Parcel2go + Hermes

[Sifer]

Hi, 

 

I found this website via googling an issue I have with Parcel2go.

 

I bought a chair for £75 was worth £150 it was like new hadn't been used, unfortunately I must have selected that the package was worth £50 instead of £150 as that's what it says on the invoice on the Pacel2go website. The seller lives in the south of England so I paid for the delivery of the chair on 22/09/20 via Parcel2go which cost £29.99, delivered by Hermes.

The chair never turned up, so I followed the track system and it said there was a problem with the delivery, please contact original sender.

 

I contacted Parcel2go regarding the missing chair by live chat, they said Hermes have said it has been damaged beyond repair, I said well I would want proof of the damage, could you send it anyway.  He said he would pass on the query to Hermes and someone would be in touch.

 

02/10/20

We then received an email saying the query has been resolved, they suggest we open an enquiry so they can investigate on my behalf and locate the item, they wanted a full description of contents with description of packaging.  I sent an email showing a picture of the chair and explaining I was confused as to how anything has been resolved as I have no chair or proof as to where it is.

 

09/10/20

I received and email saying an investigation had been opened with the courier to investigate its whereabouts with the description given and will take a minimum of 7 days however, they would be in touch by the 23/10/20.

 

 24/10/20 (a day late)

Received an email saying they couldn't approve my claim, they said I have opted out against taking parcel protection because of this they cannot compensate for the value of the parcels contents.

 

I never received a refund for the initial payment of £29.99 either which they said they would refund originally over live chat. 

 

After reading through various posts I gather my best course of action would be to send a letter first of all threatening legal action and then most likely going down that road?

I was wondering if there are any pre written letters or pointers, I am worried my letter may not be worded correctly, which could have a negative impact on my claim.

 

Many Thanks!

 

P.S I have pasted correspondence at the bottom in case this can help in anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

I'm afraid that you certainly haven't helped your chances by not giving the correct value – even if it was an accident.

I don't quite understand where you are with them. Are they saying that it is damaged and disposed of? Or are they now simply saying that it is lost?

Also, I'm afraid that the images that you have put up are a bit difficult to read. Please would you put them into a scanned PDF document. Thank you

[Sifer]

Apologises, I will try and re-upload the images, unfortunately I don't have the ability to scan where I am currently.  If they're no good I will try and scan them in tomorrow.

 

I am unsure myself as to the current condition of the item, that was never fully clarified, Parcel2go said Hermes had reported on Parcel2go's system that the item was damaged beyond repair.  So I asked for proof or return of the damaged chair and Parcel2go just seemed to open up a lost parcel enquiry with Hermes without any response.

parcel2gopdf.pdf

Edited October 24, 2020 by Sifer

[BankFodder]

I think it might be worth taking your time with this one. I'm interested in the conflicting versions of what has happened to the parcel. I suggest that you send Hermes and SAR. Keep it very wide. Use our template. Send it by email immediately – and then by recorded delivery letter on Monday. In the letter refer to the email that you have sent already dated XXX

[BankFodder]

Send a similar SAR to Parcel2Go

[Sifer]

Alright great appreciate the quick response/advice will send it asap, when you say keep it very wide do you mean don't limit this part of the SAR?

 

"Please note that I require disclosure of any personal data which you hold on me for the entire period of my dealings with you."

 

Will update when I hear something back,

 

Thanks.

 

[BankFodder]

If you follow the SAR template, then you will see a very widely drafted example.

There is no reason to limit it or to give any clues or inadvertently exclude any useful information. Get everything

[Sifer]

Hi,

 

Thought I would update,

 

Parcel2go replied to my email on Nov 10th, they requested ID before they would send any information.  I replied with ID and have had no response since.

Hermes replied on the 17th Dec asking what information we required, I replied all information requested in the letter/email we sent originally (SAR Template).  I have had no response since.

 

We have had no correspondence by post, and no refund at all from the original payment for postage.

 

 

[BankFodder]

What date did you send the SARs please?

Also you indicated at the outset that you had been told that the parcel was damaged. Have you got this in writing? Please can you post it up here in PDF format

[Sifer]

On 24/10/2020 at 12:24, Sifer said:

I contacted Parcel2go regarding the missing chair by live chat, they said Hermes have said it has been damaged beyond repair

This was the only time they said it was damage, then when I probed further and asked for it to be delivered broken they said it had went missing.

 

Edit: This was one of the reasons I went for the SAR in hopes they send the live chat correspondence. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Sifer

[BankFodder]

So you are saying that you didn't take any record of the chat?

[Sifer]

yes, at the time I didn't realise it was going to progress as it did.

[BankFodder]

Well I suppose it's too late for you doubt – but I'm going to say anyway that these for the benefit of other people who come to this thread.

When you're dealing with companies you need to look after yourself because they won't.
If you are dealing with any company about some problem that is going wrong then you need to make sure that you've got a complete paper trail/record/telephone record of everything that is said or done.

I'm afraid it's the only way to survive and it's a great shame to have to say it.

If you had some proper evidence that they were claiming to have damaged and then destroyed your chair with put you in a very excellent position to get extra compensation. Certainly the SAR might disclose something – but you can already see that either they don't want to disclose information or else they are so ramshackle that they have no idea what you're talking about when you sent them a statutory request for data disclosure.

  

9 hours ago, Sifer said:

yes, at the time I didn't realise it was going to progress as it did.

 

This is a bit like saying that you didn't wear a bullet-proof vest because you didn't think you are going to get shot. .

 

 

[BankFodder]

Okay here we have a situation here where you sent a chair worth £150, except you inadvertently tell them that it was only worth £50. You had a chat in which they said that the chair was damaged but you've inadvertently not kept a copy of the chat record.

This means that you can probably only claim £50. If you had evidence that they said that they had damaged the chair and destroyed it, then we might well have been able to add an extra £20 or £25.

You've sent an SAR to both Hermes and also to P2G and although both of them appear to have received the SAR, neither of them could have complied so this means that they are both in breach of their statutory obligations.

You've obviously been to some trouble and suffered some stress as a result of having made his applications and having been frustrated by it. I would suggest that you could quite easily put in a claim for about ££50 for their statutory breach.

So one of them you could probably sue for the £50 for the value of the chair plus £50 for distress caused by their breach of statutory duty.

If you felt that you have got the energy for it then you could sue the other one simply for £50 for distress caused by their breach of statutory duty.

It would be extremely unlikely that either them would want to go to court about it. Apart from anything else, if you received a judgement in respect of the distress caused by their failure to comply with the SAR, then you can send a copy of that judgement to the ICO. The ICO wouldn't treat it very seriously – but the ICO would have to take some notice and I suppose it would result in a complaint being written by them to the data controller of each one of those two companies.

If during the action a disclosure did miraculously appear which confirmed that they had damaged and then destroyed your item then you might reasonably be able to add another £25 – maybe we would consider adding another £50 to see what happened.

So the question is, do you want to take control – and if so are you prepared to issue a legal action and if you are, are you prepared to issue a legal action against one of them or against both of them?
One action for the lost item and for their breach of statutory duty – and one action for breach of statutory duty on its own.

[Sifer]

Alright, thank you very much for the advice.

 

I would be more than happy with covering the cost of the chair plus postage £180.

 

Do you think I would also be able to claim the postage cost of £29.99 from Parcel2go I original paid and they never refunded?

 

Would it be possible for you to point me in the direction of how I go about starting legal proceedings against both companies'?

 

[BankFodder]

Yes, you will claim everything.

To begin with, you should be prepared to the extent that you understand all the various arguments so that you are confident when you start your legal action.

Of course you can ask us questions but we would like to feel that you have done your bit by reading around and understanding the basic journey.

So read around all the sub forums. You will find a pretty familiar story about suing Hermes and by and large the same thing will apply to P2G.

In terms of suing for distress for breach of the SAR, search around but recently we had a thread where somebody got a successful judgement against virgin. I suggest that you search on – virgin and SAR and you should find something which pops up fairly close to the top. It's a long thread about a number of issues but you will find the bits and pieces that deal with the SAR and the judgement which was received. We haven't enforced it yet because we are going for a second claim against them because they are still in breach.

So do your basic reading around and then come back here.

I suggest that over the weekend we will draft a letter of claim to each of these organisations and then you can send them off on Monday


 

[Sifer]

Hi Again,

 

I have read around the forums and I can see it can be a lengthy process. 

Would it be possible/best to send a letter of claim to Parcels2go for:

 

Delivery charge: £29.99

Value of package: £50

Distress from not adhering to my SAR: £50

 

Then waiting to see how the above progresses and then potentially going ahead with Hermes for neglecting to send a response to my SAR request? (£50)

 

I have a rough type up of a letter of claims below:

 

 

Quote

 

Parcels2go

 

Letter of Claim - Tracking Number XXX

Dear Sir/Mdm

 

As you are aware, I used your services to deliver my goods to an address within the United Kingdom.

 

After contacting your support I learnt the parcel was damaged beyond repair, after asking for evidence or the parcel to be sent back to the collection address I was then told the package was lost.

 

It is your contractual obligation to deliver my package safely to the intended recipient.

 

Not only have you breached your contract with me by failing to deliver my package, you have also failed to comply with my request for a statutory disclosure of my personal data under the Data Protection Act, which I sent recorded delivery on the 26/10/2020.

 

Your breach of statutory duty is complete. 

 

It has caused me a great deal of distress not having my data in order to start disentangling the problems that have been caused by the irresponsible handling of my goods, causing them to have gone missing.

 

This is my notice to you that I shall be beginning a County Court claim against you in 14 days for the value of my property - £XXX, I am also inviting the court to award me an additional sum of £XXX for the distress caused by you not fulfilling the request of my personal data and I am giving you an opportunity to respond.

 

Yours faithfully

 

 

I am unsure if I should mention the live support saying it was firstly damaged and then after investigations by Hermes reported as lost.

 

I had a question regarding Hermes and the SAR, I originally sent a letter and email on the 26/10/2020, the email must have been the CEO's and his assistant asked me to make a request via their portal team as they were not trained to deal with it. 

 

I have confirmation of my submission on the 16/11/2020 however, they responded asking exactly what information I requested on the 17/12/2020. 

Does the 4 week time period for my SAR request start from the 26/11/2020 or from the last correspondence 17/12/2020?

 

Bullet Pointed for clarification:

• 24/10/2020 - I sent original SAR Email.
• 26/10/2020 - I sent SAR via post.
• 27/10/2020 - I received Email Response to make application via portal from CEO's assistant.
• 16/11/2020 - Created portal application and upload SAR.
• 17/12/2020 - Response from Hermes on poral asking exactly what information required.

I have uploaded the response from Hermes if required.

 

I will continue to browse other posts for more information.

 

Thank you very much for your help thus far.

 

 

HermesPortalSar.pdf

[BankFodder]

I've had a few thoughts about this and it seems to me that you could probably exploit this to your advantage – but assuming that you are prepared to take a bit of time over it and that you are not desperate for the money.

Although it would be a bit more troublesome for you, you might consider it to be an interesting exercise and you might find it rather satisfying to push your weight around with these people rather than be pushed around by them.

If you would like, you could delay suing them for the lost or damaged chair – for which you are probably only going to get £50 anyway, but instead sue them each individually for their breach of statutory duty on the basis that their entire handling of the situation and particularly their failure to provide you with your personal data has been distressing and you want, say, £30 for distress.

I think that if you sent a letter of claim to each of them, the chances are that they wouldn't know what to do and you would end up having to issue a legal action in both cases. Each one of those actions would cost you £25 – but you would get this back assuming you won your case – which you almost inevitably would. In fact far more likely than having to go to court, I would imagine that both Hermes and P2G would put their hands up and simply pay you out your money plus your court fee. Furthermore, they might then start to take you seriously and provide the personal data that you are after.

Assuming this goes to plan, you would then have the small amounts of compensation from both of these companies plus your personal data plus and experience in bringing a small claim.
Once that had happened, you could then go ahead to sue one of the companies – probably P2G – for the missing parcel and frankly if you did get evidence that it had been damaged and destroyed then I think that we would consider an action for trespass/conversion and sue them for the declared value plus something for trespass.

It's up to you.

If you simply wanted to get it out of the way – because it's too much trouble nor because you need the money then we could go straight ahead and sue for the breach of the SAR and also for the chair – but you should realise that even if you do this, it is still going to take probably two or maybe even three months before you get your result. Also, without evidence of the damage, I think you will be limited to the £50 declared value and you would not be able to add something for the conversion of your property.

Please let us know how you would like to play it

[Sifer]

Hi Bankfodder, 

 

I am prepared to take the longer route if you think it would be advantageous. 

 

So this route would be a letter of claim to both Hermes and Parcels to go for the amount of £30 for distress in not receiving my personal data in order to clarify what happened to my parcel? 

 

Would I use a letter of claim like below?

 

Quote

Dear Sir/Mdm

On XXX date I sent you a subject access request for a statutory disclosure of my personal data under the Data Protection Act.

You have failed to comply.

Your breach of statutory duty is complete. It has caused me a great deal of distress not having my data in order to start disentangling the problems that have been caused by the irresponsible handling of my goods, causing them to have gone missing.

I shall be beginning a County Court claim against you in 14 days and I am giving you an opportunity to respond.

Yours faithfully

 

Also, did you see my comment regarding Hermes and how I used their online portal to create the SAR application? 

Would that affect the date on which I requested the SAR originally for the letter of claim?

 

Thanks

[BankFodder]

Yes, that will be fine. I suggest that you include a reference number/tracking number.

Send one to each of them.

Be careful not to mix them up if you are suing each of them. Keep very distinct files of what happens

[Sifer]

Hi,

 

Apologies for the absence, I have been unwell for several weeks and only just started to feel well enough to continue with these proceedings.

 

During this time Hermes did respond to the SAR on their online portal, they have confirmed that the chair arrived at the depot in my area and then the chair was damaged - destroyed.

 

I am guessing this would change in which way I proceed now as per BankFodder's previous comment.

 

On 03/01/2021 at 06:55, BankFodder said:

and frankly if you did get evidence that it had been damaged and destroyed then I think that we would consider an action for trespass/conversion and sue them for the declared value plus something for trespass.

 

I was just unsure as to how to go ahead with the action for trespass/value of the item.

 

Parcels2Go still have not responded to the SAR and I was going to proceed as previously discussed. 

 

Thanks

[BankFodder]

I'm sorry you feel unwell, but once you embark on this, you're going to have to stay the course and observe deadlines.

Dealing with one at a time – because it's been quite a few weeks,
I understand that you sent Hermes and SAR and they eventually comply – but it was late. Is this correct? It was late by how many weeks?

I understand that you sent P2 G and SAR and they haven't responded at all. When was the return date for their disclosure?

[Sifer]

The original SAR stated they had a month to supply the information requested however, each company responded requiring information before they would send the information.

I have tried to make it as clear as possible:

 

Hermes Correspondence:

• 24/10/2020 - I sent original SAR Email.
• 26/10/2020 - I sent SAR via post.
• 27/10/2020 - I received Email Response to make SAR application via their online portal from the CEO's assistant.
• 16/11/2020 - I created portal application and uploaded SAR.
• 17/12/2020 - Response from Hermes on poral asking exactly what information required.
  • I messaged back saying - as stated in the SAR any information held on their of my account organised through Parcels2go, this includes live chat, emails collection of item tracking etc.
• 05/02/2021 - SAR's response with tracking information detailing that the chair arrived at depot near me, chair was was held in UPP damaged, then an hour later damaged - destroyed.

Parcels2go Correspondence:

• 24/10/2020 - I sent original SAR Email.
• 26/10/2020 - I sent SAR via post.
• 10/11/2020 - They replied to my email asking for ID before they would send anything.
• 16/11/2020 - I replied with ID.
• No further communication.

Thanks

Edited February 23, 2021 by Sifer

[Sifer]

 

Uploaded in case this helps.

[BankFodder]

Okay. So they were both in breach of their statutory duty – and you could sue both of them.

I understand that you are out of pocket to the tune of £150 for the chair and £30 for the delivery.
Dealing with Hermes, I suggest that you sue for the recovery your £50 which was the declared value plus the delivery cost – which I understand to be about £30.

Additionally, I think I would want to see them in conversion on the basis that they damaged your goods, they could have returned them that they decided without any reference to you and without any authority to destroy them. It seems to me that it will be worth asking the court not only to compensate you for the declared value of the item, but also a figure in punitive compensation not exceeding £125.

The idea here is that you are suing for the declared value of your item, but had it been returned to you – as it should have been – instead of being destroyed, you would have then been able to deal with it and repair it and you then be able to recover the entire value of the chair.

Let me know if this makes sense.

 

 

Frankly if you are prepared to do this, then I would keep a claim for breach of the SAR down to a minimum – simply a symbolic £10.

On that basis, your claim would be for £50 plus £30 plus £125 plus £10 = £215.

 

In terms of the SAR request, they were entitled to ascertain your identity. Did the portal application ask for any special identity verification information? If it did – then it had some use. On the other hand if it didn't, then it was purely a formality and it was unlawful.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++

In respect of P2 G, they are clearly in breach and it seems to me that it might be reasonable to issue proceedings against them for, say, £50 – distress.

Don't forget they could force you into court on this and they might well decide to do so simply on a matter of principle. You would have to be prepared to explain how the difficulty in obtaining your personal data and the delay affected you to the extent that you think you suffered distress of value of £50. They were certainly entitled to ask you to verify your identity although it seems that they were rather slow in doing this – and the fact that eventually they didn't respond with anything puts them very could squarely in breach of their statutory duty.

To sue P2G will be a straightforward matter but you will have to pay the claim fee of £25 and if they push it to a hearing then probably about another £30 or so. If for some reason rather you lose, then this is the amount of money you risk.
I can't see you losing – although it could be that you are obliged to make a compromise on the amount of money your claim by way of distress. So if you won, they will probably be some financial advantage – but also it might give you satisfaction that you have delivered a slap in the face to them.
However, don't forget that it was your fault that you declared an undervalue and so therefore it is your fault that you are unable to claim the full value of the item which has been lost.

 

Let me make it clear though, that we haven't tried making a claim in conversion for a destroyed item – and so you would be the guinea pig. The complicating factor is that you under declared the value. If you feel at all fragile or stressed about this then you ought to limit yourself to something much more moderate – simply claiming the declared value and nothing else.

From my point of view, I'm curious to see what would happen – but on the other hand I have nothing to lose. You need to consider your own best interest above everything else.