Parcel 2 go / Evri painting stolen and sold on @John_Pye Auctions site

[Complete Misfit]

Hello, in December I sold a painting, which I sent via Parcel2go / Evri.

It didn't reach the buyer, and I couldn't get any information from Parcel2go / Evri.

I made a claim on P2G which was rejected because it said 'the parcel started to track'.

I waited, and nothing happened, and I could never get anywhere with the live chat thing.

Then, yesterday someone sent me a message asking if the above mentioned painting was genuinely mine, as he had just bought it on an auction website.

This means it has been stolen during transit, and sold.

I asked the person where he bought it and for how much, but no reply as of yet.

But after looking around online, I see that it was put up for auction on a site John Pye Auctions

 

I wondered what would be the best thing for me to do here?

I have another painting which has gone missing in the Evri network as well.

I guess I have learnt my lesson now to never use them again.

 

[dx100uk]

1st of all make sure you have back up of these messages from 'the buyer' that got the stolen painting via John Pye Auctions.

i would also contact John Pye Auctions  and advise them they have sold a stolen article. 

sadly, as you will probably be aware, it's nothing unusual for auctions though and you will get stonewalled i expect.

can we have its worth and some dates of these different stages too please like a timeline bullet pointed list.

you target will obviously be either P2G or Evri, but this is a bit different from most cases we see.

dx

 

 

[BankFodder]

I completely agree that you must send a letter immediately to the auction house and put them on notice that the painting I know which they are offering for sale has been stolen.

Send a copy to the police and make sure that your letter makes it clear that a copy of the notice has been sent to the police.

You may well find that there is some professional society or organisation of auctioneers. Send them a copy as well and make sure that the letter shows that you have sent it to that organisation as well.

Do this immediately and stand by for a further reply later on or tomorrow

[dx100uk]

2 hours ago, BankFodder said:

the painting I know which they are offering for sale has been stolen.

10 hours ago, Complete Misfit said:

Then, yesterday someone sent me a message asking if the above mentioned painting was genuinely mine, as he had just bought it on an auction website.

dx

[BankFodder]

Sorry, I was doing this on a train and on a telephone and didn't read it properly

[Complete Misfit]

Hi dx,

I remember you from when I was on here a few years back.

Here's a list and some dates:

• 18/12/2023: I sold the painting on for £66. Sent on Parcel2Go, marked the value as £100, parcel protection for £25. On tracking it seemed stuck 'in transit', not going anywhere for weeks.
• 09/01/2024: I created an enquiry / claim on Parcel2Go. Claim was rejected as they said 'parcel started to track'. 
• After hearing nothing, I opened another claim and on 07/03/2024 they wrote 'No Delivery Date. Your order does not appear to have a delivery time yet, we are waiting for the courier to mark the order as delivered'
• 21/03/2024, I receive a message from someone asking about my painting, stating they bought it at auction. I had no reply when I asked for more info. After searching Google, discovered that it was sold at John Pye Auctions. I've sent an email to John Pye auctions asking how they got possession of it. 
• I said on the live chat to P2G what happened, but as expected they tried to fob me off and said it could only be covered for £20 loss.

Hi BankFodder, I have emailed the auction house and reported to the police online.

Is it best to send letters as well?

Thanks

[dx100uk]

yes you need a paper trail, also get free proof of posting from any PO counter.

thread title updated

[BankFodder]

Sorry I was on a train yesterday and had misunderstood.
I had gathered that the item was now advertised for sale on an auction site and my advice is based on the idea that you should interrupt the auction.
I understand that in fact it had already been stolen.

Can you explain how the purchaser would have realised that you were the original owner?

I don't know what you have written to the auction site. They won't tell you the details of the purchaser that I think it is reasonable to ask them to confirm that the painting was offered for sale on XXX date – even if they don't tell you the sale price.

You may even be up to find that detail on the auction site. Have you looked?

It will certainly help to get some evidence that it was put up on auction site.

Was the painting properly declared?

What value was declared?

Did you purchase their so-called insurance?

What dated this will happen?

You've given us very scant details quite frankly.

 

[Mycathasfleas]

The advice from other members is correct.It depends on the outcome you want.

Stolen property also incudes the proceeds of the theft. So a stolen watch remains stolen, and if sold the proceeds are also stolen goods. Until the property is 'reduced' into lawful custody. (eg the police or original owner). 

So, as a courtesy the unwitting buyer should be put on notice (politely) not to dispose of your stolen picture. Ideally they should return it to the owner, but they might be forgiven for not entirely believing the story. 

 

The name and address of the buyer would be useful. But again, would you give that to a stranger? Perhaps they might wish to return the disputed property to the auction hpuse. Then you only have one person to deal with. 

I do recall that some second hand chains used to refuse to hand over stolen property to police without clear evidence of ownership (not just suspicion). One manager told me that they lost a lot of stock into police property stores and it increased their admin burden. I don't know if what the auction would do. 

Edited March 24 by Mycathasfleas
Spelling

[Complete Misfit]

BankFodder, I am the artist, and the buyer asked me to confirm it was one of my works by sending me a message on an art site I sell on.

I replied to him on the 21st March and have had no reply, and message hasn't been seen. 

The web page of the auction is still up, this is all I have found: 

John Pye Auctions - ARIEL AND THE OIL DRUM PAINTING (DELIVERY ONLY)

WWW.JOHNPYEAUCTIONS.CO.UK

---

ARIEL AND THE OIL DRUM PAINTING (DELIVERY ONLY)

As mentioned on my previous post: 

18/12/2023: I sold the painting on for £66. Sent on Parcel2Go, marked the value as £100, parcel protection for £25. Didn't purchase any more insurance.

[BankFodder]

Very interesting and I would almost feel flattered if I was able to produce an artwork which somebody else thought was worth stealing!

Do you have photographs of it?

Apart from anything else, I would start posting pictures of it on Facebook and point out that it is stolen. These things get around and it would be very interesting to track it down that way.

Please will you answer the questions which I put in my previous post.

[BankFodder]

Also, in case it helps I have saved the auction page into the WayBack Machine Internet archive.

You should take your own screenshot anyway – but at least there is a functioning copy which you can access any time you want in case they remove it

https://web.archive.org/web/20240324170627/https://www.johnpyeauctions.co.uk/Event/LotDetails/202190508/ARIEL-AND-THE-OIL-DRUM-PAINTING-DELIVERY-ONLY

 

[Complete Misfit]

Yeah I do have photos of it, and it is on my website and my page on the Saatchi gallery site. 

Yeah I was thinking of posting on Facebook about it.

I did take screenshots, good idea about saving to Wayback archive, I didn't know I could do that. Thanks.

I just sent a short email to John Pye Auctions, saying that they had auctioned one of my paintings that was stolen, and asked where they get it. 

[BankFodder]

Yes, post it on Facebook and make sure that you mention the name of the auction company on it as well. Don't make any suggestion that they knew about it because that might cause trouble but if you keep everything straight and simply say that they were auctioning a stolen painting but they probably didn't know about it, this will be truthful and probably won't cause you any trouble even though I'm sure they will object

Of course the auction company has a duty to establish provenance of the items they sell. It might be worth asking them what steps they took to establish that provenance

[Complete Misfit]

The person who bought the painting from auction has got back to me and said he is willing to send the painting back to me and try to get the money back from John Pye Auctions. I am wondering if I can get the money back from John Pye and let him keep the painting. I've just emailed them about it.

[BankFodder]

Yes, I think we can probably help you get the money back from John Pye auctions.

Have you put them on notice that the painting was stolen?

Can the purchaser of it provide you with any receipts or other evidence?

This person is obviously extremely decent about this and it sounds to me as if you have been pretty lucky. What is the value of this painting?

I think you will be looking at recovering the sale price, and also any other auction fees et cetera which will have to be returned to the purchaser so in fact I think that you both are a position where you need to recover some money.
Maybe you should tell the purchaser to come to this thread and join in.

It might be an interesting project.

Of course if John Pye are a thoroughly reputable firm of auctioneers then they will want to distance themselves from this completely and not cause any problems about refunding all monies.

[Complete Misfit]

John Pye Auctions has replied saying this:

"Unfortunately as we are a third party selling on behalf of vendors, we will not be able to do anything about this or reimburse you any costs. I advise to speak to citizens advice for further information if you wish as it is out of our hands."

I've told them that it was stolen. The buyer payed £132 for it. I presume there is some kind of receipt, I will ask him. 

Parcel2Go just refunded me for £10.19 even though I took out £25 parcel protection. This is what they said:

"During the booking process, we asked you to check your item against the list of items we’re unable to compensate for on our website.

Unfortunately, the item you sent is protected for loss only, which means we’re unable to compensate you for damages to this item."

[BankFodder]

Okay well the easiest thing to do would be to go against P2G.

Do you have a crime reference number?

[Complete Misfit]

Yeah I do have a crime reference number.

[BankFodder]

Okay. Have you inform the police that it was sold by John Pye auctions? This would be a good thing to do.

You can certainly recover your money from parcel2go.  I would have your chance of success is almost 100%.

I'm afraid that the purchaser will have a lot more difficulty in terms of any auction fee et cetera that he paid.

If you want to proceed then draft a letter of claim and post it here.

You have to do a lot of reading of the threats in this sub-forum. Being the claim will be straightforward but you should know what you are doing in order to have confidence

[Complete Misfit]

I have told the police it was sold by John Pye auctions.

They said they will investigate.

..........................................

I have had several other parcels not delivered using Parcel2go / Evri .

They are all paintings of different sizes / value.

In total it would be several hundred pound.

I'm wondering that when making a claim, should I include all of these together?

Or do I need to do each one individually?

I'll start making a letter of claim.

Thanks

[dx100uk]

please create a new thread for the lost paintings in this same postal forum.

dx

[BankFodder]

Do you have a crime reference number for this?

[BankFodder]

Also, as advised by my site team colleague above, you should probably begin a new thread for each parcel but it would be interesting right now if you could list out what has disappeared in tabular form.

Item, value, date sent

[Complete Misfit]

Yes the Crime Reference Number: 502xxx

The most valuable one was a commissioned painting from a Paris gallery which the buyer was going to pay £500 for, and I would split it with the gallery. So it was worth £500, but as I was sending to the EU and wanted to keep customs tax down for him, I put the value as £100. Silly mistake in hindsight.

The stolen one this thread is about, value £100 sent on 9/1/24. Parcel2go refunded me a measly £10 for this.

The rest are smaller paintings, with these dates / value:

£30   6/3/24

£30   3/1/24

£50   21/12/23

£50   16/11/23

£30   24/7/23

£30  23/5/23