Compensation from Royal Mail

[guessmyusername]

Don't sell a lot on ebay, but have a bit of a problem. Selling a valuable (less than £50) but used item. Sent by recorded delivery and disappointingly it has got lost in the post. Claiming from royal mail and unless I can prove actual loss ie receipt for purchase etc they will only reimburse the postage price to a max of 6 stamps.

Has anyone got any advice?

Not really answering your question but Collect plus recently lost an item of mine that I sold. They refunded me what the item sold for, and postage price on top of that. They wouldn't refund me what I bought them for. All I had to do was show them the Ebay/PayPal transaction as proof for what it sold for + postage. I don't get why Royal Mail would be different as that's a pretty shit policy to be honest.

redwine they’re not different. I’ve done exactly the same as you in the past ie use the printed copy of the invoice and or Paypal details to prove sale price and Royal Mail refunded the sale price and postage based on that. Had to do it a few times, never had a problem.

I’m pretty sure as you’re a private seller they will refund what it sold for if you show them a copy of the ebay sales record.

FYI If you’re a business seller then you just get what you paid for it originally, which obviously you will have proof for.

I am a private seller and I did send royal mail a copy of the item particulars showing price paid and their reply was as stated above. What they were looking for was original receipt (don't have as it was purchased ages ago!) or bank statement etc

Copied from Royal Mail website:
Evidence of the actual loss must be provided to enable Royal Mail to determine the value of the contents of a packet. Such evidence might be original receipts, bank or credit card statements, details of age, paypal record, invoices, manufacturing costs, auctioneers valuation, and repair costs in the case of damage claims. This list is not exhaustive and is for illustrative purposes only.

I wonder if this is new policy or reinforcing a previously lax policy.

A similar thing recently happened to me.... I wrote back a very strongly worded letter about how I would have to refund the buyer AND I had lost the item, what was the point of my posting signed for if they were only going to lose it and repay 6 stamps, blah, blah. I enclosed copies of the ebay sale, paypal payment etc, and also found the same as my item on Amazon and printed off the amazon page stating this was the purchase cost (my item was new and unused) and I also printed of the Royal Mail compensation page showing they were liable for paying up to £20 compensation on this type of lost item.
Royal Mail then sent me a cheque for the full amount, so it is worth pursuing it.

I had something recently which went missing - it was a coat worth £35. I still had the receipt showing tracking number & completed the claims form online. I uploaded a screenshot of the eBay listing & reference number.

Got all of my money back - including postage & packaging.

Sounds like a scam is circulating where folk post each other stuff, then claim for the supposed "purchase" price. Shame folk are scum.

I’ve only once had to claim for lost item. I gave them a copy of the ebay selling page and they refunded that plus the actual postage I paid. I would just show them the ebay sale page ... that’s all they need ...