the details and payment via mail - this will also probably get lost in transit ?

I did have a similar issue some months ago with the whole GLS thing and it seems to happen because the parcel was "violated"/tampered with - this happens often, according to the post office clerk. 

Their support staff are also clueless as I remember calling on three separate occasions before making a claim and received three completely different and conflicting answers; goes without saying, none of the answers were of any use. I suppose they were just trying to avoid saying "I have no fecking clue and do not give a shite" ?

Best of luck with your claim.

Edit: For proof of value, I just took a screenshot of the PayPal transaction.

Edit 2: Return addresses seem to be meaningless, I don't think I have ever had something returned by RM.

Buy your postage online, print off the label, optionally add the buyers email address and they get direct tracking updates as well

if you make a claim it gets refunded to your account 

..... and as long as you are capable of operating a tape measure and scales you pay the right price and possibly get a discount against the counter price