Last year, my mam saw a perfume she liked. It was a limited edition and I couldn’t buy it when I was with her, so had to wait until I could find it on the internet. I eventually managed to find a bottle, online, and thought it would be simple: I paid via Paypal, so knew I’d have some protection. It was sent out to me on 4th Dec.
So, what’s the problem? It never arrived. I emailed the seller, who got increasingly fed up, as it got nearer to Christmas. As I am on a very limited budget, I couldn’t afford to replace the gift, so had to claim through Paypal when 15 days later, it hadn’t arrived. This made the seller very angry (understandably, but I had no option) and she refused to email me about it – she did send me proof of postage, so I knew it had indeed been sent out on 4th Dec. Paypal was useless and actually provided no protection to me at all, because the item had been despatched.
So, who was at fault? We know the package was posted, correctly addressed and well-packed, so there’s no reason it shouldn’t have reached me. Apparently, it was ‘lost’ in the post – ‘lost’ is the preferred word, rather than ‘missing’ (that might suggest I would get it eventually) or ‘stolen’ (surely not, as wouldn’t that require investigation).
So, what next? You have to fill out a comprehensive form, attached lots of info and send it to the address dedicated to handling these lost item claims. You then wait for them to investigate something that you already know: item was posted, item didn’t arrive. Easy as that. But no, I waited and waited…and waited. Then I sent follow-up emails to see what was happening: I got a cut-and-paste copy three times! It didn’t even answer my questions. Very frustrating. Eventually, I got a response from @RoyalMail on Twitter.
Guess what? They hadn’t received my form. It was LOST!
To be continued…