My hermes failed delivery and mental distress.

[Kyr]

Good afternoon. 

 

I am new user and this is my first post.

I will briefly explain my problem:

 

I booked a delivery with my hermes international  more than a month ago. 

The parcel consisted in a gaming console plus 5 games and a Garmin smartwatch. The parcel was insured for 500 pounds and the service plus the insurance cover costed me 40 pounds.  The parcel was for my sister and their 2 daughters who were in distress and pain taking care of my mother's enduring and fighting her terminal disease. 

Something to help them cope with grief for all the things they went through in the last 15 months. 

 

I was given a tracking number  which didn't update at all. After few days I decided to contact their customer service via chat regarding the aforementioned issue. After few minutes the operator came up with 2 different tracking numbers which were external to my hermes, one was from an international multitracking site  and another one was from

DPD.

 

The DPD tracking was the most reliable and after few days, the parcel arrived in Italy and it was showing as "waiting for payment of custom duties" or something like this DPD tracking doesn't work anymore with the number they gave me. 

I did contact my sister and told her to get ready to pay custom duties on the parcel and that I would had reimbursed her the money as soon as the precise amount would have been clarified by the custom officials. 

 

After a couple of days I check the DPD tracking again only to find out that apparently "they were unable to collect payment of duties from recipient" and therefore my parcel would have been returned to the sender. 

 

I suddenly contacted my sister and asked her if she had received any call or letter from the customs but her answer was negative. No letter or call arrived from any custom officer at all. 

 

I suddenly contacted my hermes chat again  and they told me they would had opened an investigation and in case they lost the parcel, they were not liable for the loss. I quickly told them that it was a false statement and I required the name and surname of the operator. He denied my request stating "that his first name was enough". I did reply reminding hi that he juridically exposed himself by confirming they  are not liable and therefore should had identified himself. He denied again. 

 

 

 

2/3 days later I receive a communication that the parcel was lost and that I had to upload evidence on non received item. Basically I had to show them my whatsapp private chat between me and my sister where she confirmed that she didn't receive any communication from any customs officer.

 

My Beloved Mother died 5 days later. 

 

I have been unable to see my relatives in ages, I wasn't able to hold my mothers hand while she went to the incorruptible Kingdom. 

 

I didn't get any apology and after a week from submitting "evidence" (they had them already as they communicated to me that they lost the parcel) which involved an invasion of privacy as well between me and my sister grieving my mother's last days, I still didn't even receive my insurance money back. 

 

Needless to say that I wanna sue them badly and make them pay for their disgusting service but also for all the mental distress they gave me and my family. 

 

I would like to know what do you think about it. 

 

Thanks very much for your time. 

 

 

 

 

[honeybee13]

Hello, welcome to CAG.

 

I've moved your topic to our Postal and Deliveries forum for advice. People should be along later with their thoughts for you.

 

Best, HB

[Kyr]

Dear Honeybee13

 

Thanks very much. Hope this will be the beginning of a great cooperation between your great website and myself.

 

Sorry for the wrong section mistake, will try to be more careful once I get to know the dynamics of the site better. 

 

God bless. 

[honeybee13]

Don't worry. You're new, we have a lot of subforums.

 

HB

[BankFodder]

It's obviously a pretty distressing story – but it's rather convoluted and I'm not entirely certain why we are talking about Hermes and also DPD.

Is it correct that you send a parcel using Hermes. The contents of the parcel were properly declared at £500 and also you bought insurance that amount of money.

The parcel never arrived at its destination – which I understand may be in Italy?

Just give me a quick yes or no on that – we don't need a lot of narrative.

Also, I'm afraid that you will not be able to claim anything for distress or inconvenience. All you will be able to do is to claim for the value of the lost parcel.

This will seem very unfair to you – and of course it is but that's the way the law works and that is the best you can hope for.

[Kyr]

1 hour ago, BankFodder said:

It's obviously a pretty distressing story – but it's rather convoluted and I'm not entirely certain why we are talking about Hermes and also DPD.

 

 

Hi I have explained it to you. 

 

The my hermes tracking wasn't showing any update so I contacted Hermes chat support  and they gave me 2 different tracking number to track their parcel. 1 tracking was for a multitracking site and another one was a DPD tracking. 

1 hour ago, BankFodder said:

The parcel never arrived at its destination – which I understand may be in Italy?

Just give me a quick yes or no on that – we don't need a lot of narrative.

 

 

Again I have explained that as well.  The parcel arrived to the customs in Italy but was held there for 7 days pending customs charge payment but nobody contacted my sister for the duties payment.  Hence it was sent back (got stolen, dirtbags down there do these kind of things. They stolen a similar package when I was a kid more than 20 years ago)

 

Sorry for troubling you with my unbearable narrative but that is the way I explain things. I try to be as precise as I can. 

 

Moneysaving expert  site states that you can claim compensation for mental distress by failed or late delivery. 

 

 

Sorry again and God bless. 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Kyr

[BankFodder]

Well if you prefer the opinion of money saving expert – then you should go to them. However, they are wrong.

I don't understand what DPD has got to do with it. Hermes undertook the delivery, you paid then the money and they were responsible for it.

[Kyr]

2 hours ago, BankFodder said:

What if you prefer the opinion of money saving expert – then you should go to them. However, they are wrong.

 

It's ok.

 

Thanks very much for your kind help. 

 

God bless.

[Hammy1962]

Wow, way to go, make a bad situation worse.

 

Clearly Kyr's first language is not English, he's confused, his Mum just died, his parcel is lost and you have a go 'cos he sought advice from your rival MSE.

 

H

[stu007]

Hi Kyr

 

My Condolences on the sad loss of your Mother and that you could not be their due to COVID-19 Situation.

 

You took out the Delivery of your item and insurance with Hermes International to deliver said item to Italy.

 

Irrespective that Hermes International then used the courier services of DPD to assist with your delivery the Buck stop at Hermes International as they are the ones that you took your Contract out with.

 

You need to seperate the loss of your Mother which I know is difficult at this time from this non delivery/loss of your items by Hermes International.

 

Your main issue as stated is with Hermes International as your Contract is with them not any other courier they then employed for the delivery i.e. DPD.

 

I fully understand your concern about forwarding them your whatsapp messages with a mix of this delivery issue/your mothers medical condition then passing. this does not stop you screenshoting the whatsapp then erasing what you do not want them to see/read before forwarding your evidence. (if you are unsure on how to do this please let us know and we may be able to assist)

 

As this was via Hermes International if you check their Terms & Conditions it states 'This means that if you use this website you are contracting with Parcel2go.com Limited rather with Hermes'.
https://international.myhermes.co.uk/content/about-terms

 

Therefore your actual Contract is with Parcel2go.com Limited

 

I would also suggest that you type in our search box (top right of website) for both Hermes & Parcel2go and read some of the recent Topics on them as it will give you an idea of how they operate.

 

Has Hermes given you a full reason as to why they are not Liable for the loss of your Parcel or just what you put in post#1?

 

Again my Condolences on your loss

 

[BankFodder]

That's a very helpful analysis by my site team colleague @stu007

 

On that basis, your best course of action is to make a formal complaint to P2G for the loss of your parcel.

They will probably decline you after which we will help you draft a letter of claim and then help you begin a County Court claim – because unfortunately I'm sure that that is the way that will go.

Once again, although it seems extremely unfair that these people aren't held fully responsible for all of the distress they cause, distress and inconvenience et cetera is only very rarely compensated with damages – and I'm afraid in your case, it won't be.

However we can help you get your £500 back – but they will "put you to proof" which basically means that they will want evidence of the contents of the parcel and the value of the items for which you are claiming

[Kyr]

14 hours ago, stu007 said:

Hi Kyr

 

My Condolences on the sad loss of your Mother and that you could not be their due to COVID-19 Situation.

 

 

 

Has Hermes given you a full reason as to why they are not Liable for the loss of your Parcel or just what you put in post#1?

 

Again my Condolences on your loss

 

 

Dear Stu007

 

First of all thanks very much for the kindness and condolences. I might not know you personally but it really means a lot to hear/read these warm hearting words especially in this period of my life. 

 

Regarding the parcel2go footnote: yes I noticed that just prior to my last post but seeing Bankfodder getting upset about my reference towards a "rival" website and the fact that he didn't like the my (poor) writing style (I don't blame him for that :D) , I preferred to just skip that info. 

 

 

This is part of myhermesinternational chat regarding liability 

 

03:24:27 PM [Sammie]

I am sorry. We don't cover for consequential loss. 

 

Thanks very much for the time given. 

 

God bless. 

[BankFodder]

Upset or not – (not, actually) doesn't change the fact that the information which you have apparently seen on the MSE website is wrong.

I don't want it to be wrong – but it is. Damages purely the distress are very rarely available – and in fact breach of data protection rules is one of the rare examples.

As much as it grieves me to say, in this case Hermes are right that this kind of loss is not covered – although it's true that you should not normally trust anything which Hermes say. In this case, they are right although they haven't understood that they are referring to "consequential loss". They are referring to something which is more broadly known as "nervous shock" but which would include distress.

For the record, we have always got on very well with Money Saving Expert and in the past we have teamed up with Martin Lewis to fight bank charges and we have pooled our resources. At the beginning of the bank charges campaign, we allowed Martin Lewis to use our bank charges reclaim materials until he eventually went and had his own once written – which were probably better than ours because he had more resources.

I wouldn't call Money Saving Expert a rival. They do very different things to us but sometimes our paths cross as they appear to have done this time – but the information that you got from there was wrong.
I can imagine that the information didn't come from one of their moderating team, it probably came from one of the ordinary users who unfortunately didn't understand how damages are normally calculated.

We are here to help you if you want – but we certainly won't help you to make a claim for damages for distress because it wouldn't be in your interests and you would be wasting money.

If you think that Money Saving Expert can help you make that kind of claim then as I said, you should go there but you are always welcome to come back here.

[Kyr]

Hello everybody again

 

I was offered a compensation of 280 quid out of 500  cause they said that the smartwatch I sent was a restricted item.

 

Should I accept it? 

[BankFodder]

Well it's been six or seven weeks since you disappeared so I think that we will need to bring ourselves back up to speed.  You will need to tell us what you've done so far and if you have sent a letter of claim then we need to see a copy of it here in PDF format.
If you have issued a claim then we need to see that as well please in PDF format.
If you have issued a claim then presumably they will have filed a defence and we need to see that as well in PDF format.

If you haven't issued a claim then we need to know the circumstances in which they have made you this partial offer.