Fedex "lost" my iphone....

sooty11

Hi all

Looking for advice on this situation.
Left my iphone 6s in a taxi while on holiday in Barcelona late last May. It was subsequently found by another tourist and handed into police station after i had returned home. They contacted me to arrange collection, so I organised Fedex to collect it and ship it to my home address. I got confirmations from fedex it was picked up and the expected delivery date. However no package arrived.

Weeks later after investigating and searching they told me it was gone and could not be found.
So I filled out a claim form etc etc.
Today they told me they will compensate only 89euro...this seems crazy to me.
I added the value of the phone when ordering their service to collect as 400euro.
I gave them the current value of an iphone6s (600+) from my local shop where i originally got it. I am on contact so i havnet been able to replace it
Also gave them what i paid for it when i signed up to the contact (200+) I am pay a monthly contract for a phone they "lost"

Any advise on what i can do??

Thanks

L1011

When booking the pickup you would have had the ability to check the max insured value - and pay for more if required. If €89 was the limit on the service you picked you're out of luck.

ralph1234

Tell them your going to bring them to small claims court that should do the trick.

L1011

ralph1234 wrote: »

Tell them your going to bring them to small claims court that should do the trick.

Not if 89 is the max insured amount it won't. They'll be more than happy to engage, the OP will end up 25 quid down and still get 89.

ralph1234

He should check to make sure if its insured for the 400, if not he has no chance, just take the 89 and run then!

rock22

It might still succeed in Small Claims Court. Partner had similar uissues wit ha parcel which went missing. Terms and conditions limited the claim. However took case on the basis that courier owed a duty of care, won and received a cheque.

davo10

It would seem to be pretty clear from the FedEx website and T&c's that unless the customer informs them that an item is worth more than $100 dollars and takes out the necessary insurance to cover the item, their liability is limited to $100/€89 on International deliveries.

Kinda like having the cheaper 3rd party insurance on your car and then wondering why the insurer won't provide the more expensive comprehensive insurance when you have a crash, unfortunate truth is you haven't paid for the extra insurance to cover the higher value.

---

How much does it cost to insure a package with Fedex?

Unless a higher value is declared and paid for, the maximum liability for each package is automatically limited to $100. Declared Value: Fed Ex & UPS.
Declared value is not insurance coverage. The declared value of a package represents the maximum liability for the package in the case of loss or damage.


http://www.fedex.com/ie/services/terms/

rock22

davo10 wrote: »

It would seem to be pretty clear from the FedEx website and T&c's that unless the customer informs them that an item is worth more than $100 dollars and takes out the necessary insurance to cover the item, their liability is limited to $100/€89 on International deliveries.

Kinda like having the cheaper 3rd party insurance on your car and then wondering why the insurer won't provide the more expensive comprehensive insurance when you have a crash, unfortunate truth is you haven't paid for the extra insurance to cover the higher value.

---

How much does it cost to insure a package with Fedex?

Unless a higher value is declared and paid for, the maximum liability for each package is automatically limited to $100. Declared Value: Fed Ex & UPS.
Declared value is not insurance coverage. The declared value of a package represents the maximum liability for the package in the case of loss or damage.


http://www.fedex.com/ie/services/terms/

I can see this if he was claiming on the insurance. But Fedex have a duty of care irrespective of whether the OP took out insurance.

davo10

rock22 wrote: »

I can see this if he was claiming on the insurance. But Fedex have a duty of care irrespective of whether the OP took out insurance.

Yes they have a duty of care, but unfortunately things get lost, they have admitted that, but the redress depends on the value of item and the level of insurance paid for.

I know this is no consolation to the op but the level of redress is in line with the level of insurance the op paid for. If he wanted to insure it for €400, he would have had to pay more insurance.

seamus

davo10 wrote: »

Yes they have a duty of care, but unfortunately things get lost, they have admitted that, but the redress depends on the value of item and the level of insurance paid for.

Not in court. The level of insurance paid for is only relevant if you're making a claim on insurance.

If the claim is a lack of care by the carrier, then the amount of insurance purchased is irrelevant.

Or to put it another way; you drop your €50k car into a garage for a service and they crash and destroy it. The service form has a waiver stating that the maximum cover provided on any vehicle is €10k unless requested otherwise.

Are the garage only liable for €10k? No, they're not.

The €89 insurance on Fedex parcels only really covers loss in transit from factors outside of Fedex's control (theft, fire, natural disaster, etc). The parcel just going missing without explanation falls outside of this and is squarely fedex's liability.

davo10

seamus wrote: »

Not in court. The level of insurance paid for is only relevant if you're making a claim on insurance.

If the claim is a lack of care by the carrier, then the amount of insurance purchased is irrelevant.

Or to put it another way; you drop your €50k car into a garage for a service and they crash and destroy it. The service form has a waiver stating that the maximum cover provided on any vehicle is €10k unless requested otherwise.

Are the garage only liable for €10k? No, they're not.

The €89 insurance on Fedex parcels only really covers loss in transit from factors outside of Fedex's control (theft, fire, natural disaster, etc). The parcel just going missing without explanation falls outside of this and is squarely fedex's liability.

I'm not going to argue on behalf of FedEx, to be honest I would be pissed off if it was my phone. I just pointed the op to the T&c's he agreed to when using their service.

But just playing devils advocate:

If you drop your €50k car into a garage, the garage can see it's a €50k car. If you drop a €5k car into a garage and claim it's worth €50k, is the garage liable for the €50k? FedEx nor any courier service have the opportunity to inspect the item to confirm its value, they go by what the customer tells them and if an item is of a particular value then you need to insure it for tha value.

Tell me this Seamus from a legal point of view, if you could claim for the full cost of all items lost based on what you believe it is worth, what is to stop all customers from claiming that all items lost were worth €400 and putting that value down? Would you expect FedEx to pay all claims for €400, €4000, €40000 if the customer claimed that was the value?

seamus

davo10 wrote: »

Tell me this Seamus from a legal point of view, if you could claim for the full cost of all items lost based on what you believe it is worth, what is to stop all customers from claiming that all items lost were worth €400 and putting that value down? Would you expect FedEx to pay all claims for €400, €4000, €40000 if the customer claimed that was the value?

No, you do it exactly the same way you make any other claim for a loss. When you have a loss you describe the item that is lost and provide evidence of the value of that item, and depending on the item you may need to produce evidence of having purchased it.

You can claim you had a custom, diamond-encrusted iphone in the box worth €100,000, but you'll be asked to provide proof of that.

Plus, the fact that the OP declared the value at €400 negates the ability to up the value later on.
There's a reason Fedex ask for this information. If you declared the item to be worth €40,000, they will refuse to carry it or insist that you pay a far higher rate.
Because they know if they lose it, they're on the hook for the full amount and not just €89.

In court, they will hinge on the balance of probabilities. If you claim there was a new iPhone in the box and you have a receipt for a new iPhone and a declared value around that amount on the package...then it's probable that there was a new iPhone in the box.

whiterebel

seamus wrote: »

Not in court. The level of insurance paid for is only relevant if you're making a claim on insurance.

If the claim is a lack of care by the carrier, then the amount of insurance purchased is irrelevant.

Or to put it another way; you drop your €50k car into a garage for a service and they crash and destroy it. The service form has a waiver stating that the maximum cover provided on any vehicle is €10k unless requested otherwise.

Are the garage only liable for €10k? No, they're not.

The €89 insurance on Fedex parcels only really covers loss in transit from factors outside of Fedex's control (theft, fire, natural disaster, etc). The parcel just going missing without explanation falls outside of this and is squarely fedex's liability.

If that were the case, no shipper would need to insure anything. These cases have gone to court down through the years, and once the forwarder/courier show that they did everything reasonable during the shipping, it would go back to Standard Trading conditions. Hence the reason frequent shippers will have marine insurance in place. Theft wouldn't be considered outside the couriers control either. That would be part of their duty of care to ensure its not stolen.

davo10

seamus wrote: »

No, you do it exactly the same way you make any other claim for a loss. When you have a loss you describe the item that is lost and provide evidence of the value of that item, and depending on the item you may need to produce evidence of having purchased it.

You can claim you had a custom, diamond-encrusted iphone in the box worth €100,000, but you'll be asked to provide proof of that.

Plus, the fact that the OP declared the value at €400 negates the ability to up the value later on.
There's a reason Fedex ask for this information. If you declared the item to be worth €40,000, they will refuse to carry it or insist that you pay a far higher rate.
Because they know if they lose it, they're on the hook for the full amount and not just €89.

In court, they will hinge on the balance of probabilities. If you claim there was a new iPhone in the box and you have a receipt for a new iPhone and a declared value around that amount on the package...then it's probable that there was a new iPhone in the box.

Must make people wonder, if you are certain of the legal standpoint, why FedEx and all other couriers have not been legally required to remove this T&c's. It is EU wide, I've checked th FedEx website in UK and Spain and the T&c's are identical.

I do know there is a limit on the amount airlines hav to pay out irrespective of the value of the item lost. There was a court case last year about a diamond ring I n a luggage bag which was lost, the court said there as a duty of care but if I remember right, the owner only got a fraction of its value from the airline because their liability was capped by the T&c's of the flight booking. I'll try to find the link to the case later.

seamus

whiterebel wrote: »

If that were the case, no shipper would need to insure anything. These cases have gone to court down through the years, and once the forwarder/courier show that they did everything reasonable during the shipping, it would go back to Standard Trading conditions. Hence the reason frequent shippers will have marine insurance in place. Theft wouldn't be considered outside the couriers control either. That would be part of their duty of care to ensure its not stolen.

Yep, agreed. If they drove packages around in open-topped pickup trucks, the carrier would be liable for theft. But if someone stops a van with a weapon and throws the driver out, then the carrier's liability would be nil.

Like you say, provided the carrier is taking reasonable precautions to protect the package, then their liability is limited.

It's when they haven't taken reasonable precautions that their liability increases. In this case they can't say that a fire happened, or a truck was stolen or a ship sank. The package has just gone missing, they cannot find it and they cannot explain what happened.

Therefore there's a strong argument that they failed to take reasonable steps to protect it.

whiterebel

seamus wrote: »

Yep, agreed. If they drove packages around in open-topped pickup trucks, the carrier would be liable for theft. But if someone stops a van with a weapon and throws the driver out, then the carrier's liability would be nil.

Like you say, provided the carrier is taking reasonable precautions to protect the package, then their liability is limited.

It's when they haven't taken reasonable precautions that their liability increases. In this case they can't say that a fire happened, or a truck was stolen or a ship sank. The package has just gone missing, they cannot find it and they cannot explain what happened.

Therefore there's a strong argument that they failed to take reasonable steps to protect it.

From what I can remember, and it is a long time ago, you have to prove wilful negligence to override the Standard Trading Conditions (STC). As you can imagine, a very difficult thing to do, unless you have CCTV footage or witnesses.

Davo10 I think its the Warsaw Convention that limits airline liability.

davo10

whiterebel wrote: »

From what I can remember, and it is a long time ago, you have to prove wilful negligence to override the Standard Trading Conditions (STC). As you can imagine, a very difficult thing to do, unless you have CCTV footage or witnesses.

Davo10 I think its the Warsaw Convention that limits airline liability.

Thanks whiterebel, Seamus, turns out that the Warsaw Convention also limits Fedex's liability in the op's case as well to $100 unless he paid higher insurance.

http://www.fedex.com/ag/services/terms.html

I don't think the WC covers cars in garages though, maybe you know?