An Post- Damage claim form - Typical wait time?

Amalgam

I ordered a Router through a private sale on adverts.ie. Unfortunately, the Router arrived with the back, literally, in pieces. (shattered plastic with the Antenna mount removing a few bits of electronics off of the circuit board, as it was pushed inwards)

Item was Registered with a stated retail value.

I approached my Postman just as he was leaving our road and asked him what to do. He said to go to the sorting office and fill in a damage claim form, which I did, within the hour.

The staff member at the sorting office filled in thedamage claim form himself, after handling and viewing the damaged goods. He then 'took the form in', with my signature, to be sent off.

There was some polite 'fobbing off', the staff member seemed sceptical that any damage might have occured under An Post's watch, as the outer box looked unscathed. The Router itself (a Dovado 4GR) is made of rather brittle plastic. I can't say I'm happy about that myself, given the retail price, but that's neither here nor there..

I pointed out that I brought the damage to the Postman's attention, and that I was at the sorting office within an hour of its delivery.

Never claimed against An post before, so this is totally new to me. Any advice welcome.

jor el

The recipient can't make a claim, only the sender can do this as they are the ones with the receipt and insurance. You should contact the seller and get them to claim.

Normally it will take several weeks for the claim to be processed, and they will try every trick in the book to avoid payment (from experience anyway).

Amalgam

The sender?!

Yes, I was informed of that, but I thought it was an error..

Sender is fully aware of the situation, the staff member will also have marked the sender's details on the claim form.

No issue with the sender, I was offered an item viewing in Dublin this week, but I wanted to push ahead to get Midband in the rest of the house.

Here's a few pictures, for the curious..





The retail box is very 'bottom heavy' and as I stated earlier, that plastic's not up to much. Oh well, patience and all that..

jor el

Amalgam wrote: »

The sender?!

Yes, I was informed of that, but I thought it was an error..

Not an error, no, and don't be surprised if they reject the claim because you submitted it. The sender is the one with the contract for delivery, and only they can make a claim.

Maybe it will go through, but I would not count on it.

What may also happen is that the claims dept will ask for the packaging, so that they can inspect it. If they deem the damage to be as a result of insufficient packing, then they will deny the claim. If the packaging looks undamaged, they may put it down to the sender/recipient, and refuse the claim. Basically, you're at their mercy, and I don't know of any way to get around them if they do deny.

BengaLover

jor el wrote: »

The recipient can't make a claim, only the sender can do this as they are the ones with the receipt and insurance. You should contact the seller and get them to claim.

Normally it will take several weeks for the claim to be processed, and they will try every trick in the book to avoid payment (from experience anyway).

I can verify this. Been selling and buying on ebay since its early days and only twice had to make an An Post claim, NEITHER of those times did An Post even get back to me, it was ignored.
You need to keep folllowing up with phonecalls etc after you make a claim.

jor el

Yep, last time I claimed there were many calls to the GPO before any compensation was paid. You have to keep at them. They did request the original packaging be returned to them, and the original receipt with the tracking details on it. Then they make you wait half an aeon in the hopes you'll just go away.