Amazon property damage

[Fireman D]

Please Assist.

 

On the 14th May 2020 I had a delivery from Amazon. My drive has electric gates fitted which open outward,

the delivery driver forced my gates open by pushing them 'inward' which resulted in the gate hinge being broken

from the gate post, the mechanism that opens the gate being damaged and inoperable and the gate itself being

broken where the opening mechanism was fixed to the gate. All this was captured and recorded on CCTV.

The gates had to be removed for safety reasons as a result.

 

This was immed the USA. ARC initially investigated this and requested the CCTV footage and photographs of the damage and also requested two quotes for the repairs. Due to the cost of the repairs and replacement ARC subsequently passed the claim on to the drivers insurance, QBE in the UK. QBE did not respond to my e-mails and denied that the person whose name I was given by Amazon actually worked for the company.

 

ARC was informed of this to which their response was they would settle my claim and invoice QBE for the claim amount. ARC then informed me that QBE will contact myself via e-mail. QBE subsequently sent an e-mail stating they were 'investigating' and will contact me again with the findings of said investigation.

 

The initial e-mail from QBE was on the June 16th and will not respond to any e-mail or telephone call, and now ARC will not reply to any e-mails.

 

Any advice on how I can now deal with this would be gratefully appreciated.

[honeybee13]

Hello and welcome to CAG.

 

We are a UK website and I'm not sure where you are, could you enlighten us please?

 

Best, HB

[Fireman D]

Hi Honeybee13

I'm in the UK, West Yorkshire if that is sufficient or do you also need town/city ?

Cheers FD

[BankFodder]

Sorry, but what does this mean?

Quote

This was immed the USA. 

 

Who are ARC?

It would be helpful if you could be a little bit more clear about what happened.

I don't understand why you are not simply proceeding against Amazon – because it is clearly their responsibility as it was their driver or courier company

[Man in the middle]

4 hours ago, BankFodder said:

I don't understand why you are not simply proceeding against Amazon – because it is clearly their responsibility as it was their driver or courier company

 

So would he proceed against Amazon if they'd sent the item by Royal Mail?

Edited July 11, 2020 by Man in the middle

[Fireman D]

14 hours ago, Fireman D said:

This was immed the USA. ARC initially investigated this and requested the CCTV footage and photographs of the damage and also requested two quotes for the repairs.

 

Should read 'This was immediately reported to Amazon who passed it over to ARC, ARC are a claims management company based in the USA.

(For some reason this text was omitted when the post was sent !)

 

4 hours ago, BankFodder said:

It would be helpful if you could be a little bit more clear about what happened.

 

What further information do you require please ?

 

And you also say 'you don't understand why I am not simply proceeding against Amazon'  Proceeding with what and how ?

I am no legal expert, i am a retired firefighter.

[BankFodder]

Well you shouldn't get involved in case management or anything else like that.

You are being fobbed off to some company that specialises in cutting down payouts to people who have suffered and also delay because they are involved in so many cases and have complicated procedures.

If you want to take control of this then you should claim against Amazon.

You haven't told us the value of the damage.

You should get two independent quotations and assessments of the damage. You would need those for the claims management company anyway. If they haven't asked you for these then they really are dragging their feet.

Get the quotations – and come back here.

You should claim against Amazon by writing to them in the first instance with the two quotations. Give them 10 days to respond. If they don't respond or if they don't respond satisfactorily then issue a letter of claim and begin a small claim in the County Court.

They will probably respond to you and say that you have to deal to their claims management company – you should ignore this and deal only with Amazon.

Please give us more information about the damage – and in particular the value and let us know about the independent quotations.

[Fireman D]

Thanks for reply.

 

I have forwarded the two independent quotations to ARC (the claims management company)

Quotation 1 was for £4500 + VAT (£5400)

Quotation 2 was for £5200 +VAT (£6240)

 

The damage was

15 hours ago, Fireman D said:

which resulted in the gate hinge being broken

from the gate post, the mechanism that opens the gate being damaged and inoperable and the gate itself being

broken where the opening mechanism was fixed to the gate.

 

both companies that assessed the damage stated that 'no parts were salvageable'.

This being because you cannot purchase one gate or one opening mechanism or one gate post. They are only

supplied in pairs hence the whole system has to be replaced.

 

Is this sufficient information for you ?

[BankFodder]

Thanks. Okay these are manageable amounts.

It seems that the claims management company are making reasonable headway but it's a mystery is why they seem to have stopped responding.

If you want to move it on then you should write to Amazon and copied out to the claims management company that you are not prepared to wait any more. That they are treating you discourteous lead by not responding to your emails and that you are preparing to take matter into your own hands.

Tell them that this means that you will begin a claim in the County Court if they don't bring you up to date as to what is happening and give you reasonable timelines for action.
Tell them that you want to reply in 10 days or else you will be issuing a letter of claim.

Letter of claim means that you would then give them 14 days and then you would start a legal action. If they don't respond to your 10 day deadline – and there is certainly a chance that they won't then you should send a letter of claim – but only if you are absolutely certain that you intend to bring the legal action.

It is clear that your chances of success are almost guaranteed and of course any costs et cetera will be borne by the losing party. You would bring the claim against Amazon at the UK address. If they haven't started moving on your initial warning and then on your letter of claim, you can be certain that once the court papers are issued they will start taking you seriously.

I'm afraid that if you're not prepared to do that then you will probably have to do remain patient and keep on waiting for as long as they want to wait. It's not fair but these people are not used to being hassled – and they generally speaking take their time and do things the way they want.

If you want to break this routine, then take the action which I have suggested. You should be aware that they probably often receive threats which are never followed up. Any threats you make, must be followed up.

If you have to bring a claim that it's very simple and we will help you although you will need to read around this forum about how to bring a small claim in the County Court.

[Ethel Street]

ARC act for Amazon, they are in effect Amazon's outsourced claims handling department (presumably because Amazon self-insure small losses like this). I doubt you will get anywhere by refusing to deal with them. Unless you are actually starting court proceedings when of course you have to direct your claim to the actual defendant.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Ethel Street

[BankFodder]

I'm afraid that you have misunderstood what I have suggested.

I've suggested that the OP contact Amazon and tells them that if ARC don't get a move on then he will proceed directly against Amazon.

It's not a question of refusing to deal with ARC.  It's a question about putting them to get going. If the OP does end up issuing court papers, against Amazon – you can be pretty certain that things will get a move on. I can certainly imagine that it will be ARC which will deal with it on Amazon's behalf, but they will suddenly realise that the OP is serious

[Ethel Street]

It wasn't a response to any post in particular BF, just a comment on who ARC are as I have some (limited) experience of dealing with them professionally.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Ethel Street

[Fireman D]

Thanks Again BankFodder for your assistance.

 

I shall follow your advise and will keep you posted on my progress.

I will no doubt need your help further down the line with County Court papers etc.

 

Gratefully

FD