It's a lot seeing as in my experience if you have a claim they don't pay out on it! Horrendous company to deal with, I hope they go bankrupt.
No more high ticket value RMSD transactions for me - F2F only on anything above £2k.
Well, I'm just reporting the large increase in Royal Mail Special Delivery prices.
Insurance to £750 appears fine. Remember the extra £2.50 if you took the value up to £2500? It's a tenner extra now.
In my opinion it's still a great service but your typical £2500 of value package is now around the £20-£22 mark. I've never had an issue over 15+ years (apart from some late deliveries). I'm not the only one of course.
Last edited by j111dja; 22nd April 2024 at 14:35.
It's a lot seeing as in my experience if you have a claim they don't pay out on it! Horrendous company to deal with, I hope they go bankrupt.
No more high ticket value RMSD transactions for me - F2F only on anything above £2k.
there was a thread about this already with some people arguing it was still a bargain and defending the royal mail
Im quite sure they are also wanting an original receipt as proof of purchase ?
Last edited by xellos99; 14th April 2024 at 11:19.
I wonder how it works with sales where the RRP of a watch (and any original receipt if you have for it) is over £2500, but it's been sold at a price lower than that (i.e. on SC or eBay). The sender would only be claiming for whatever sub-£2500 price they sold the watch for, but all they'd have would be a sold email from eBay or a string of messages and any transaction record to your bank account/paypal from a forum sale. Perhaps an eBay receipt might carry more weight, but I could see potential issues with anything sold via a forum if the PO choose to be particularly difficult.
I just had a look at their terms and conditions and its way too confusing, I think it is safe to assume that they will do everything in their power to give you as little compensation as they possible can.
For example, I bet thousands of people have fallen foul of this rule and been refused any compensation at all.
Evidence of posting : The item with envelope or packaging, showing the postage paid.
So does this mean you need a photo of the item inside the box with a label attached, or item along side the box with a label showing the postage paid.
Its just not clear and there are a bunch of these petty rules it would seem to trip people up.
It's always probably safest to take a couple of pictures, but I thought evidence of posting was covered if you kept your Certificate of Posting (printed receipt).
Thing is, a photo or even a video proves nothing...you could take a picture of you packaging up a watch and after the picture remove it and post some stones with the same weight.
I got a shock the last watch I posted rspd asking for over 20 quid delivery. Then again eBay evri wanted 75 for same insurance value!
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I've always taken it as read that keeping a copy of the certificate of posting would provide enough evidence on that front. If sending an expensive watch I will take a picture of the packaged up parcel too, although as Christian says it's not exactly a foolproof way of evidencing the package (and I've never taken it as such, only as another piece of evidence sohuld I require it).
Equally from a couple of cases I've had to deal with Royal Mail over items going missing in transit to me as buyer, I've always suspected I'd have a fight on my hands if I was claiming for any item (especially something in the scenario I asked about). Fortunately in one of the cases I dealt with involving a relatively high value item (a pair of sunglasses being returned from repair) the manufacturer were very prompt and helpful in sending out a replacement almost immediately and without any sort of argument.
No point in carping about the increased cost, if you don't like it use an alternative.
In my experience, and I`ve received hundreds of RMSD packages containing watches, biggest mistake people make is failing to provide their return address clearly on the outside of the package, that's the safeguard against it going missing if they've made a mistake in addressing the item. A scribbled illegible postcode isn`t sufficient.
I would like to see an increase in the upper value limit for RMSD to accompany the increase in cost, but that hasn`t happened.
From a reliability standpoint RMSD is excellent, but folks need to help themselves. Address the item clearly, package it securely, and include your return name and address. I always use the grey plastic RMSD outer envelopes too.
Cost of sending watches back and forth has increased, can`t get away from it, but so have many other things over the past few years.
This would’ve been great to see and I think most people would definitely have been singing RM’s praises if this had been the case. Sadly not to be though.
It does all seem to have come as quite a shock to most (me included, although I’m not an avid news follower) so I wonder how well the price increases were advertised ahead of time?
I assumed there might have been a story on the BBC website (and by extension based on history I'd have thought that it would have been communicated on here if there had been one). At the very least I'd have expected there to be some signs up in the post office about it. I've been into my local one several times in the weeks preceding the increase and didn't see anything.
But you're right, not many will be shopping around elsewhere, certainly not me!
As we all no doubt know, the Royal Mail is in a mess commercially and services like RMSD will get milked until the well dries up. For now I'll keep using but will switch to parcel pro for higher value cover keeping the RMSD value to the minimum. So far (and this is tempting fate) I havent had a package with RMSD go astray and as such for important documents its now the only service I'll use (first class signed for isnt worth the money and guarantees nothing in my experience) - things arrive late sometimes with RMSD but compared to the rest of RM thats a good result. By the way, on a similar subject I recently sent a £2k hifi amplifier with Parcel Force (a RM subsidiary) - fully insured, cost £80 for 48 hour delivery. Took them two weeks to deliver after the label (as applied by the driver) fell off and multiple calls from me eventually allowed them to find the box in their central hub. Compensation claimed for later delivery (the postal element was around £20) and success! They sent me a cheque for £3.79 as full and final settlement...of course I should have known better and wont use them again.
Keith
You need to try harder. :-)
A refund form is here:
https://personal.help.royalmail.com/...rms/fee_refund
Alternatively try this:
- Go to the Royal Mail app Homepage.
- Click on "Help ?" on the bottom bar of the page.
- Click on "How do I submit a claim".
- Click on the first red "Claim Form" button.
- Scroll down to "Claiming for delayed items" then click on "Special Delivery Items".
I'm sure that a claim has to be initiated within 14 days of the delayed RMSD package and only by the person who sent the package.
Last edited by j111dja; 17th April 2024 at 20:40.
If you are the seller, you HAVE to prove to RM what YOU paid for the goods, which is often difficult. The buyer would be in a better position to make the claim, but they do not have a contract for delivery with RM, so no good !? However, if the seller charges shipping costs (as on eBay) I think it's fair to say that the buyer has paid for the RM service and so has a contract with RM, and the seller has simply acted as their agent. SO the price paid by the buyer is shown in the sales transaction, and that's the proof of value that RM need to process the claim.
Given RM's reputation (well, actually the Post Office more recently) I think you may end up in court. A class action should certainly be made against RM for a completely bogus compensation process and "insurance" premium. I think ANY other courier service applies "normal" rules to their insurance, but their coverage of certain types of goods and other factors limit their use for our purposes.
I've claimed late delivery on three packages via the RMSD service this past nine months. (Please note that I have never claimed for the package value if lost or stolen, for example).
All I had to do was to state who the item was being delivered too, how much I paid for postal costs and the date the item was posted.
Once the claim has been initiated, I received a cheque on each occasion for the full postal cost, and it was fairly quick. I still have the cheques as I processed them via my online banking app.
They provide a 24 hour service that you pay for. If they take another day (or more) to deliver an item then that is the RM's fault. They fully admit it.
If I am the sender of an RMSD package , I've never had to prove to the Royal Mail how much I have paid for the item unless their policies have changed very recently. The RM don't allow the receiver of an RMSD package to make a claim for a delayed package. The contract is with the sender.
Last edited by j111dja; 17th April 2024 at 21:22.
it's definitely apples and oranges as you've eluded to. Claiming for a late RMSD delivery is simple and quite quick. Claiming for a lost parcel on the other hand is a lot more difficult. I've done both on several occasions through work and the biggest problem is proof of value. Regardless of the insured value they still ask for proof of value and without a current invoice/receipt they do tend to make things very awkward when claiming.
I was expecting a parcel delivery RMSD yesterday.Watched the postie walk down my drive and throw it behind the shrubbery ,no attempt to come to my door.I went out and asked why he did that just got a shrug of the shoulders.
Last edited by Stilgoe1972; 18th April 2024 at 16:53.
Check the tracking number as a digital photo would have been attached along with your signature as all RMSD require a pic and signature before handing over to the customer. If I was you I’d raise this issue with your local delivery office as that could well have been your new £5000 watch from a jeweller.
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Last edited by Stilgoe1972; 18th April 2024 at 18:28.
Ironically, shortly after my parcel force comment above I sent an item using RMSD - this arrived a day late so I planned to claim compensation BUT the TC's allow them 24 hours delay before paying compensation. Maybe my memory is duff but I seem to recall if they fail to meet the 13.00 next day delivery then they refunded you so has this changed? Pretty rich, paying for a premium service and then getting 2nd class performance. Sadly there doesn't seem to be any alternative to this shower though.
Keith
If you hadn't noticed, they've also hiked the prices 50% :(
That's news to me too Keith. They must have changed their T&C's probably because of the amount of money they were paying out in claims because of late deliveries after 1pm. That's their fault but as per usual they take their own problems out on their customers by destroying their own premium service.
All my claims were based on a non delivery the next day as that was what I (plus all the other RMSD customers) was paying for. That was the premium delivery service, now no more it appears.
Last edited by j111dja; 22nd April 2024 at 14:42.
Thats right but like a lot of other institutionalized organisations they seem to have missed that the pandemic is over...now I'm sounding grumpy. Bottom line is that its now a 48 hour'ish guaranteed service but you may hit lucky and get things by 13.00 next day.
Crap really.
Keith
They still pay compensation for anything arriving after 1 next day.
I posted on Thursday (collected at my home), didnt arrive until mid-morning Saturday, went through the process of claiming a refund today, after providing the details the claim was rejected because it was delivered within 24 hours of the committed time - if there is misinformation its within Royal Mail.
keith
The issue is you had it collected - the postman won’t get back to the office till maybe at least 3pm - to late to connect with the outgoing mail
Take it to the post office pre LAT and you can claim if it’s delivered next day after 13:00
Last edited by lewie; 22nd April 2024 at 18:43.