Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

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Greybeard
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Joined: 1 Oct 2008, 6:48pm
Location: East Yorkshire

Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by Greybeard »

Has anyone else recently had an invoice from Hermes (via their Paypal account) claiming for parcels that were sent underpaid? I recently sent a book to someone in Ipswich. The book was on the borderline of 1kg so I paid the 1-2kg rate to be on the safe side. The book was delivered before Christmas.
They have now sent an invoice claiming that the parcel weighed 8.9kg and would like an extra £5.44. I thought this was a scam initially and checked my Paypal account independently of their emails to find an invoice waiting in there.
Needless to say it will not be paid. It has taken well over an hour to get through to someone on a chat line (impossible to speak to a human being as usual) and I'm told it will be another 48 hours before I hear from them about it.
It seems that the Royal Mail will be getting more business from me in the future.

Steve
mercalia
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Location: london South

Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by mercalia »

pls report back how it goes
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Greybeard
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Location: East Yorkshire

Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by Greybeard »

I cetainly will. It wouldnt surprise me if they pull this stunt on a regular basis and for the sake of a fiver I'd guess many folk would just pay it rather than waste their time trying to get through to them :roll:

Steve
Darkman
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Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by Darkman »

When I used to run a clothing co I had no end of trouble with Hermes.

1. Courier not turning up to collect parcels.
2. Failed to get signatures (they charged me £1 extra to get a recipient signature)
3. Parcels thrown over fences into gardens
4. Numerous parcels going missing
5. Sending me invoices for "oversized" parcels (which I knew weren't)

...it goes on. And all of this reflects badly on MY business, not theirs. For me it came to a head when they lost two parcels from the same batch. I raised it with customer services four times, who said they'd have to get someone to call me back because "it wasn't on the system". I put in a claim, which they refused, saying they were still investigating.

After about 10 days, I got compensation.... 50p! Not 50p per parcel, just 50p! :?

I'd paid nearly £8 to them in postage. The stock they'd lost was valued at IIRC £38. So I'm already £46 out of pocket.

After sending close to a thousand parcels with them, and a horrible failure rate, I told them to shove it. Sent everything with Royal Mail after that (who never lost anything, to be fair). They cost more, but you get what you pay for... unless you're paying Hermes, of course, then it's a lottery.
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Greybeard
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Location: East Yorkshire

Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by Greybeard »

Having searched the hermes site I blasted off the same very pointed email to every one I could find, including one to the CEO, Martin De Lange. That's the one that got through :wink: . Ive had a full apology for their system error and they have cancelled the invoice. In addition theyve offered a £20 payment to supplement the apology. Itll make up for the time I spent searching their site.

Steve
mercalia
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Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by mercalia »

Greybeard wrote:Having searched the hermes site I blasted off the same very pointed email to every one I could find, including one to the CEO, Martin De Lange. That's the one that got through :wink: . Ive had a full apology for their system error and they have cancelled the invoice. In addition theyve offered a £20 payment to supplement the apology. Itll make up for the time I spent searching their site.

Steve


somne oik was probably leaning on the parcel at the time :roll:
Tangled Metal
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Joined: 13 Feb 2015, 8:32pm

Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by Tangled Metal »

Trust royal mail? How many posties do you know? They'll put you right.

Parcelforce and royal mail are kind of different but linked. I once got told that any package parcelforce couldn't be bothered delivering got dumped in royal mail cages. Or locally got dumped in a layby bin where parcelforce drivers take a break. Well known because whenever parcelforce manager gets enough complaints to be unable to brush it off he'd go there, get them and deliver them himself.

Parcelforce drivers were often royal mail employees who got sacked for various reasons including breach of trust. Royal mail posties are security vetted, even temporary staff at xmas can't operate without vetted posties monitoring sorting and never get let out delivering. Parcelforce go into royal mail sorting centres, help sort packages and delivers without much if any vetting.

Whether your package gets delivered by parcelforce or royal mail isn't really your decision. It's a decision at sorting office.

All these stories are basically my retelling of just some of the tales I've heard from several posties I've known over my years. How true I can't verify independently but I certainly trust at least 2 posties telling me these stories. One had been a postie for 20 years. Stories from a few years ago too.

However I've rarely had issues with parcel deliveries for the several years I've been buying online. I've had deliveries by royal mail, Hermes, dpd and Amazon. Only one case of lost parcel. That got resolved in 10 days when the couriers investigation period ended and the retailer could then claim compensation and send a replacement. The retailer even told me if I ever do find out where the item got delivered I could keep it.

For me my biggest dislike is the signing for a package. No matter what squiggle the person writes on the little electronic gizmo the driver always enters the recipient's name. So I've signed for packages taken in 8 houses down the street when I was at work. I believe the one parcel I've lost was delivered by DPD and I'd signed for it when I was 10 miles away at work. Lazy and wrong imho
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Pastychomper
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Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by Pastychomper »

Tangled Metal wrote:...
For me my biggest dislike is the signing for a package. No matter what squiggle the person writes on the little electronic gizmo the driver always enters the recipient's name. So I've signed for packages taken in 8 houses down the street when I was at work. I believe the one parcel I've lost was delivered by DPD and I'd signed for it when I was 10 miles away at work. Lazy and wrong imho


Looking into this a while ago I found numerous similar stories, and the consensus seemed to be that Royal Mail's "recorded delivery" / "signed for" service wasn't worth the time, let alone the money. I get the impression a lot of delivery firms have a similar "signed-for if we can be bothered" service. Perhaps this is an example of the "peace of mind" that a lot of businesses claim to sell these days - not a useful service, but an opportunity to pay extra if it makes you feel better. *

On the rare occasions I feel the need for a signature for something I send, I pay the extra for "special delivery" which is at least (afaik) properly tracked and seems to have worked so far. I've noticed some legal seagulls take the same approach.



*Dang, that sounds cynical for a Tuesday. Excuse my while I go and read the Positive Thread for while.
Everyone's ghast should get a good flabbering now and then.
--Ole Boot
ambodach
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Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by ambodach »

Everything where I live gets delivered by Royal Mail. They have recently had staff changes and got people with no local knowledge so over Christmas letters seem to have been distributed at random. I have had several for people with a different name but same house number tho’ not same street. It would not happen if they got staff with at least some local knowledge.
cpg
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Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by cpg »

Steve (Greybeard), as a matter of interest, did you go directly through Hermes or via a 3rd party? A freind of mine runs an on line retail business, he very rarley has issues with Hermes. However he started using a 3rd party courier booking company, not sure who it was but might have been something like Parcels2go. That servise was being fulfilled by Hermes but all of sudden he was getting underpayment cases and being charged a penalty by the 3rd party. He did some reaserch and it was apparent that there were a large number of users that had the same experiance with the 3rd party. He has gone back to using Hermes directly with no more issues.
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Greybeard
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Re: Hermes false claim for underweight parcel - not a scam

Post by Greybeard »

I went direct through Hermes, cpg, as the parcel drop off is only a couple of miles away. It's the first time I've had any aggro with hermes but the inability to contact anyone via their website really got up my nose which is why I sent an email directly to the CEO. It worked :D
Ive been using RM since. I may give hermes another go eventually.

Steve
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