Does anybody here have any experience in fighting to get compensation from Royal Mail regarding missing post? We've had 2 items not turn up in the last 4 or 5 weeks, one was from Amazon (which they were good enough too send a replacement for), but this second item is a phone which was bought from Ebay for £130. It was sent to us via RM 1st Class Recorded delivery, which apparently only covers compensation up to £46, leaving us out of pocket by almost £90. Has anybody fought this compensation level and won, and got their full refund?

Cheers

It's the eBay seller's responsibility to claim and refund you.

Unless you have specifically declined Special Delivery (Compensation up to £500), then the most that RM will pay out is 100 times 1st class post = £46.00

You will not get them to budge from that

Doubt it, I regularly send stuff out via first class recorded and I always get asked if I want to buy extra insurance cover at the point of sale, it might be just my post office that does this but I suspect its not just them - your seller would have been well aware that the service didn't cover the item sufficiently, but were you and did you decide to risk it.

And don't eBay have anything to say ?

It's dead simple.

Open an item not received dispute. The seller may claim he has proof of delivery, it counts for nowt. eBay will find in the buyer's favour, they always do.

The only chance the buyer will lose out is if it was a scam and the seller has closed his account.

We were not offered special delivery, the only option we were provided with was 1st class recorded, and we were not aware of the £46 limit. The item has been posted, as we were given the recorded delivery number, and inputting the number says 'in process for delivery', so it seems a bit harsh making the seller lose out when we know he's posted it.

The seller is responsible right up to the point you take delivery, you can help the seller by aiding his claim but RM will not compensate you as you didn't buy the service.

Harsh ?

Like I said before, I post a lot of stuff out recorded delivery and without fail I'm always asked what the value is and if I want it insuring - your seller will have been too and he/she took a gamble with your goods.

Its business not a tea party.

I can't believe an item of that value wasn't sent out Special Delivery. As a former postie, I really don't recommend Recorded Delivery. The only point at which it's tracked is when/if the recipient signs for it. Even then, I know some postmen don't get it signed for, or even sign for it themselves (sometimes at the request of the customer). Reading through the ebay forums, it seems a lot of ebay users seem to think they can track Recorded items through the system in the same way you can track Special Delivery items.

As others have said, open an INR case, ebay will refund you the full amount and it's up to the seller to put in a claim against RM and get what he can back from them.

If it wasn't insured that's not your responsibility, As others have said, even if it seem's Harsh it's the sellers responsibility to post it and make sure it is delivered, Not yours. If it hasn't arrived it is upto him to follow it up and claim his money back from the post office and refund you. If he was stupid enough to send a phone without the proper insurance then that's his fault, why should you as a buyer lose out?

A lot of people on ebay tend to say things like "i will not be held responsible if items are lost in the post" this is absolute rubbish and it is against ebays T and C's. So open up a dispute with them.

Not necessarily, I send all items on at the very least a signed-for basis but if the buyer is a cheapskate and doesn't want to pay for the service, I will send by ordinary mail if I receive an e-mail indemnifying me from all responsibility once I have posted it. I've had a couple of claims and in both cases eBay found in my favour.