@royalmail Royal Mail Negligence regarding a PO BOX

[Eversir]

Royal Mail has failed to forward post from a PO Box (a service we paid for). This is despite being made aware of a problem several months ago. I want to know what recourse we have against them, if any.

 

Firstly, this is a business-business transaction. We have a small company and have a PO Box mailing address which we pay for. This was setup in September 2014. We paid an additional fee to have all mail sent to this PO Box forwarded on to a physical address.

 

In November 2014 we became aware of an issue whereby our clients (other businesses) would attempt to return signed contracts for work to our PO Box address. These never arrived with us despite repeated attempts. We made an enquiry with Royal Mail; there was apparently an issue with the PO Box and this was supposedly resolved in December 2014. We got a couple of letters through shortly after, with the forwarding address handwritten on the envelope.

 

We haven't received any mail from our PO Box address since. We recently had an email from one of our suppliers to say their invoice had been returned to them by Royal Mail with a sticker on it saying "Addressee gone away". Until then we had no solid proof the mail wasn't just going missing in the post.

 

We contacted royal mail again. They have since sent a letter informing us that they had failed to pass on instructions to the delivery office that all mail should be forwarded on. Any mail we have been sent has just been sitting at the delivery office, where presumably after a certain amount of time it is returned or disposed of. No-one even thought to try contacting us. Royal mail merely issued an apology, trusting that's enough to settle the issue. After phoning this morning, I was told they would "put a note on the account" and "someone will be in touch".

 

These mistakes have damaged our company's reputation with our suppliers and probably our clients too. As one of our primary contact methods, we may have missed out on business from prospective clients too (we spent quite a lot of money on a postal marketing campaign).

 

The problem I can forsee is that in the terms and conditions, Royal Mail limit their liability with the following paragraph:

 

If we do not provide the service because of our negligence, we will credit you on a pro rata daily basis for each working day when we did not provide the service and this will be our only liability to you except for liability that cannot by law be excluded or limited, such as liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

Thoughts on this gladly welcomed.

[Conniff]

You will need to assess your exact losses before you can make any attempt at a claim.

[BazzaS]

You will need to assess your exact losses before you can make any attempt at a claim.

 

What is the point of spending time quantifying any losses if the claim is doomed?.

 

The key issue is if the exclusion criteria in the Terms & Conditions is valid or not.

The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 is the key determinant (for an action in Tort for negligence, or in Contract Law for breach of contract),

 

The fact that the OP was dealing as a business rather than as a consumer gives them more of an uphill struggle, but doesn't completely prevent a claim.

 

Were the terms & conditions made clear to the business?

How prominent was the exclusion?. Was your attention specifically brought to it?

 

The issue may well become if the term was "reasonable" or not (UCTA 1977 S6(3)).

Schedule 2 of UCTA 1977 lays out the guidelines of application of the "reasonableness" test, but in the end it would be for a court to decide. If legal advice suggests you might have a claim, then it would be worth quantifying your losses, to see if it would be worthwhile proceeding.

[Conniff]

What is the point of spending time quantifying any losses if the claim is doomed?.

 

Because B2B does have course for redress. Life isn't all about consumers.

[Eversir]

Quantifiable losses at the minute, obviously just the cost of the service which we never received (~£170). Not sure how you can quantify damage to our company reputation or prospective clients right now.

 

Bazza does raise a valid concern: there isn't a great deal of point spending time trying to assess these additional losses if we couldn't claim against RM. I know there are limitations on exclusion clauses in B2B contracts, but this isn't something I am particularly knowledgable on.

 

For example, when considering this “reasonableness” test, would a judge merely look at the contract or would they also take into account the specific situation too? The negligence isn't just a one-off mistake – it's continued/repeated despite the problem being previously identified and supposedly remedied.

 

Re: presentation of terms: The terms of service were presented after the form that needed to be signed in the PDF document. This is despite a ton of information being presented before the form, which I did read. Attention was not specifically brought to this exclusion. It actually sits in a long paragraph under the heading “General”, with a bunch of other terms.

 

 

Don't know if there is any scope for bringing a claim under either the Postal Services Act 2000 or Post Office Act 1969. Will have a read through. Thanks to both of you so far.