Bad luck... we lost your parcel

T.C. writes: I used Hermes to deliver a CCTV recorder and hard drive worth £175, and I paid extra for insurance. Hermes collected the parcel on May 12 and its website showed it had arrived at the recipient’s local depot on May 15 and was with the local courier the next day. Whenever I checked after that, Hermes showed it as a delivery ‘in progress’. But the recipient said nothing had arrived, so on June 14 I contacted Hermes. It accepts it has lost my parcel, but says I cannot claim anything because I did not complain within 28 days of the date I paid, which was May 12. In effect, it is just my tough luck it lost my goods. WHEN you contacted Hermes in June, you were told it would take 72 hours for a ‘sweep’ of the depot in a bid to find the missing parcel. This failed to turn up any sign of the lost goods, but Hermes sent you a message headed ‘query resolved’, saying it could not even investigate the loss because you had failed to ask for the search within 28 days.

Yet months later, when you contacted me, I went on to the Hermes website and entered your tracking number and it still showed ‘delivery in progress’.

I asked Hermes to look into this and you suddenly received an email saying your claim had been accepted.

So far, so good. But six days later another email arrived, demanding proof of purchase of the missing equipment.

You supplied this, but my own contact at the company knew nothing about the demand and described it as unacceptable. She intervened and you have now received £175 plus a refund of £9.99 which was the cost of the delivery service and insurance. Hermes told me: ‘We would like to apologise to Mr C for any inconvenience caused.’