Missing letter - legal redress

[HoneySuckleDreams]

Hi,

We sent a letter to my brothers house in the UK (tickets for the England v France rugby match next Saturday).  They never arrived. We paid for a "tracked service" and the last time it was scanned was at Roissy (CDG airport) 2am on March the 5th.  So technically it should be the UK. The British post service denies receiving them, the French (obviously) want nothing to do with the problem saying that once it was scanned it was loaded on a plane.

 

So where do we stand ? Has anyone had something similar ?

 

I would like to think (naively) that they are stuck in the UK system somewhere, however, the cynic in me thinks that someone at CDG scanned the envelope then trousered the tickets.

[idun]

 Postal services...........

My friend in France, is still waiting for a calender that was sent from a city across into the next county, all of 18kms.........posted in December!

Same city to where I used to live, ie those same 18kms and important post from school used to take 12 days...... the snails from the local snail farms could have done it quicker!

Our impots forms to France, sent recorded /signed for from the UK..... left the UK, never arrived at the impots office........at the Post Office they were unanimous in stating that once it had left the UK they were no longer responsible.

Terrible really isn't it...!

Go into a bureau de poste, not one you usually use, (well that is what I would do) and ask for all the information and guarantees about sending suivi. And then see what you can really do about this.

[sid]

Ah yes, the Black Hole that is Roissy !

I've had a least half a dozen items, letters but mainly small packets, disappear at Roissy. What happens to them? Is it one of the perks of the job that you get to take nice looking things home? What other explanation could there be? If its not that, and I've lost half a dozen, how big must the pile of "lost" items be building up in a dark neglected corner somewhere?

Anything sent from UK by tracked Royal Mail International loses its importance (and seemingly it's tracking) as soon as it crosses the Channel to enter the sorting/customs centre at Roissy! If I have a choice I specify a courier rather than the "ordinary" post and I've found DHL and UPS to be the most reliable, but there are others.

I haven't found any problems with the postal service within France and I notice now that one of my cycle accessory suppliers sends stuff to Germany by carrier for insertion into the postal service from there, cutting out Roissy.

Good luck with trying to get any compensation!

 

[Lehaut]

Sold something on Leboncoin and the chap arrived to collect it last night. Turned out he worked for La Poste. I started a rant about the Colissimo system and losses we had. Even he, working for the post, was unsuccessful in claiming compensation for damaged goods!

[woolybanana]

My guess is that they have been nicked. Perhaps way to find out would be to discover if they are used at the match.

[Cathar Tours]

I was thinking that. Seeing as they use electronic 'things' to read the tickets I would report them lost or stolen. That way the tickets will be blocked. At least you will have the slight pleasure of knowing the tickets are useless and won't let the persons into the game. You need to report them to the 'host' country in which the match will be played (France in this case). It is also possible to get a refund (once the ticket is marked as lost or stolen and therefore blocked) or replacement ticket. Do a bit of Googling and you should find the details on how to do this. If they are stolen you might get an extra pleasure if they have been sold on. When the person who buys them, probably paying a lot of money for them, finds they don't work they might give the thief/seller a smack in the mouth to boot.

[Hereford]

But what if the tickets arrive...

[Daft Doctor]

Hereford beat me to it. My wife has an eBay business and most of her goods go in (untracked) letters or small packets to the UK. Some of course do get lost, but very few. What is noticeable however is that while 80% of orders reach the buyers within 2-3 working days, the rest take 2-3 weeks. There doesn't appear to be a middle ground. Even though a letter is tracked, it doesn't mean it will be quick. I'd try to give it a couple of days, and if the tracking data hasn't changed and the packet hasn't turned up by then, then I'd cancel the tickets at very least.

[HoneySuckleDreams]

well... blow me ! some good news .... the tickets turned up this afternoon.

 

So there was me blaming all and sundry. Both wifey (who feels very guilty about the whole thing) and my brother have been bothering LaPost/RM/Customs all day to try and track these feckin tickets down.

 

But here's the bizarre twist, they were delivered to West Sussex via ....wait for it...... Argentina !

 

 So

1.  France put them on the wrong plane... and how wrong a plane can you get !

2.  Royal Mail failed to pick up the tracked letter once it had been received into the UK 

3.  I'm glad we are on speaking terms again with the Argies

 

So all's well that ends well...although that is not to say there are problems posting a simple letter. (We can put a man on the moon and yet fail to post a letter from A to B without going via C,D and E)

 

[Chancer]

When a person in France does not feel like doing their job of delivering a parcel, or booking it in and out at the distribution hub, loading it onto the outgoing transport etc they all use the same strategy happy in the knowledge that they wont be brought to account and that they (think they) have a job for life.

 

They will just place it amongst a pallet or load of correct parcels for another hub, in your case in another country which is a new one [:D]

 

As has been described there is a black hole of around 2 weeks when parcels drop out of the system and either the tracking data is not available or it shows the parcel as lost, whetever you do dont think it is lost as 99% of the time it will arrive after 2 weeks having done a tour of France, europe or in this case the world.

 

I find it all quite stimulating because when the parcels/letters do show up the tracking data appears and you can see exactly where it has been in its travels!

 

I have a French friend who buys from all over the world and sells in France on E-bay, her experience is identical, 24/48 hours or a couple of weeks, nothing in between, she says it always happens around bank holidays or week-ends of ponts, May and July/August are catastrophes, very few parcels arrive on time.

 

Just recieved today 2 packages of inkjet cartridges from the UK, one sent one day after the other over 2 weeks ago, they usually arrive in 48 hours, when they didnt I knew they would finally arrive around this time.