package gone missing - what can we do?

sheriffwoody

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will try and keep this as short as possible.

my gf bought something for me for xmas off of ebay for £50.

the seller sent it (has proof of postage apparently), and according to a tracking number provided the package was delivered on Friday last week.

Now, the package was sent to my gf's sisters house, in order to keep it a surprise from me (i have no idea what the present is).

Her sister, and her sister's partner, were not in on Friday.

There was no "attempted delivery/sorry you were not in etc" card left, the package isn't with any of the neighbours (she gets on well with all of them), and there is no sign of the package anywhere.

The package was too big to fit through a letter box, so the postman should have knocked on the door and left it with someone.

The strange thing is, as said above, if you type in the tracking number online it says "delivery was made at 11.45am on Friday 25th Nov".
But then says "Proof of Delivery is not yet available for this tracking reference"

Normally, if someone has signed for it, the signature will appear on the site, so you can see who did infact sign for it.

So clearly, someone is lying.

Either her neighbours have nicked it (highly unlikely), the postman has stolen it and kept it for himself, or he has just left it in the garden (as no one was in), in the hope my sister in-law will find it upon her return - and in the mean time someone else in their village has seen it and walked off with it.

Royal Mail said they need to speak with the postman etc tomorrow to hear his side of events, but i don't know what we can do. it's our word against his. can we make a claim?

The other annoying thing is, the present cost £50 from ebay, but according to my gf, she can't find it for a similar price to that anywhere, and in some cases can cost over £100 - and the ebay seller has none of the items left, which means my gf can't afford to spend £100+ plus on a replacement, when we don't know if she will see the parcel or refund again.

any hints or tips? (apologies for being rather long winded).
 
What postage service was used? Registered, recorded, etc?
 
as far as i know, it was just sent first class.

which is why i don't understand why there was a tracking number provided, as you don't need to sign for first class post?
 
Indeed - hard to know what the tracking number is. You can get proof of postage for any item that you post at the post office.
 
confirmed - it was sent first class.

the seller says they have proof, which is fine. so it has been sent their side, and apparently delivered this side. but where is it?

we will need to wait and see what the postman has to say for himself tomorrow.

if it turns out that he has just left the package in the garden, and someone has run off with it, is there anything we can do?
 
I am pretty sure they are not allowed to do that, so you should be able to claim.

However it is highly unlikely he is going to say he did that.

As you say, best to wait for the outcome of that at this point. I would try to get a copy of the proof of postage from the sender so you can see if for yourself.
 
Couple of confusing things here.

1st class postage is not trackable. If the sender is saying they have a tracking number they are lying. As 1st class you only can get a proof of posting, not proof of delivery. If the seller has proof it was delivered and it saying it went 1st class only then he is again lying.

You only get tracking if it is either recorded or special. Note that you do get 1st or 2nd class 'recorded' delivery, so perhaps he is saying 1st class recorded?

Also, as this was Ebay, just contact Paypal. They will sort it out for you straight away. Also ask him to contact Royal Mail and get the signature. If he doesn't respond Paypal will just take the money back from him and give it to you.
 
It's the sellers problem basically, only he can claim from RM, not you.

Just ask for a replacement/refund, then he'll have to take it up with RM, if he won't play ball just start a dispute on eBay.
 
Just like Greg said - 1st class is not trackable. Yes the sender can get a "proof of delivery" from the post office but this doesn't mean anything (unfortunately for the sender), it is up to the sender to prove that the item was delivered successfully to the buyer. So without any proof of delivery (recorded or special delivery or courier signature) PayPal should side with the buyer on this case.

The buyer should make a claim against Royal Mail for loss of parcel if this is the case not you.

In fairness, I would wait until you get any reply or update from Royal Mail to see if you get any further leads on what happened to the parcel. If then all else fails you are within your rights to report through ebay that the item was not delivered and initiate a PayPal charge back.
 
This is what I thought, but my gf was given a tracking number through eBay for royal mail, a 16 digit tracking number.

Type this into the royal mail tracking site and it says, along the lines of, "we have proof this package was delivered from the Canterbury depot on Friday 25th November"

My gf only paid for first class post, so maybe the seller sent it recorded delivery just to be on the safe side but only charged for first class?

Will wait and see what the postman has to say tomorrow and go from there.

He dropped another parcel off at my sister in laws this morning, but again, no one was in, so he left it in the garden and put a note through the door saying "I left your parcel in your garden as no one was in", however he didn't leave any kind of note last friday for the missing package.
 
It can take a good few days before the POD appears online with details of who signed for a recorded delivery. Just keep trying.
 
Crocodile said:
It can take a good few days before the POD appears online with details of who signed for a recorded delivery. Just keep trying.

If it appears at all. I sent something to someone who claimed he hadn't received it, after a week still no POD online and then it changed to "we cannot provide POD for this delivery" or something.

Guy swore he'd never received it, so I waited the required amount of time and put a claim in to RM, open and shut case I thought, with them unable to provide POD.

Once the claim went in, RM suddenly managed to find a "signature" which consisted of the recipients surname in block capitals.

The guy still said he'd not received the item and said that wasn't his signature, RM insisted they'd got a signature and wouldn't pay up, so I ended up £30 out of pocket.

So either the guy did receive it and lied or someone at RM must have just printed the name on the card.
 
This is what I thought, but my gf was given a tracking number through eBay for royal mail, a 16 digit tracking number.
My gf only paid for first class post, so maybe the seller sent it recorded delivery just to be on the safe side but only charged for first class?
That number could only be for Parcelforce.
They do tracking numbers, the post doesn't even for recorded delivery.
 
logiciel said:
That number could only be for Parcelforce.
They do tracking numbers, the post doesn't even for recorded delivery.

But RM do give a receipt number for recorded that works on both the RM and Parcelforce tracking websites to show proof of delivery which is what a lot of eBay sellers give as tracking number.
 
I have had a few items from Amazon sent via Royal Mail that was not registered/special delivery etc that has been trackable and does include a tracking number and I have not always had to sign for them. Sometimes I have and other times they were just handed to me.

"Ship Carrier Royal Mail
Tracking Number: FJxxxxxxxxxxGB
Status: Delivered

We have a record of item FJxxxxxxxxxxGB as being delivered from (Local depot) DO on 2011-11-12.
Proof of Delivery is not yet available for this tracking reference "

These were delivered to me by Royal Mail van and also by my Postie, items were various sizes and not necessarily expensive items - one was for socks that were only £4.95 with free postage.

**Edit to add** - I can see my signature on RMSD items that begin with SZxxx but no signatures show on any trackable items that begin with FJxxx

More info on the service here
http://www.royalmail.com/delivery/business-delivery-options-uk/royal-mail-tracked-services/details

I know the image below is small but it says under Royal Mail Tracked -No signature required-

tracked2.gif
 
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Thanks for that Sevlo, the number we have been given is an "FF" one, so slightly different from yours.

The postie better have a decent answer.
 
well, we were told to ring back today and speak to "Nick" who was going to speak to the postie and sort it all out.

Rang back, and there is no one who works there by the name of Nick - great start.

So i have gone through the situation again with them, told them whats happened, given them the tracking number and the guy on the other end of the phone (Steve) confirmed that it had been "delivered with no signature, so could be tricky to track down".

He then told me to leave it with him, he would pass on a message to his colleague (as he was only a cover manager there) and someone would ring me tomorrow after speaking with the postie on shift last Friday.

He did say that the claim process was long winded, as Royal Mail don't declare something as missing until 3 weeks have passed.

My gf was not happy and rang them and said unless a suitable response if given tomorrow then she will go to the police as this looks like a case of theft from the postman (why did he leave a note through the door yesterday when leaving a package in her sisters garden, but not on Friday for our package?)

Failing that, i will take a day off work, go and sit on their street and wait for the postman and have a few choice words with him.
 
You really need to be dealing with the seller.

I doubt either the police, if it goes that far or RM will entertain any claim from yourselves. The onus is on the seller to have any dealings with either party as it's his responsibility until it's actually delivered to yourselves.
 
fair enough.

it still isn't on if the postman has just left it in the garden and then it's been stolen. would have only taken a minute to slip a "you weren't in" note through the door.
 
If its beendelivered without a signature then there is no POD, a paypal claim should go straight through....
 
Something to be mindful of is a known ebay scam. Basically the buyer contacts the seller to say they haven't received their parcel and the seller agrees to send another one out recorded delivery. They then send an empty box, fill it with paper or whatever to weigh it down and post it. When the postman delivers 99.9% of people just sign for it without opening the box to check the contents. Any claim you then make the seller has your signature as proof of delivery and you have signed for an empty parcel.

Does the seller have good feedback that goes back a period of time, i.e. not 100 great reviews in 10 days.

.
 
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If its any thing to go by I am having the same issue just with Amazon and HDNL (now yodol or something) no calling card or anything, asked all my neighbours no one has had anything. Called HDNL this morning and apparently their driver left it in a "Safe Locaion". Amazons tracking still says that the package is out for delivery since the 24th?!

The lady said they will now interview the driver to ask where he left it. Not holding out hopes for getting this....
 
If its any thing to go by I am having the same issue just with Amazon and HDNL (now yodol or something) no calling card or anything, asked all my neighbours no one has had anything. Called HDNL this morning and apparently their driver left it in a "Safe Locaion". Amazons tracking still says that the package is out for delivery since the 24th?!

The lady said they will now interview the driver to ask where he left it. Not holding out hopes for getting this....

What has always confused me is the delivery person doesn't care what you scribble on those electronic machines, most of the time they don't work properly and you send up with un-readable scrawl. So even if they provide a signature how are you meant to prove it isn't yours if someone else faked it?
 
well, update time.

rung up the sorting office, and they have spoken to the postman, and the postman has told them that he delivered the package, to the correct address and gave it to someone in person.

my gf's sister is a teacher, so guess where she was at 11.45am? and her partner was up in Scotland on a training event, so he wasn't in the house either.

so, unless there was an intruder inside the house, he didn't leave it with anyone at the required address.

the post office have said they have to take the side of the postman and that because according to the postman and all the gps equipment etc it looks to them that the parcel was delivered, there is not much more they can do.

if the postman had just admitted to leaving it in the garden, and that it may have been stolen, then we could stomach it a bit more, but the fact he is adamant that he gave it to someone at the address in person is what is really winding me up.

think i will get up early tomorrow and take a drive over there and wait for the postman and have a chat with him.
 

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