Delivering your works of art

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Today I have been chatting to Niall Fairhead, an art dealer about some items and pieces of art he has hadÂ delivered, and the problems he has had when things have gone wrong…

The Royal Mail – Losing your art with little compensation:

There is an interesting story in the news which I find somewhat apropos for my own business. I often sell things and send them in the post to various clients both overseas and in the UK.

At the centre of this dispute there is a definition of the words “market value” : what the Royal Mail promises to pay for cover for losses for Special 9.00 am next day delivery service.

Evidently a dealer in coins and bank notes understood “market value” to mean what he had sold the goods to his clients for before he was posting them off. The Royal Mail considered “market value” to be what he had paid for them. Ask yourselves: why should the Dealer lose his hard earned profit?

Good Old Royal Mail lost some works and the redoubtable dealer, when he was not properly paid out, sued the Royal Mail in Rhyl County Court. The Learned Judge, I am glad to say, found in favour of the Dealer and awarded him costs and compensation. Bravo!

The Royal Mail, however, considered that County Court rulings do not always make precedents for other Courts and, no doubt, will hit other dealers with insufficient compensations in the future despite losing this particular case.

I myself have 2 cases running at the moment where 2 consignments sent to France, to different clients on different days, have been lost. The losing of these goods has caused me immense aggravation and problems with my clients who seem to want to blame me for the loss of their goods. The Royal Mail really seems little interested in my plight: I have filled in a gargantuan form and am told that I must wait 90 days while they investigate the problem. What happens then ? Well I guess they will offer me a cheese roll and a cup of tea compensation if they cannot find them.

I wholly support the Dealer who stood up against a monolith and won! Here’s applauding you sir!

Thanks Niall, that’s very eloquently put!

The service you use for delivery has to be adequate for the items you are sending. In this area Couriers excell. Yes, there is an alternative and that is to use a dedicated courier service.

Royal Mail don’t cover a lot of things with their insurances, they often only cover up to Â£2,500 and that leaves a client under insured if they want to make a claim, and in many cases they only get a proportional payout