Courier company rejects compensation - damaged item

[Guest 888]

Hi

 

I try to present the case in a nutshell as it has been running for a while now:

 

I booked a shipment at the beginning of July through a courier booking agent. Carrier was UPS. I declared its value correctly - approx £1120 at the time of shipping (due to exchange rate) and purchased additional insurance cover of up to £1500 when I booked the shipment. I followed the shipping agents packing advice guidelines 100% (bubblewrap around the item, fixing the item in a large corrugated cardboard box and filling the remainder with poly chips and other suitable packing material).

The item arrived damaged abroad and the recipient declined payment.

Since then the nightmare has started - first the booking agent forwarded the claim to UPS which were supposed to carry out an "on site inspection" of the damaged item at the recipient's premises. This has never been carried out, instead they relied on the recipients photographic evidence and verbal description of the damage. Then, some weeks later, after much chasing, UPS suddenly declined - suggesting inadequate packaging. One customer service representative even went as far as claiming the air-cushioning packaging used isn't fit for purpose. I rejected these claims by forwarding a technical failure test from one of the manufacturers, without any success. In the meantime some searching on the internet also revealed that UPS seems to be somewhat notorious regarding rejecting any claims. Anyway - then the shipping agent promised to raise it through their own Goods in Transit Insurance which turned out later to be a bit of a lip-service, as their GIT usually bases their decisions on UPS' decisions because they seem to attempt to reclaim the money from UPS then. As the shipping agent rejects any further action in that matter, despite already having pointed out negligence (based on the Sale of Goods & Services Act), I can only take it further through the small claims procedure -

 

I would very much appreciate advice on:

 

• What to highlight in the "Letter before action"?
  
• How much detail to include in the letter before action?
  
• Which documents to ask for from the shipping agent?
  
• Whether negligence on their part - as in previous examples on CAG voids the T&C of the initial insurance purchased and makes the shipping agent liable for the damage in any case?
  
• Which timescale should I give the shipping agent to respond - obviously the whole process has already taken 3 months since the incident - can I simply set 7 days to respond or would that be seen as unreasonable?
  
• The booking agent also claimed that according to their GIT the item has to remain at the recipients premises till they have reached a conclusion - their published T&C did not state that in the first place and now that they rejected compensation it should not matter if I reclaim the damaged item, or not?
  

 

Many thanks!!!

Edited October 2, 2012 by 888