Reply With QuoteI sent a package today RMSD for more than £500.
I was on the phone yesterday to Royal Mail (chasing a lost package) and during the conversation I was told that 2 weeks ago Royal Mail lowered the maximum insurance amount on RMSD to £500. I questioned it, and said It was £2500, they again confirmed that it has recently changed.
I also confirmed this in my local post office, they stated the max insurance was £500, and Ive used this post office many many times in the past.
Has anyone else heard of this change? This would have quite a large effect on us folk here and the SC, and with ParcelPro no longer taking individual customers, the list of couriers in the Uk (for watches) is quite small.
I sent a package today RMSD for more than £500.
Last edited by -Ally-; 29th April 2017 at 14:53.
Their website still states that it is £500 with additional insurance upto £2500. I thought it had been £500 for a long time. Perhaps they were mistaken on their being a change, but were stating £500 in that that is the standard level of compensation.
I`ve sent stacks of items this way. At the risk of stating the obvious the default insurance value is £500, if you want more (up to a max of £2.5K) you pay more...........are you saying this has changed?
Paul
This is my understanding too : up to £500 it's included in the price and you have to pay extra for a higher valueOriginally Posted by walkerwek1958
I don't believe it has Paul and the default value is still £500 with an extra charge for higher value up to a max of £2500. That's my understanding anyway.
The website still shows £2.5k insurance available.
I manage a Post Office, Special Delivery by 1pm has compensation cover of up to £500 as standard. Enhanced compensation can be added at an additional cost up to a maximum of £2500.
Consequential loss can also be added to an additional cost.
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So the conclusion is that nothing's changed!
Maybe I just got a dumbass on the phone then !!!
And at your post office.
If something sounds wrong my instinct is to disbelieve it, regardless of source. I'm a natural sceptic so I don' t find this difficult, many years of working in a technical environment conditioned my thinking.......or maybe I was just born this way!
The guy you spoke to was referring to the basic cover, not the maximum available. Communication probably isn't his strongpoint.
Ideally, RMSD should increase cover to around £5K. I find the service extremely reliable and I wouldn't object to paying more to give a higher level of cover. Maybe they're missing a trick here to make more profit.
Paul
Quick question
Under UK law, the moment the RM take delivery of the parcel / letter, it becomes the property of the addressee.
Therefore let us say I buy a watch for £6000 from someone here which is not unusual, the maximum cover is £2500, therefore I (the customer) would have to suffer the loss of £3500.
Consequential loss is nothing to do with the watch itself, but how much it has cost me not to have it delivered which would be next to nothing.
If my assumption is correct, no way would I want a watch sent through the post.
Am I wrong - I hope so.
If the value is over £2500, then no insurance paid. Therefore if you use RMSD to send something over this value, make sure you have other insurance to the same value
Presumably the sender has to take out the supplementary insurance ?
Me too. It's a shame they cap it at only £2.5K: It's a low limit in today's world. I'd be willing to pay more to get more.
£6000.
That's why it's essential to get separate insurance, or use a service like Mail Boxes Etc who insure it and ship it for you. At around £150 or so it's not much compared to the potential loss.
It is a superb service. I have sent several on a Friday without paying the primium for guaranteed Saturday delivery and all have been delivered the next day. I would also pay extra to ensure the correct insurance.
Yikes - Therefore if I as a customer buy something for say £6000 and the seller did not take out supplementary insurance, I the customer would bear the full loss ?
Are you sure about this? Can you cite the legislation?
Before the point of delivery to the addressee an item is usually, in practice, still considered to be the property of the sender. I.e. The sender is normally responsible for loss of or damage to the item until it has been successfully delivered to the intended recipient.
In other words, to the best of my knowledge an item can only be said to become the property of the addressee (or buyer) when it has been delivered to them.
You are referring to two separate issues here:-
(1) Your responsibilities within the law and/or within your contract with the buyer.
(2) The compensation provided by Royal Mail.
Dealing with each one is turn:-
(1) As the seller, your legal responsibilities (in the absence of an agreed contract that specifies otherwise) are as above, to the best of my knowledge. I.e. The item belongs to the seller until it is delivered to the final recipient. If the seller subcontracts the job of delivery to someone like Royal Mail it does not change the fact that the seller is responsible for delivering it to the buyer (unless otherwise agreed). In other words, the item normally belongs to the seller until the buyer has taken delivery.
(2) Royal Mail compensation. Any item valued at more than the level of compensation purchased from Royal Mail has no compensation coverage whatsoever. So a watch valued at £6000 will never be covered by Royal Mail compensation, not even if the £2500 cover is purchased. Royal Mail will be under no obligation to pay out a penny for loss or damage[1]. To send any item worth more than £2500 via RMSD with compensation needs a third party insurance/compensation service. Have a look at this thread (which is still correct with respect to Royal Mail, although it needs updating on some points): http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...-%A32-5K-in-SC
That depends on your contract (possibly an implicit contract) with the seller. You are confusing Royal Mail compensation with the contract that exists between buyer and seller. They are different things.
Royal Mail compensation is primarily intended to compensate Royal Mail's customer[2], which is the sender, or the seller in this scenario. In usual practice, the item normally remains the effective property of the seller until it is successfully delivered to the buyer (unless contractually agreed otherwise) so the buyer should not usually lose out if the item goes missing or is damaged in transit since the buyer has a claim on the seller for lack of safe delivery. This is true whether the seller is a business or private seller.
Note that the phrase "supplementary" could be misleading. It could be taken to mean that one only needs to insure for the difference between Royal Mail's compensation and the item value whereas this is not the case. As above, when an item value exceeds Royal Mail's maximum compensation, one must obtain third party insurance or compensation for the item's entire value. In the event of loss or damage there would be no claim on Royal Mail.
Footnotes:-
1: They have been known to pay out in this situation in some cases but it should never be relied upon.
2: The recipient is now able to claim on Royal Mail's compensation as well as the sender but if the sender and recipient claim at the same time then the sender gets priority.
Last edited by markrlondon; 29th April 2017 at 18:56. Reason: Added additional replies
Mark
I was a Purchasing Manager with RM for 22 years but I left in 2004, so things may have changed.
I know that the moment someone drops a letter in a letter box or leaves it with a RM delivery office, it is deemed as posted and becomes the property of the addressee. This is why, for instance, a Postie will not give anyone a letter from a pillar box, even if they said the posted the letter in error because it is now the addressees property.
I will admit on reflection, that when parcels have been posted to me via ebay, the sender takes full responsibility which does shoot what I said in the foot. I will contact an old colleague on Tuesday to find out the true position.
It looks like there is one set of rules for Mail and one for parcels.
Is the insurance applicable to watches?
I cannot comment on what you were told in your job ;-) but this does not concur with how things normally work in reality. Rest assured, in reality, the item is usually (unless agreed otherwise) effectively the property of the owner until the item is delivered to the buyer.
Notably, it may be (or may have been) Royal Mail's policy to view an item that they had taken custody of to be the addressee's property but this does not mean that the law agrees. It is of course Royal Mail's duty to deliver the item to the addressee and so it makes sense for Royal Mail to take the view, from a practical perspective, that the item is the addressee's property. There is nothing about such a policy that means that the law in general is the same.
One may argue that the item is the buyer's property right away (for example, as soon as the seller despatches it) but the fact nevertheless remains that, in reality in the UK, the seller is by default legally responsible for safe delivery to the buyer (unless agreed otherwise). I.e. The contract of sale has (usually) not been executed successfully until the buyer has taken safe delivery.
Isn't this policy more to do with Royal Mail's duty of care (as well as contractual responsibilities and, where applicable, statutory responsibilities) to other people's property in their custody, rather than the presumed ownership of that property.
It's not just eBay: It is all transactions between seller and buyer. In all cases, unless agreed otherwise, the seller has full responsibility to deliver the item successfully to the buyer. eBay's contractual rules just reflect previous default practice in commerce, both business and private.
Yes, Royal Mail (which includes parcels and packages sent by Royal Mail letter post) has different rules and different Ts&Cs compared to Parcelforce.
At this point it is worth pointing out once more that Parcelforce has no compensation service whatsoever that is suitable for valuables, which includes watches. If sending watches by Parcelforce, one always needs third party compensation/insurance.
Last edited by markrlondon; 29th April 2017 at 18:15.
I sent a laptop using our franking machine at work, it updated before I ran it, gave me the "standard" option of £500, or extra insurance up to £1000 or £2500.
This is my exact experience too.
It seems to me that paying for Saturday Guaranteed (SG) is actually a waste of money.
Depends how much of a guarantee you need, although it's mostly been my experience too (I have had one or two SD items delivered later than guaranteed)
M
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Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
Customer feedback from those who post on a Friday using special delivery, items are on occasion delivered on Saturday, some have also stated items delivered on Monday.
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If the delivery is later than guaranteed, you make a claim and all the postage costs are refunded. But I'm sure you know that
Yup, same for me this weekend.
Posted Friday, tracking said delivery Tuesday (Monday bank holiday), delivered Saturday.
I expect it's cheaper to treat them all the same rather than take time to weed out the cheaper opted ones?
Cheers..
Jase
Ok trade secret
In my office we aim to deliver all SD's on a Saturday (bar Saturday shuts)-
Exactly. If there's room in the bag/van/truck/train/plane or whatever, they are not going to purposely leave parcels behind.
Every time I have posted special delivery on the Friday, it's arrived on the Saturday despite not paying the extra. I also find normal 2nd class to be as fast as 1st, except during peak periods like Christmas etc.
Back a while now, but my office delayed any Friday's RMSD post until the Monday. The reason was so many were being attempted to deliver on a Saturday and most of our recipients offices weren't open at weekends.
However, we ran a check on our mail to personal clients, for whom an average of 8 were sent out Friday RMSD and after 8 weeks every one had been delivered on a Saturday.
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Just some boring cr*p but if a business(or individual) does not require a delivery on a Saturday (or another day) they should complete a retention mandate - all mail is then held in the office for that day and no delivery attempt made
Any SD items are put on retention - and made ready for delivery the next day-this satisfies the regulator
Received a watch yesterday but it was just RM signed for not special delivery, still showed up bright and early on a Saturday.
Regards
Brian
I've sent tons of packages on a Friday using RMSD and I never pay the Saturday delivery fee. I genuinely can't remember the last time one wasn't delivered on a Saturday. My postie tells me they'd rather have the RMSD's delivered than hanging around sorting office over the weekend. I believe the official delivery day for RMSD's posted on a Saturday is Tuesday as Saturday isn't classed as a working day by Royal Mail, even though the Post Office is open to post it, Royal Mail is working to collect and sort it and the postman and women are working to deliver it!
No, Saturday SDs are due for delivery Monday-as are 1c items posted before lat ( latest acceptance time)
Last edited by lewie; 2nd May 2017 at 08:11.
Great thing about RMSD is that it's almost entirely automated.
Only the postmistress and the delivery man handle the parcels.
I'm sure that this reduces loss and theft dramatically.
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Strange as only last week I posted a phone worth £700 so upped the insurance to £1000 on the paypal site.
Funny enough I went to a different post office to my usual one and clearly requested my item be insured 'up to the maximum' and when I was given the receipt it said insured up to £500. I queried this and got them to change it but it actually turned out the lady serving me thought maximum meant lowest value, it was simply a case of a lack of understanding on her part. I have actuall encountered this before with people for whom English is not their main language and now specifically say £2500.
According to Royal Mail website the £2500 insurance rate still applies.
They also offer consequential loss cover tiered up to 10k.
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This is of no help to a private seller sending a watch worth more than 2.5K though. "Consequential loss" does not cover the item itself, but indirect losses related to not having the item, such as lost business revenue.
I had to claim postage charges back for an RMSD delivery that didn't arrive on the Monday when it was posted on the Saturday, I was told the delivery day for a Saturday posted item was Tuesday so no refund. The following is from the terms and conditions
"Working day: Monday to Friday of any week excluding any Public or
Bank Holidays in any part of the UK or Northern Ireland;
You: the sender of a posting or postings using the Royal Mail Special
Delivery Guaranteed by 9am service."
Last edited by Thewatchbloke; 2nd May 2017 at 11:37. Reason: Adding info
RMSD's I send from Torquay to NI rarely gets there the next day.
They blame poor conditions at Exeter airport.
At least they get there !!
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Did you post it before the latest acceptance time ?
If you went say 13:30 it won't arrive on the Monday 10am and you should be fine
We cleanse our TSO's around midday on Saturday- I'm sure thee is some text in the receipt about lat
It was posted at 10.28am on the Saturday and the receipt confirmed that it was before last acceptance time (it indicates this with a Y or N under the session ID number). When I spoke to the claims woman the reason I was given for the 'late' delivery was that Saturday isn't classed as a working day (hence my original post) so it would be classed as being posted Monday for Tuesday delivery before 1pm. I naturally questioned this (as the Post Office was definitely working when I posted it!) and was directed to the terms and conditions which state working days are Monday to Friday.
All I can say is what I've already posted, the package was posted in plenty of time for a Monday delivery (which was the next working day) and I was denied a refund due to the reasons I was given by the lady who answered the phone at the Royal Mail claims centre, namely in Royal Mails terms and conditions Saturday isn't classed as a working day therefore it's classed as being posted on Monday!
Well I'll be - after 30 years with the business I'm still learning
That's always been the case if you drop it off on a Saturday, it is classed as Monday for delivery on Tuesday.
I'm a Subpostmaster and the information that you've been given is incorrect. If an item is posted by special delivery on a Saturday before the latest acceptance time then it is guaranteed for delivery by 1pm on the Monday unless of course it's a holiday weekend.
Did you claim your postage cost back?
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