Parcel2go + Hermes

[Sifer]

 

Thanks again for the quick response, 

 

Hermes didn't ask for any ID at any point, they just wanted to know what specific information I was requesting for the SAR. even though that was detailed in the SAR template I used from the forums. 

Parcels2go asked for ID and after I sent it, they haven't responded since.

 

If it's okay to keep it simple I will just sue Hermes, as I would be happy with the amount you have suggested.  How would I go about proceeding, would I still send a letter of claim to Hermes? 

[BankFodder]

Here's a suggested letter of claim below.

Please don't imagine that this will be simple. I can imagine that such an unusual claim will cause difficulties for them that it will energise them into being prepared to deal with it rather than simply caving at mediation and to pay you out.

It will be very interesting. Your chances of recovering your £50 and your £30 fee are extremely high. The chances of recovering damages for distress are pretty good. The chances of recovering some punitive compensation will be good – 55% (let's say).

We will help you all the way – but if you want an easy life then you probably should simply set out to recover your £50 and the £30.

Check the letter below. Fill in all the bits that I've left for you in red and post up what eventually you are going to send.

 

Don't expect them to jump to attention when they get this letter. You will definitely have to issue a court claim

 

 

Quote

Dear Sir/Mdm

 

Letter of claim reference number X X X

 

As you know, on X X X date I used your service to send a chair to an address in X X town. The chair was apparently damaged by your negligent handling and you then proceeded to destroy without any reference to me or any authority do so.

I inadvertently declared the chair to have a value of £50 and it was on this basis that you agreed to take it into your care. However, the full value of the chair was £150 and I have evidence to support this. The delivery fee was £29 X X

I have since been told that you refuse to accept any responsibility.

I am writing to tell you that I am proposing to sue you in the County Court for the £50 declared value but also on the basis that you have dealt with my property without permission from me, I am also you in the tort of conversion and I shall be inviting the court to make a punitive award in addition to the declared value of up to £125. This is in addition to my £X X X delivery fee.

Additionally, I have been trying to deal with this much earlier and on X X X date I supplied you with a subject access request. The return date for this subject access request was (X X X 31 days later X X X). In the event, you eventually complied with my statutory request on X X X date – a full two months in excess of the statutory period of 30 days.
Your breach of statutory duty has added to the problems that I have experienced and cause me distress.
In addition to the claim for negligence/breach of contract/conversion which I have referred to above, I am also proposing to sue you for £15 to compensate me for the distress you have caused to me by a statutory bridge.

If I do not receive a payment of (add it all up £X X X) within 14 days of this letter and I shall begin proceedings without any further notice.

Yours faithfully
 

 

[Sifer]

Quote

 

Dear Sir/Mdm
 

Letter of claim reference number X X X (Should this be Original SAR's Reference Number?)

 

As you know, on 22/09/20 I used your service to send a chair to an address in XXX town. The chair was apparently damaged by your negligent handling and you then proceeded to destroy without any reference to me or any authority do so.

I inadvertently declared the chair to have a value of £50 and it was on this basis that you agreed to take it into your care. However, the full value of the chair was £150 and I have evidence to support this. The delivery fee was £29.99.

I have since been told that you refuse to accept any responsibility.

I am writing to tell you that I am proposing to sue you in the County Court for the £50 declared value but also on the basis that you have dealt with my property without permission from me, I am also proposing to sue you in the tort of conversion and I shall be inviting the court to make a punitive award in addition to the declared value of up to £125. This is in addition to my £29.99 delivery fee.

Additionally, I have been trying to deal with this much earlier and on 16/11/20 I supplied you with a subject access request. The return date for this subject access request was 31 days. Give the date In the event, you eventually complied with my statutory request on 05/02/21 – a full two months in excess of the statutory period of 30 days.
Your breach of statutory duty has added to the problems that I have experienced and cause me distress.
In addition to the claim for negligence/breach of contract/conversion which I have referred to above, I am also proposing to sue you for £15 to compensate me for the distress you have caused to me by a statutory breach.

If I do not receive a payment of £219.99 within 14 days of this letter and I shall begin proceedings without any further notice.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

XXX XXXX

 

 

I left personal information as XXX, I hope this is okay, I was unsure as to what the reference should be? Is this just the same reference used when I sent the SAR? Also I am not sure if part of a sentence is missing a word such as "holding" or if it's meant to sound like this:  "I am also you in the tort of conversion". 

 

Thanks!
 

[BankFodder]

I put some corrections in red and also you should give the date – not 31 days

The reference number is whatever complaints or tracking reference they had

[Sifer]

Quote

 

Dear Sir/Mdm

 

Letter of claim reference number X X X

 

As you know, on 22/09/20 I used your service to send a chair to an address in XXX town. The chair was apparently damaged by your negligent handling and you then proceeded to destroy without any reference to me or any authority do so.

I inadvertently declared the chair to have a value of £50 and it was on this basis that you agreed to take it into your care. However, the full value of the chair was £150 and I have evidence to support this. The delivery fee was £29.99.

I have since been told that you refuse to accept any responsibility.

I am writing to tell you that I am proposing to sue you in the County Court for the £50 declared value but also on the basis that you have dealt with my property without permission from me, I am also proposing to sue you in the tort of conversion and I shall be inviting the court to make a punitive award in addition to the declared value of up to £125. This is in addition to my £29.99 delivery fee.

Additionally, I have been trying to deal with this much earlier and on 16/11/20 I supplied you with a subject access request. The return date for this subject access request was 17/12/20.  In the event, you eventually complied with my statutory request on 05/02/21 – a full two months in excess of the statutory period of 30 days.
Your breach of statutory duty has added to the problems that I have experienced and cause me distress.
In addition to the claim for negligence/breach of contract/conversion which I have referred to above, I am also proposing to sue you for £15 to compensate me for the distress you have caused to me by a statutory breach.

If I do not receive a payment of £219.99 within 14 days of this letter and I shall begin proceedings without any further notice.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

XXX XXXX

 

 

If all is correct apart from a few XXX which need changing, I should be able to have this printed and sent recorded delivery by tomorrow.

[Sifer]

Hi,

 

I had this response today from Hermes:

 

 

Quote

 

Dear XXX

 

In reference to parcel XXXXXXXX

 

My name is Stephen and I am contacting you from the Hermes executive office on behalf of Martijn De Lange, who has personally requested that I investigate this matter further on his behalf.

 

I am truly sorry to see that your parcel ha been damaged in the network and that Parcel2Go have not been able to pay the full amount in your insurance claim.

 

I'm afraid that as the original delivery order was made with Parcel2Go, they are the holder of your account and all claims must be made with their team in the first instance.

 

Please continue to liaise with Parcel2Go's team regarding your claim and don't hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss this further/

 

Kind Regards

 

Steve

 

Stephen Ryan Executive Office |  Hermes

Capitol House | 1 Capitol Close | Morley | Leeds | LS27 0WH

 

 

[BankFodder]

Quote

Dear Stephen

Thank you very much indeed for your letter dated X X X responding to my letter of claim concerning  my lo st parcel reference number X X X.

You suggest that I liaise with Parcel2Go.

I shall be suing you as a beneficial third party on the basis of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

I know it. You know it. The clock is still ticking.

Believe me

 

 

[Sifer]

Hi,

 

The response looks as though it came through some sort of system where they log incident reports.

 

Is it safe to respond to the incident via the hyperlink at the bottom of the email as it asks?  I have uploaded a picture of the full email?

 

Thanks!

 

pdfhermesresponse2.pdf

[BankFodder]

Wasn't there a reply address in the email you received?

By the way there's no real need to send the response I suggested – but on the other hand no harm done either.

[Sifer]

Not that I can see, it just says the email was a Support Incident Update and to get back in touch visit their contact page and click the get in touch button.

 

The sender of the email was Hermes Customer Service Team <[email protected]>

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

In that case send your reply to that email

[Sifer]

Hi,

 

I just had a quick question, I sent the letter on the 27th so the 14 days are up on the 13th.  Is that when I would start the small claims proceedings?  Am I right in thinking I make a claim via moneyclaims.service.gov.uk and would I need to start that now?

 

Thanks

[BankFodder]

If you had read all of the Hermes threads on the sub- forum, you would see that you should already have started by registering with the money claim website and then starting to draft your claim.

You can save your work as you go. You should certainly be ready to click off the claim as soon as your deadline expires. There's no point in making a bluff.

You should prepare a draft particulars claim and post it here. It only needs to be very short and once again you will see several examples on the Hermes threads on this sub- forum

[Sifer]

Hi,

 

Is this okay for the PoC and also I said the chair was worth £50 on the Parcels2go website, so would I use that amount when saying the chair is valued at XX or the actual amount it is valued at and would I be seeking interest? 

 

Quote

 

The claimant used the defendants parcel delivery service on 22/09/2020 to deliver a computer chair from Bristol to an address in Tyne and Wear. Defendants reference number XXX.

The computer chair is valued at £120 - full details have been provided to the defendant in the initial complaint which they declined.

The parcel was said to be damaged during transit and then destroyed by the defendants negligence. The defendant was also in late in responding to a statutory access request by an additional two month which caused distress in resolving this issue. 

I am not sure how to word the below

The claimant seeks the delivery charge of £29.99, £50 cost of the chair, £15 distress from delayed response to SAR , a punitive award of up to £125 plus interest per section 69 County Courts act 1984 plus costs.

 

 

 

Many Thanks. 

[BankFodder]

I think you should just hold on for a little while.

Since this thread started, somebody has actually gone ahead and sued Hermes and included a claim for conversion. It wasn't defended and in fact a default judgement was obtained and Hermes paid up everything.
You should have a read of this thread. It is on the sub- forum near the top.

Secondly, there is another case which is just started – relating to a diamond engagement ring which apparently was also damaged and then destroyed. We will probably sue Hermes in conversion for that as well.

Please have a look at these two cases – although the engagement ring has only recently started – but there is a lot that you can learn from that.

 

[BankFodder]

 

Quote

Breach of contract and Conversion and breach of data protection statutory duty

The claimant used the defendants parcel delivery service on 22/09/2020 to deliver a computer chair from Bristol to an address in Tyne and Wear. Defendants reference number XXX.

The chair is valued at £120 - full details have been provided to the defendant. In breach of their contractual obligations, the defendants damaged the chair by their negligent handling and then went on to destroy it. The destruction of the chair was carried out without reference to the claimant and without any authority.

The claimant supplied the defendant with a statutory request for disclosure of personal data. The defendant failed to disclose the personal data within the statutory deadline of 30 days and exceeded the timely disclosure by two months. This caused further distress in resolving this issue. 

The claimant seeks reimbursement of £50 in the declared value of the chair plus damages for conversion not exceeding £100 plus delivery fee £29.99 plus £15 in respect of distress caused by their breach of statutory duty: Total £XXX plus interest pursuant to section 69 County Courts act 1984

 

 

 

Please check this wording and see if you are happy with it. Put in the total claim to where I have put XXX.

Please be aware that this claim is now rather complex and you must feel comfortable about dealing with it either at mediation or at a court hearing – and it is externally possible that it will go to a court hearing. This means that you will have to understand the rules about the tort of conversion. As well as the other elements included in the claim.

 

[Sifer]

That looks great, I have read the other posts however, due to me already sending the letter of claim, how long is it viable for me to wait past the deadline I gave Hermes before going ahead on the money claim website as there's been no update to the ring thread for a week and I am now 4 days past the deadline I gave them.  I am in no rush however I noticed in another thread it can ruin my credibility the longer its left.  

 

The amount in the letter of claim is a little different compared to the particulars of claim, is that okay?  

 

Also in regards to the interest, it says in section 69 County Courts act 1984:

"period between the date when the cause of action arose and the date of the payment."

So would the start date for the interest be when I first contacted Hermes to make a claim for the chair going missing?

 

Tort of Conversion: I have been reading about tort of conversion and it seems to be basically when someone takes ownership of an item intentionally when it is owned by someone else which causes them distress as they can no longer use their item.  So in order for them to destroy my item without my permission they took ownership first and now I don't have it.  

 

Delay Responding To SAR: They also didn't respond to my SAR within the 30days which has caused me additional distress while trying to investigate what happened to the chair as they just said it was lost.

 

Insurance/Additional Cover: I also didn't have the extra cover, however I shouldn't need to pay for additional cover due to their negligence when dealing with my item which should have been cared for by Hermes.  This is like paying for additional cover in a restaurant to make sure the chief doesn't send out the meal cold or undercooked and only compensate if I had paid for additional cover.

 

I hope that's correct.

 

Thanks. 

 

[BankFodder]

It would be best if the figures in the letter of claim match exactly those in the particulars of claim.

I think that the date for the calculation of interest should begin from the time that the chair was delivered and it was not.

You have told us before – but have they now satisfy your SAR?

 

[Sifer]

Yes, that is how I know the chair was destroyed.

 

They had simply said the chair was lost, however the SAR contained specifics of the delivery, which said the chair was delivered to the depot near the delivery address damaged and then destroyed an hour later.

[BankFodder]

So that's very interesting. It seemed that they misled you in the original information they gave you and it was only the SAR that revealed the damage.

This puts you in a very powerful position. Once again, it highlights the lack of integrity of this company Hermes.

[Sifer]

Yes, when I initially contacted Parcels2go they said it had been damaged beyond repair via live chat (I didn't record the conversation), then after their investigations with Hermes just said, you didnt have the protection so we could not approve your claim, parcels rarely go missing implying it had been lost.  Screen shots attached if you wanted to see.

parcel2gopdf (2).pdf

[BankFodder]

Okay. Can you just remind me where we are please – there are lots of these and I'm having difficulty keeping up.

Have you sent the letter of claim? If so when is the return date so that you can issue the claim. Maybe you have done that already but I've lost track

[Sifer]

Yes, of course,

 

 

I sent the letter of claim 18 days ago now, the day of deadline (13/03/2021) I asked a question and you said it might be better to hold off as there's other cases just like mine.  I believe one was the gucci bag and one being the diamond ring.  

 

 

[BankFodder]

Sorry. In that case it is my fault. I'd forgotten that you had sent the letter of claim. When I asked you to hold off, I intended that you hold off sending the letter of claim.

The particulars of claim addresses the issue of conversion – so you may as well go ahead and issue it

[Sifer]

Alright great thanks. I have submitted the claim.  I will read the sub forums to make sure I am ready for the mediation/hearing.  Did my previous post sound like I am on the right track regarding the issues I have raised with Hermes? 

Tort of Conversion: I have been reading about tort of conversion and it seems to be basically when someone takes ownership of an item intentionally when it is owned by someone else which causes them distress as they can no longer use their item.  So in order for them to destroy my item without my permission they took ownership first and now I don't have it.  

 

Delay Responding To SAR: They also didn't respond to my SAR within the 30days which has caused me additional distress while trying to investigate what happened to the chair as they just said it was lost.

 

Insurance/Additional Cover: I also didn't have the extra cover, however I shouldn't need to pay for additional cover due to their negligence when dealing with my item which should have been cared for by Hermes.  This is like paying for additional cover in a restaurant to make sure the chief doesn't send out the meal cold or undercooked and only compensate if I had paid for additional cover.

 

Many Thanks will update when they respond.