Royal Mail was yesterday accused of dishonesty after it was revealed to be auctioning off valuable items ‘lost’ in the post.
To add insult to injury, some customers whose goods have disappeared are offered derisory compensation of little more than £1.
The issue came to light following problems suffered by online trader Gary Cannell, who sells model racing cars to British enthusiasts.
Royal Mail was yesterday accused of dishonesty after it was revealed to be auctioning off valuable items ‘lost’ in the post
He sold a collection of nine cars made in Spain under the Scaleauto brand, which can be used on Scalextric tracks, to a British customer for a total of £403.66 including VAT and delivery.
The package included several highly sought after Porsche and Spyker sports car models.
Mr Cannell has a Royal Mail business account. He sent the parcel first class with recorded delivery, which includes tracking, last August. But the package failed to arrive and he formally reported the items missing on September 6.
A little over two months later, he found that eight of the ‘lost’ cars had been put up for sale on eBay.
Mr Cannell, from Milton Keynes, alerted fraud investigators at Royal Mail, suspecting they had been stolen by a postman and sold on. He also reported it to police.
However when officers visited the eBay seller, she produced a receipt to show she bought the cars legitimately from an auction house. As a result, she was allowed to keep them.
The firm, Simon Charles Auctioneers, based in Stockport, subsequently confirmed to police that it has a contract with Royal Mail to sell items lost in the post. It runs live and online auctions selling more than 5,000 items a week from a range of sources.
Mr Cannell said he had hit a brick wall with Royal Mail after making a series of complaints and demands for compensation.
To add insult to injury, some customers whose goods have disappeared are offered derisory compensation of little more than £1
He said: ‘Royal Mail admit the parcel was “lost” but they refuse to pay any compensation for the parcel contents.
‘After several attempts they offered and paid £1.10 to me which does not even cover the cost of the postage.
‘We know that Royal Mail sold the items to an auction house but it has made no offer of compensation despite being provided with my purchase receipts and the buyer’s invoice.
‘We have a loss of over £400. My customer is very annoyed because we have no legal recourse against the eBay seller or auction house as their transactions are legal.
‘In our opinion Royal Mail is acting dishonestly and making a profit from selling customers parcels that they are responsible for. They give a receipt when taking parcels into their care, but won’t accept responsibility for losing them.’
In fact, Royal Mail has been selling lost, or what it calls ‘undeliverable’ parcels, for decades.
It insisted it makes great efforts to make sure items are delivered to correct addresses as expected. It refused to say how many parcels are sold to auction houses or how much it makes as a result.
It said: ‘On the rare occasion where we are not able to locate a return address, items are held for a period of time awaiting contact from the sender or intended recipient.
‘Once all other options have been exhausted, we auction valuable items that cannot be returned in order to partially pay the considerable cost involved in seeking to re-unite customers with their items.’