Thank You Parcelforce, for ridding the world of a PRS.

skunkwerx

tone1 said:

Interestingly I went to the post office in question where i showed them the pictures of the damage. They said ‘Lucky you took out the extra insurance’ 
I still haven’t heard anything from my online claim...I will be chasing after the bank holiday 

Man it sounds as though the PO staff don’t know what is and what isn’t covered under the shipping companies policies they use (if they vary?) 

It sounds like PO made the cockup, PF might not pay out but the PO really should. 

Or PF pays out and PO reimburses them. 

Problem is proving you were led to believe it was covered against damage I guess. 

Seziertisch

If you had just gone to the post office and they had told you that musical instruments were covered (even if the T&Cs say otherwise) you would still have a case, albeit significantly weaker because it would potentially your word against the person who you spoke with in the post office and they probably have no recollection of them telling you this.

The fact that they offered you and you bought extra insurance for a musical instrument should be enough for them to be obliged to pay up. The person who sold it to you should have known what was and wasn’t allowed, regardless of what the T&Cs say, they essentially decided to vary the terms of the contract.

If you feel you are being fobbed off by their customer support, it might be an idea, if you are friends with any lawyers, to have one of them send a letter threatening action. Having done customer service jobs in the past, a legal letter has the effect of the matter being kicked up the chain to someone with a bit more decision making power. The chances are that the ground level customer service staff are probably not that well trained, overworked and paid shit money, so there is a chance of it being “computer says no”

tone1

All great advice greatly appreciated 

King85

Musicwolf said:

The fact that Parcel Force will not insure musical instruments kind of suggests that they themselves know that they are incapable of handling them with sufficient care.

The fact that insurance against loss is offered by all delivery companies shows they are all fully incompetent at their jobs.

SteveRobinson

King85 said:

Musicwolf said:

The fact that Parcel Force will not insure musical instruments kind of suggests that they themselves know that they are incapable of handling them with sufficient care.

The fact that insurance against loss is offered by all delivery companies shows they are all fully incompetent at their jobs.

Yes. When you insure your stuff, you are insuring it against the courier's inability to look after it properly.

Strangefan

So what's the plan for the prs now? 

Gassage

@ArchieW - read this!!

MattNovak

TTony said:

bgmartinsbridge said:

Did a bit of research for you... 

Try a personal email - this is about as close as you'll get to a personal email address. 

Royal Mail Plc
Mr Rico Back	Group Chief Executive Officer
Email	ceo.office@royalmail.com

He left, last week.

But returned to the incorrect house, with his neck broken and a week late.

fretfinder

tone1 said:

All great advice greatly appreciated 

Have you heard back from Parcel Force yet? Before going the legal route, of small claims court or whatever, I would pester the bejesus out of PF. By phone, email, complaint forms, twitter, Facebook or any other means including communication direct to the Chief Executive’s Office - the CEO of big companies always has a team to deal with complaints sent to him/her personally. Apart from the sheer incompetence they’ve shown in handling your package, the other key point for you, obviously, is that they took your insurance money for a service that they didn’t actually provide. Good luck!

tone1

Thanks guys...I don’t do Facebook or Twitter etc. I’ve filled in the online claim form and @Gassage has very kindly filled it out and returned it. So just waiting to hear then it’s off to Neil @IvisonGuitars to see what can be salvaged...

Kent747

Parcelforce is the shipper for my most recent purchase. I’ve had little sleep since seeing that. Should arrive this weekend, the question is: in how many pieces?

icu81b4

I wish you luck getting some compensation, on top of the distress, it's all the time and effort needed trying to resolve the matter adds to the annoyance. 

DefaultM

Its no surprise they don't insure guitars when they know how incompetent they are at delivering them.

I've had one delivered by them smashed the hiscox case and the pickups somehow flew out of the pickguard.
Another i took out of the case and the neck was hanging off as 2 screw holes had stripped. 
Another time they delivered an empty box with a sticker on it that said something like "we can see there's nothing in here. Submit a claim" so we did and they said nothing we can do as no proof it ever had something in.

Best was my mortgage documents arriving with the envelope fully slit open, the pages all bent and shoved in a plastic wallet with the same sticker on saying "we didn't do as well as we should this time". 
Had to call the solicitor and go through fucking hundreds of pages 1 by 1 making sure everything was there.

Adey

What is the PRS actually worth? ie, how much to buy another the same (but without the neck break!)

Dont go spending more than the replacement value on a repair as you won't get it back from Parcel Force. Obviously if it has been played / owned by someone famous then the value will be higher and not practically replaceable so may be worth the repair cost...

monquixote

A DGT is about £3k new so worth repairing.

Adey

Not a new one though. How much is a second hand one worth of a similar age? I guess probably worth repairing, but the one broken isn't new

fretfinder

tone1 said:

Thanks guys...I don’t do Facebook or Twitter etc. I’ve filled in the online claim form and @Gassage has very kindly filled it out and returned it. So just waiting to hear then it’s off to Neil @IvisonGuitars to see what can be salvaged...

It’s up to you obviously, but if all you do is one claim form, I'm not sure how good your chances of compensation are. If on the other hand you start pestering senior people in the company, e.g. emailing them by name and phoning up and asking for the Chief Executive’s office, and telling them you plan to publicise how bad their service has been, then in my experience you are much more likely to get a favourable response

Many years ago I worked for a major building society and their strategy for dealing with most legitimate complaints was: First customer letter, apologise. Second letter from same customer, apologise again and offer minimal compensation. Third letter from same customer, apologise again and offer proper compensation. 

It’s a pain in the bum to keep nagging at them but big companies don’t like vociferous complainants and they don’t like bad publicity about their services, so your persistence can work. Good luck.

digitalkettle

Bad PR burns them...they pay more attention to that than a sheet of A4: create a Twitter account!

impmann

fretfinder said:

tone1 said:

Thanks guys...I don’t do Facebook or Twitter etc. I’ve filled in the online claim form and @Gassage has very kindly filled it out and returned it. So just waiting to hear then it’s off to Neil @IvisonGuitars to see what can be salvaged...

It’s up to you obviously, but if all you do is one claim form, I'm not sure how good your chances of compensation are. If on the other hand you start pestering senior people in the company, e.g. emailing them by name and phoning up and asking for the Chief Executive’s office, and telling them you plan to publicise how bad their service has been, then in my experience you are much more likely to get a favourable response

Many years ago I worked for a major building society and their strategy for dealing with most legitimate complaints was: First customer letter, apologise. Second letter from same customer, apologise again and offer minimal compensation. Third letter from same customer, apologise again and offer proper compensation. 

It’s a pain in the bum to keep nagging at them but big companies don’t like vociferous complainants and they don’t like bad publicity about their services, so your persistence can work. Good luck.

I’m not saying that this is the case in this instance - but a company I worked at once received a claim that was spurious and unjustified.
So the claimant tried your course of action. Eventually he got hold of the CEO’s number who was already aware of the problem...
The CEO told him to piss off and that if he continued on that course if action, the company would press charges for bullying and harassment. Now whilst these are civil actions, the fines that can be imposed are substantial. Plus, because copies of all correspondence were kept the evidence was existing and the ‘customer’ would lose the case.

So your tactics may get you somewhere if you are definitely in the right, but if you are just not accepting a reasonable decision be careful what you do and how you conduct yourself.

In this instance, filling in a compensation form is the correct course of action. However you may want to check the small print - as very few companies pay out for damage to a guitar in transit. And in my experience, the Royal Fail/Parcelfarce fall into that category.
No amount of harrassment changes that... despite how morally wrong it appears.

tone1

Yes, I’ll go through there System fairly first and follow the process