royal mail "guaranteed" delivery & compensation

[sjr8080]

Hi all

Posted a job application last September - the closing date was 12 noon the following day - so I used Royal Mail 9AM Guaranteed delivery - paying £19 for the privilege.

 

 

I tried to trace the letter the next day but no information was available - tried again the next day and was shocked to discover the item still hadn't been delivered.

 

 

To cut a long story short - the HR department refused to accept my application. I filled in a P58 form to complain about late delivery and the loss of my time it took for me to complete the form.

 

 

3 months later I get a generic letter - they couldn't tell me why it was delayed but sent their apologies and sent me a cheque for £19 "compensation"!. Spoke to customer service - and told them I don't consider a refund as compensation and what could I do about the loss of my time - due to their incompetence I wasted approx. 10 hrs of my time (it was a VERY long form) - she told me I wasn't guaranteed to get the job anyway (not the point) and that £19 was all I was entitled to.

 

 

Is this right - if 9am guaranteed mail is delayed are you only entitled to your money back?

[BazzaS]

If lost you are entitled to the monetary value of the item lost up to £50. If delayed rather than lost, you get the money you paid back.

 

The £50 may be a typo on their site : the maximum for loss for the 1pm service is £500.

 

You can buy additional insurance against consequential loss, though it might be hard to quantify such in this case, and it is moot if you didn't buy such.

 

http://www.royalmail.com/personal/uk-delivery/special-delivery

[Its WAR]

Special Delivery before 9am IS only £50 compensation for some reason. But the form still only takes about 10 minutes.