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A BUSINESS owner has claimed Royal Mail are costing “hundreds of pounds” after they left her customer’s “delivered” parcel in a bin.
Sophie Taylor, owner of pet business Taylor and Floof, sent a customer’s order of two jumpers and a matching sweater for their dog over two months ago.
The 27-year-old says she used Royal Mail and their tracking parcel service to ensure the £120 worth of items reached her customer in the run up to Christmas.
However, Sophie was informed by the customer that the items never reached them, forcing the businesswoman to reimburse them and request a refund from Royal Mail.
Then last month, Royal Mail informed Sophie that her refund would not be granted as the parcel had been delivered – attaching a proof of delivery photo of the parcel at the bottom of a bin.
The image attached shows the green parcel sitting atop a pile of cans and plastic in what appears to be a green recycling wheelie bin.
Royal Mail claim the parcel was delivered on the morning of 21 December, despite Sophie’s customer claiming they never received it.
Taylor took to TikTok yesterday to explain her frustration.
In the video Taylor is wrapping an order whilst speaking about her experience saying: “Royal Mail is costing my small business hundreds of pounds, let me tell you why.
“During the strikes last year I had a few parcels go missing. To try and stop this (from happening), I upgraded all of the postage to tracked – this would give both me and the buyer a bit of peace of mind.
“All was going fine until the customer contacted me saying that they haven’t received their item after talking to Royal Mail they had told me that it had gotten lost and to put in a claim for a refund.
“I obviously refunded the customer as it was just before Christmas and there wasn’t enough time to get a new item sent out to her.
“One month later, I received a letter saying that Royal Mail were not going to refund me because they had in fact delivered the item.
“After I checked the tracking, they had delivered it but the picture attached was of a bin, they didn’t deliver it – they disposed of it.
“This was an order worth over £100 which they just put into a bin, the customer didn’t get their order and I’m now out of pocket – not really sure what to do now.”
The post has received more than 3,500 likes and over 160 comments.
One user wrote: “Honestly just fight your case. I’ve had this with Royal Mail quite a bit and they’ve always paid the compensation eventually.”
Another wrote: “Unless the buyer has put the safe place as their bin, you can still claim for this, don’t let them say you can’t.”
A third commented: “That’s so unfair, can you use Parcelforce? I work for a small business and they’re actually good at claims and we haven’t had an item go missing.”
One user wrote: “Royal Mail are a major part of the reason I’ve been delaying reopening my Etsy shop.”
Another replied: “Unfortunately that’s down to the actual person that was delivering your parcel, sometimes sadly people are just rubbish. Sorry this happened.”
Speaking today Sophie said: “After a week and a half I got a message from the customer asking if there was any update on the parcel.
“I confirmed I had shipped it and re-sent the tracking info but said I would look into it as it shouldn’t take that long to arrive, all other parcels were taking two to four days to arrive.
“I checked the tracking and according to the tracking the parcel hadn’t moved in the two weeks since I sent it.
“I called Royal Mail and they said if it hasn’t moved its most likely gone missing and recommended I refund the customer and put in a claim for a refund from them.
“I filled in the claim and refunded my customer as they had done nothing wrong and also it was a season-themed item so if it couldn’t arrive before Christmas wasn’t really worth it.
“On 14 January I then got a letter from Royal Mail saying they would not be refunding me as they delivered the parcel on 21 December at 10:14am.
“I checked the tracking and it said delivered but the picture was of a bin. So I now need to call Royal Mail back up and ask why it was put in the bin.
“I’m not sure if the customer can put that as a safe place if they aren’t in but I know it happens to me personally a lot where the parcel is just left outside or hidden but no note is put through the post box so its a bit of a treasure hunt to find the order.
“It does make it that one step harder for small businesses to keep going. In the current climate every order counts and genuinely means so much.
“I make sure lots of time and effort goes into every order which is one of the main reasons people buy from small businesses.
“Effort goes into the product, the wrapping, the packaging, thank you notes and for that to just be put in a bin it really hurts and makes me so upset.
“It puts the small business in a terrible situation. If you are just starting out any bad reviews will tank your Etsy store.
“So you have to refund the item because it’s not the buyers fault but its also not your fault.
“This is where you trust in the delivery company who, if at fault, need to pay out and when they don’t that affects what products I can order in or if I can even create anything new to help the business grow.
“I was literally shocked and almost cried because I know how long that order took me to create.
“Also I was annoyed it had gone into the recycling bin when the only thing that could be recycled was the outer packaging and the thank you card inside.”
A spokesperson for Royal Mail said today (THUR): “Every item of mail is important to us, and we are very sorry if something went wrong on this occasion.
“We are looking into what happened, and are in touch with our customer to address her complaint.”
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