[woodcote]

When things go right - which they do most of time - all is good. When things go wrong, these companies choose not have systems in place to recover lost parcels - it's how they keep their costs down and make a profit. It's much more 'efficient' to write-off a shipment and pay compensation than to employ dozens of people across the country to do an 'unnecessary' job.

Some former public services have an ombudsman to help mediate disputes. The postal/courier services does not. The independent Postal Redress Service only covers the Post Office and Royal Mail - not Parcelforce or any other carrier of large parcels. Ofcom regulates the communications industry (including postal services), although the industry-specific Postcomm was closed in 2011. But Ofcom has no powers to investigate individual cases in postal services... So any dispute with a courier company has to go through their own inadequate complaints procedure and then the courts - which is likely to end with exactly the same level of compensation offered, minus legal fees.


My hunch is that Graham's dogged perseverance might eventually crack this Kafkaesque nightmare and get that box of cars back. However, I would be very wary of discussing compensation at this stage... I suspect DPD will happily pay up so they can close the case and get us off their backs.