DPD mixed up my returns - what should I do?

[anomies]

Consumer protection wisdom wanted. I bought two expensive items, a robovac and a pram, in the Black Friday sales. I changed my mind on both and returned them unopened. Both companies offered a courier return service at a cost to be taken from my refund (£25 and £10 respectively). Both companies contracted DPD for this service. I booked them for the same day. I think you can see where this is going.

I labelled each parcel manually with the correct return address. The courier turned up, stuck a small red label on each parcel and gave me a couple of slips with barcodes on, and took them away. Now it turns out that the courier mixed up his labels. Wrong parcels went to wrong companies. Robovac sitting with pram company. Pram presumably sitting in robot warehouse, but they haven’t even checked it in properly yet so can’t confirm! They said they should let me know by the end of this week.

The pram company alerted me to this this morning. In the initial conversation she said that they would be requesting a refund from DPD which they would pass on to me. Now changed her tune and saying that they can’t refund until they have the pram
back. They want to send the robovac back to me in the meantime.

AIBU to feel uneasy about this? I feel that I passed the items to their chosen courier company, they fucked it up, the items are no longer in my possession and I definitely don’t want to be drawn into more liability (what if it gets broken in transit and I get blamed? What if I get burgled?) or more rigmarole around returns or exchanges. On the other hand pragmatically speaking maybe I should just accept the package back otherwise god knows how long this will take to sort out. I feel vaguely that there is probably some sort of consumer protection law around this but I don’t know what it is. Advice appreciated

and a little poll:

YANBU - you returned the items to their courier, it’s their responsibility to sort out, don’t accept any parcels back
YABU - DPD will never give you what you want, take package(s) back, at least that way you have a robot hoover

The courier should be able to sort without getting you involved

I'd demand them to send the packages to each other in return for me not reclaiming admin fees. They can each dispute the fee with their DPD account manager. Get the robovac firm to kick it off by requesting the pram collection.

Legally speaking if the companies were the ones who booked and paid for the courier the onus is on them to deal with the fallout with dpd ... however they may want proof that you did put the correct details on the items first. Do the barcodes dpd gave you match up with where they should have gone?

Ultimately if the companies contracted dpd your responsibility ended when they collected the parcels and they have 14 days from that point to refund you, enforcing your rights can be difficult though.

Thanks! I haven’t really investigated the bar codes tbh but I did address the parcels in the normal way with the return addresses, surely it’s their responsibility to sort their bar codes out! @MurrayTheMooCow your take accords with DH’s but as you say, difficult to know how to enforce, esp with DPD being almost impossible to communicate with

So provided you ordered them both online (without seeing them instore first) and requested a cancellation within 14 days of receiving them it's the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 you're relying on. This gives you 14 days to request to cancel and another 14 days to send back. The retailer can ask you to pay for the return but must refund any standard outward postage if you return the whole order (dont know if you paid to have them delivered?).

The retailer must refund within 14 days of either receiving the item back or the item being passed on to their agent (dpd if they have organised the return). Since you've passed the items on you've done your part and should be refunded but if those barcodes can prove you did everything correctly it should hopefully speed things up.

Worthwhile pointing out that as the retailers paid for the return service, you have no relationship with dpd (they are merely acting as an agent for the retailer) so you shouldn't have to be chasing dpd yourself.

All well and good me telling you this but its scary how many retailers aren't aware of the law. If all else fails try googling the ceo email address for each company and contact them. You'll usually get an executive customer service agent who'll be more able or willing to help.

*far too many years spent in retail management 😪

@MurrayTheMooCow this is magnificent, thank you so much for taking the time to write it all out 😘😘😘I will play this card if I don’t get anything helpful from them by tomorrow! Thanks again x

Agree with PPs that you don't need to get further involved in the mix up. Put it in writing to both the pram and robovac companies that you expect your refund, as you returned the goods via DPD as requested on x date and in accordance with their returns policies. Each company needs to make their own claim via DPD to be reimbursed, legally it doesn't fall to you as the consumer to do anything further.

It is the companies you bought the items from that have contracts with DHL not you, if you don't have a contract you can't enforce it. The sellers need to get this sorted out. Said sellers will have an ongoing relationship ship with DHL maybe even a specified account manager so are far more likely to get a reasonable and speedy remedy than you. Contact your sellers and tell them straight, you have a contract with them that you have fulfilled by handing the items to their nominated representative, whatever happens to the items after this point and 100% the responsibility of the seller. Seller needs to refund or replace which ever you wish and then take it up with their representative to be reimbursed or have the items returned to them.

Obviously I meant DPD 😇😅🤣