[WTD] LOST - First Watt M2 Power Amplifier - DIY Clone

[eastone]

I'm really sorry to hear about this, Eastone. I had a similar experience myself with a very rare and valuable motor car brake servo. It did finally turn up - about six weeks later by which time I had sourced another - at considerable expense.

Anyway this isn't about me, but the experience of pursuing a compensation claim taught me some lessons which it will be valuable for me to pass on:-

1. Find the website for Consumer Action Group. It is a mutual help forum with some tame consumer rights lawyers on board. They deal with this stuff day-in day-out. They provide free advice to punters with consumer rights grievances and a large part of their website is devoted to compensation claims against carriers for missing or damaged goods. Have a good read of the "Carriers" sub-forum to absorb a bit of what other folk (me included) have had to go through to pursue a claim. Then register to participate on the forum and post a description of your problem. The site management will assign a consumer lawyer to your case. Keep checking back on the forum to pick up your latest advice and instructions from him/her.
2. All the carrier companies (and I mean ALL) will fight tooth and nail to resist any compensation claim, even where the customer has insured the consignment. It is part of their business model to refuse all claims, and they are generally not too particular about how they do it. Much of the supposed "law" they will throw at you will be knowingly wrong. Do not underestimate how unscrupulous they are.
3. Contrary to what they will tell you you CAN proceed against them in the small claims court, despite your primary contract being with Parcel2Go or some similar comparison website. This is the result of recent(-ish) statutory modifications to the common law rules on privity of contract. You will find out about this on the Consumer Action Group forum.
4. Contrary to what they will tell you, the liability exclusion clauses they have inserted in their T&Cs (which purport to protect them from claims in the event of loss or damage) are LEGALLY INEFFECTIVE. You can't contract out of doing the very thing you have agreed to do - it makes a nonsense of the law of contract.
5. Again, contrary to what they will tell you, you do NOT have to have paid the supplementary insurance premium in order to be able to pursue a claim against them. The courts take the view that requiring the client to have insured is in effect no different to forcing them to indemnify the carrier against the negligence or dishonesty of their own employees. The Courts have explicitly struck down this requirement as an unfair contract term in decided cases.

You have to understand that the carrier company's "customer service" department will make this process as slow and painful for you as possible. They will tell you that you are wrong when you are right, they will fail to answer your emails for long periods of time, they will respond to you with exactly the same words and arguments as they did last time, even though you have demonstrated in the intervening time that their position is untenable. It will be like pulling teeth without anaesthetic. This is all intentional and a quite deliberate strategy on the carrier's part to deter would-be complainants, either by scaring them off with legally inaccurate mumbo jumbo, or just making them give up through sheer frustration. This is how they do business.

HOWEVER, if you are tenacious and persist you can push through - people have been successful in the past and have recounted their success stories on the forum. Be aware, though, that even though you do not need to have insured your consignment for your claim to succeed, any compensation you receive will nevertheless be capped at the value you quoted for your item when you booked the service. That value represents the amount of risk you have told them they are taking-on at the outset and you will not be allowed to argue that it should be a higher figure.

That said, my money is on your amp turning up eventually. Good luck!

Can’t thank you enough for this post.

 

[Avinunca]

You should also have a look at this organisation
https://www.resolver.co.uk/

How does it work?
We don't act on your behalf and we don't take control of your complaint. Instead, we’ve set out to make it as easy as possible for you to get results.

Search for a company, answer a few simple questions about your issue, and you’re off.

We create a personal case file for your issue, so you are in control and can manage everything from one place. You can add evidence, reply to a communication, track your progress or even download everything to your device.

 

[Whaleblue]

I'm really sorry to hear about this, Eastone. I had a similar experience myself with a very rare and valuable motor car brake servo. It did finally turn up - about six weeks later by which time I had sourced another - at considerable expense.

Anyway this isn't about me, but the experience of pursuing a compensation claim taught me some lessons which it will be valuable for me to pass on:-

1. Find the website for Consumer Action Group. It is a mutual help forum with some tame consumer rights lawyers on board. They deal with this stuff day-in day-out. They provide free advice to punters with consumer rights grievances and a large part of their website is devoted to compensation claims against carriers for missing or damaged goods. Have a good read of the "Carriers" sub-forum to absorb a bit of what other folk (me included) have had to go through to pursue a claim. Then register to participate on the forum and post a description of your problem. The site management will assign a consumer lawyer to your case. Keep checking back on the forum to pick up your latest advice and instructions from him/her.
2. All the carrier companies (and I mean ALL) will fight tooth and nail to resist any compensation claim, even where the customer has insured the consignment. It is part of their business model to refuse all claims, and they are generally not too particular about how they do it. Much of the supposed "law" they will throw at you will be knowingly wrong. Do not underestimate how unscrupulous they are.
3. Contrary to what they will tell you you CAN proceed against them in the small claims court, despite your primary contract being with Parcel2Go or some similar comparison website. This is the result of recent(-ish) statutory modifications to the common law rules on privity of contract. You will find out about this on the Consumer Action Group forum.
4. Contrary to what they will tell you, the liability exclusion clauses they have inserted in their T&Cs (which purport to protect them from claims in the event of loss or damage) are LEGALLY INEFFECTIVE. You can't contract out of doing the very thing you have agreed to do - it makes a nonsense of the law of contract.
5. Again, contrary to what they will tell you, you do NOT have to have paid the supplementary insurance premium in order to be able to pursue a claim against them. The courts take the view that requiring the client to have insured is in effect no different to forcing them to indemnify the carrier against the negligence or dishonesty of their own employees. The Courts have explicitly struck down this requirement as an unfair contract term in decided cases.

You have to understand that the carrier company's "customer service" department will make this process as slow and painful for you as possible. They will tell you that you are wrong when you are right, they will fail to answer your emails for long periods of time, they will respond to you with exactly the same words and arguments as they did last time, even though you have demonstrated in the intervening time that their position is untenable. It will be like pulling teeth without anaesthetic. This is all intentional and a quite deliberate strategy on the carrier's part to deter would-be complainants, either by scaring them off with legally inaccurate mumbo jumbo, or just making them give up through sheer frustration. This is how they do business.

HOWEVER, if you are tenacious and persist you can push through - people have been successful in the past and have recounted their success stories on the forum. Be aware, though, that even though you do not need to have insured your consignment for your claim to succeed, any compensation you receive will nevertheless be capped at the value you quoted for your item when you booked the service. That value represents the amount of risk you have told them they are taking-on at the outset and you will not be allowed to argue that it should be a higher figure.

That said, my money is on your amp turning up eventually. Good luck!

Thanks for this - I’m surprised I’ve never seen such advice before!

I always thought that the idea of insuring against a carrier failing to do what you’ve paid for was absurd. I take it yours is a professional perspective?

 

[monstrous lie]

Well, yes and no.
I am a qualified lawyer, but it was 1976 when I was called to the bar. Plus I never practised in the field of consumer rights and I have been retired for several years now anyway, so I am really not offering these learnings as my own "professional" opinion. Rather I am reporting the advice that was given to me on the Consumer Action Group forum by currently active legal practitioners. Exactly what their professional status is (as regards qualifications earned and years of experience) I couldn't say, nor do I know what their professional indemnity insurance situation is. But I can say I did a good deal of reading around the issues that mattered in my case (principally the ones I have set out in my earlier post) and it seemed to me that the advice I was being offered appeared to be correct both by reference to that reading around and by reference to my long-ingrained understanding of how contract law works.

You are right to be cautious, though, and you should certainly treat the contents of my earlier post as a helpful report of my experience rather than a definitive statement of the law. There may be some relevant statements (or disclaimers) on the website itself indicating to what extent readers should rely on the advice given.

 

[wulbert]

5. Again, contrary to what they will tell you, you do NOT have to have paid the supplementary insurance premium in order to be able to pursue a claim against them. The courts take the view that requiring the client to have insured is in effect no different to forcing them to indemnify the carrier against the negligence or dishonesty of their own employees. The Courts have explicitly struck down this requirement as an unfair contract term in decided cases.

This resonates with what I've often though though when coughing up extra for courier insurance; "I'm paying you extra to cover the risk of you stealing or losing my stuff?" Shouldn't that be the basic service offered in the first place?

It's almost a protection racket: "Be a shame if your expensive amplifier went "missing" or there was a fire in the warehouse now gov, wouldn't it?". "Give us a pony and we'll look after nicely it for ya"

 

[Whaleblue]

Well, yes and no.
I am a qualified lawyer, but it was 1976 when I was called to the bar. Plus I never practised in the field of consumer rights and I have been retired for several years now anyway, so I am really not offering these learnings as my own "professional" opinion. Rather I am reporting the advice that was given to me on the Consumer Action Group forum by currently active legal practitioners. Exactly what their professional status is (as regards qualifications earned and years of experience) I couldn't say, nor do I know what their professional indemnity insurance situation is. But I can say I did a good deal of reading around the issues that mattered in my case (principally the ones I have set out in my earlier post) and it seemed to me that the advice I was being offered appeared to be correct both by reference to that reading around and by reference to my long-ingrained understanding of how contract law works.

You are right to be cautious, though, and you should certainly treat the contents of my earlier post as a helpful report of my experience rather than a definitive statement of the law. There may be some relevant statements (or disclaimers) on the website itself indicating to what extent readers should rely on the advice given.

Thanks - missed this post earlier in the week, but appreciate the full reply.

 

[Dan K]

Would love to know what happened to this..

 

[Vinny]

"I'm paying you extra to cover the risk of you stealing or losing my stuff?" Shouldn't that be the basic service offered in the first place?

No.

With the PO, I beleive the figure is £20, but insurance as part of the basic charge only goes to a certain figure. By paying just the basic charge, you are insuring only to that figure and effectively stating that the item is worth no more.

Surely all couriers work the same way? Charges are related to size, weight and value.
Why would any sane courier that wants to stay in business, transport 500g of flour for the same price as 500g of Waterford crystal, or 500g of gold?

 

[wulbert]

No.

With the PO, I beleive the figure is £20, but insurance as part of the basic charge only goes to a certain figure. By paying just the basic charge, you are insuring only to that figure and effectively stating that the item is worth no more.

Surely all couriers work the same way? Charges are related to size, weight and value.
Why would any sane courier that wants to stay in business, transport 500g of flour for the same price as 500g of Waterford crystal, or 500g of gold?

Because they transport every package with equal care? Because they always blame the person who carried out the packaging in the event of breakage anyway?

It wouldn't be so bad if the "insurance" actually worked in good faith. I had an item disappear in the care of Royal Mail and the process to claim compensation was arcane and difficult in the extreme. Correspondence in writing only etc. It finally produced a cheque after 3 months or so.
However, as you say. They are all at it.

PS: I also actually had bags of flour burst by Royal Mail. Piles of it on the road and up the path. No compensation forthcoming.

 

[Vinny]

Because they transport every package with equal care? Because they always blame the person who carried out the packaging in the event of breakage anyway?

It wouldn't be so bad if the "insurance" actually worked in good faith. I had an item disappear in the care of Royal Mail and the process to claim compensation was arcane and difficult in the extreme. Correspondence in writing only etc. It finally produced a cheque after 3 months or so.
However, as you say. They are all at it.

PS: I also actually had bags of flour burst by Royal Mail. Piles of it on the road and up the path. No compensation forthcoming.

So household contents insurance, car insurance, in fact individual types/classes of insurance, should cost exactly the same, irrespective of what is covered because the risks are around the same within that type? That is one hell of a business model.
Or are you arguing that couriers be the only exception?

Also, no-one has any idea why this has gone AWOL - if it wasn't packed exceedingly well, something of that weight was just begging to get lost and/or damaged.

I have never had a problem claiming for lost stuff; a friend had no problem last week.

 

[eastone]

So household contents insurance, car insurance, in fact individual types/classes of insurance, should cost exactly the same, irrespective of what is covered because the risks are around the same within that type? That is one hell of a business model.
Or are you arguing that couriers be the only exception?

Also, no-one has any idea why this has gone AWOL - if it wasn't packed exceedingly well, something of that weight was just begging to get lost and/or damaged.

I have never had a problem claiming for lost stuff; a friend had no problem last week.

It was exceedingly well packed, for the record.

 

[Stuart Frazer]

Sorry to read this @eastone I do hope this still eventually turns up for you.

 

[lawrence001]

So household contents insurance, car insurance, in fact individual types/classes of insurance, should cost exactly the same, irrespective of what is covered because the risks are around the same within that type? That is one hell of a business model.
Or are you arguing that couriers be the only exception?

But when you pay a courier to deliver something you have a contract with them to do so and can expect them to take reasonable care and attention, and they can be liable for losses if they don't. Consumer law dictates such but may require taking to court to do so.

Consumer law also sets some basic expectations that cannot be waived. I imagine holding them not liable for any loss or damage while in their care is one such case, whether or not you choose to take their insurance.

Taking out house insurance is a contract in itself, it's not insurance for an underlying good or service provided by the same company so I don't see the connection.

 

[monstrous lie]

But when you pay a courier to deliver something you have a contract with them to do so and can expect them to take reasonable care and attention, and they can be liable for losses if they don't. Consumer law dictates such but may require taking to court to do so.

That's how I see it too. Selling you a service and then charging extra to ensure that service is carried out as agreed is a nonsense. Imagine going into a grocery and buying a bag of flour. You pay your £2.50 or whatever but then the grocer says "Ah, but it will be an extra £2.50 if you want me to hand it across the counter to you without accidentally splitting the bag". You would be outraged and rightly so!
ML