I ordered a car part from a company called Autodoc.co.uk

The part was posted on the 19th of September and was due to be delivered on the 24th of September. As I was going to be out at work I arranged to have the parcel delivered to a local parcel shop so I could collect it later. I used the DPD app on my phone to do this.

On the morning of 24th of September I received a notification on my phone from the DPD app that stated I had changed my delivery date to the 30th of September. I used the live chat on the app to ask why this had changed and I was told that a shift manager at the local depot had changed it and that I would get a call back within the hour. I never received a call back. When I got home I telephoned DPD using the app on my phone and was told again I would receive a call back. Again this never happened.

I called them back again and explained that I needed the parcel urgently as it was a part for my car. The rep on the phone said he would make sure that my parcel would be delivered the following day to the parcel shop as requested.

The next morning I received a notification from the DPD app stating that they could not deliver to the parcel shop as the parcel was oversized. I used the app to rearrange delivery to a friends address for the following day. When I got home DPD had left a card stating they had tried to deliver to my house. This was left 10 minutes before I arrived home.

On the morning of Wednesday the 26th of September I contacted DPD on the live chat on the app to ask if they would be able to give me a delivery time. They were unable to do this.

My friend waited all day and no parcel arrived. I contacted DPD using the live chat and they then said that it may have been lost.

The next morning I telephoned DPD using the app and they admitted that they lost the parcel. I asked them to send me an email confirming this which they did.

I have also been in contact with the sender Autodoc who turn out to be based in Germany. They refused to believe that the parcel was lost, even though I forwarded the email from DPD, they told me I had to got to the local depot to collect it.

I contacted the bank as Autodoc refused to refund me, Visa have refunded me but told me that Autodoc can refute my claim.

Autodoc are being extremely difficult and are telling me to contact DPD, on the other hand DPD are referring me back to Autodoc.

In the meantime I have had to order the part from another company who delivered it the following day. My car was off the road longer due to Autodoc and DPD. I would like compensation for the delay.

Can anyone give me any help on what I can do?

Not a lot you can do I'm afraid. Your contract was with Autodoc, and it is for them to make a claim against DPD. You have already done the right thing in getting Visa to do a refund, but I doubt very much that you'd get anything more in the way of compensation.

Not a lot you can do I'm afraid. Your contract was with Autodoc, and it is for them to make a claim against DPD. You have already done the right thing in getting Visa to do a refund, but I doubt very much that you'd get anything more in the way of compensation.

this may not be correct. You may be able to use the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act which confers upon you all the rights that the original contracting party has.

This would allow you to sue DPD as a third party. However, it is possible to contract out of the Act and so you need to see the DPD terms and conditions see whether or not they have excluded third-party rights.

If that is case and the only other thing you can do would be to sue the supplier and you could do this by using the European small claims process which basically means that you issue the proceedings here. The judgement and then have it transferred to Germany for enforcement. I have no first hand or even second hand experience of this and if you tried it then we will be very interested if you will keep us informed as to how it works. However, try the third parties act first. Let us know.