Your consumer champion UPS lost original Loch Ness monster footage from the 1960s

QI am a filmmaker directing a new documentary about the search for the Loch Ness Monster. It tells the story of the men and women who tried to find it in the “golden era” of Nessie hunting, between the 1960s and 1980s.

A key figure in all of this was a man called Tim Dinsdale. Tim was the man who first filmed a Nessie-like creature in the Loch and in 1960 he appeared on BBC Panorama, unveiling his footage to the world. It made him an overnight celebrity and he was the regular “go-to” guy for any media monster malarkey.

Mr Dinsdale died in 1987. I got in touch with his son, who said his father had a whole box of unseen films stored in the attic. I said I wanted them for my documentary, but the family said they were precious and were understandably hesitant about releasing them.

However, they eventually agreed. I went up into their loft and selected six reels, all containing incredible footage.

We arranged processing at a really good film lab and through a company called Interparcel we booked a courier to take it from their home in Essex to the specialist film lab in London. Interparcel then subcontracted the job to UPS.

A UPS driver picked up the parcel as instructed, but it has not been seen since. I have been informed that the parcel is lost.

This has been absolutely devastating for everyone involved and I feel so awful.

– JM, Glasgow

A

Knowing these films contained irreplaceable family memories, you paid £17 for them to be sent via UPS’s premium service, which meant they were signed for on delivery and insured for up to £100. You thought this would be the safest form of transport, yet to your horror they still went missing.

By the time you contacted me the parcel containing the films had been missing for 45 days. The prospect of finding it was looking about as likely as a sighting of Nessie himself.

After being collected on Aug 12, which was confirmed by Interparcel, it was not delivered the next day as expected. You complained and were eventually emailed on Aug 29 to say the package had in fact been delivered. However, neither the film company nor UPS had any record of this.

You spent the next few weeks complaining and getting nowhere, so you decided to write to me as a last resort. Within days of my intervention, UPS miraculously found a parcel it believed to be yours.

It couriered it to the film lab where it was opened to check the contents. To everyone’s surprise and delight, Mr Dinsdale’s original footage emerged from the box unscathed.

This has come as a huge relief to you personally, as you’ve had sleepless nights over the apparent loss of this footage and the subsequent upset to the family.

You still haven’t had a proper explanation of this parcel’s disappearance and where it was for 45 days. Like so much surrounding the Loch Ness monster, it remains a mystery.

A UPS spokesman said: “Service is at the centre of all that we do and we take the delay of any package very seriously. We can confirm that the shipment has now been delivered and we regret any stress or inconvenience caused.”

Interparcel, the third-party reseller through which you booked the service, has offered you a cash goodwill gesture in light of your poor experience.

Best of luck with the documentary.

Mystery land charge could scupper our £490,000 house sale

Q

Around five months ago my wife and I discovered that the detached bungalow next door to our daughter’s house was for sale and we decided to buy it. It seemed perfect, as we wanted to be closer to her and our grandchildren.

We put our house up for sale and very quickly a couple put in an offer, which we accepted. They were going to pay £490,000 for our house and we were going to pay £375,000 for the bungalow. We were the only parties in the chain, so it should have been nice and straightforward.

We were due to exchange contracts on Oct 24 and complete on Nov 8. But last Friday we were told by our solicitor that RBS, which we used to have a mortgage with, had put a land charge against our house in 1990. We knew nothing about this whatsoever. The sale could not go through as long as the charge was still there, we were told.

This came as a devastating shock. Now 17 weeks into the process of selling our home, we can’t understand how this major issue has taken so long to come to light.

My wife, who is 76, has had breast cancer and is now left with a painful condition called lymphedema, which causes her arm to swell. When I told her about the land charge and how it might scupper our move, she was in tears.

The bungalow was supposed to make life so much easier for her, but the way things are going it looks like it all might fall through.

– DP, Lancashire

A

You have lived in this house for 52 years, having bought it in 1970, and paid off the mortgage in full after 25 years in 1995. You racked your brain but simply could not understand what this land charge from 1990 was for. You say you have never been bankrupt or had any county court charges against your name, and nor have you ever defaulted on a loan.

You visited a branch of NatWest, which used to be RBS, in your local town to try to find out more. It couldn’t help, but it did give you a number to telephone. When you phoned the number from NatWest you spoke to a man you describe as “very helpful”. He said he would pass on the information to a special “security release” team.

You said it took your solicitor 45 minutes to get through by phone to this team, so she sent a letter by special delivery.

Yet no response was forthcoming. You and your wife were tearing your hair out, so I contacted NatWest

‘We were told RBS had put a land charge against our house in 1990. It was a shock’

on your behalf to find out what on earth was going on. Days later it confirmed that, following your interaction with the “very helpful” man from NatWest, the land charge had in fact been cancelled. As it turned out, this £7,000 charge came from a business loan you took out in 1990.

You didn’t think of it because you had fully repaid this loan.

NatWest could have released the charge, but in circumstances where a customer may take out future borrowing, it sometimes retains such charges, it explained.

When the business account was closed, NatWest should have asked you if you wanted it to hold the charge or release it, in light of the fact that you had a personal banking connection with it, but it has no record of having done this. And now that so much time has passed, it is difficult to know exactly who said or didn’t say what.

The charge has now been cancelled, but cancellation can take some time to register with the Land Registry. Your solicitor has also now had a phone call to confirm everything, which has at last given you peace of mind.

So now, with your house sale and bungalow purchase saved, you can push on towards exchange and completion.

Moving from the house you’ve called home for more than half a century was always going to be a stressful affair, even at the best of times, and let alone with your wife’s health troubles coupled with this issue with the land charge.

I’m so pleased to have got it back on track so you can hopefully push on with the move and be in by Christmas.

I wish you both the best of luck with it all and hope you’ll be very happy living next door to your family.