Greater Anglia Lost Property

[Wreford]

On 11 October, I was travelling to London on an early train for a funeral and so somewhat distracted, leaving my raincoat on the train at Ipswich. I walked about 50 feet down the platform before realising, then returned to my carriage to find the coat had already been picked up. I didn't have time to hunt down the guard, as I had to catch the connecting London train.

When got back to Ipswich the next day, I checked in with Customer services. It turns out the guard handed in the coat, a reference number was assigned by Ipswich Customer Services (which I have been given), but the coat had already been sent to a centralised depot in Welwyn Garden City, apparently run by a company called PakEx (though I cannot find any details on them).

Since then , despite tens of phone calls, I have been unable to get any update or response - other than, after the first week, when I received a message to say they could not find my coat but would try to track it down and call me back (which they have never done).

I have complained to Abelio but they say this in not their problem as the lost property is run by a private company. I cannot get any response from the private company (PakEx). I have two questions:
1) what is Abelio's legal obligation to return lost property?
2) what recourse do I have for compensation if I do not get my coat back?

Grateful for any thoughts or advice on this.

 

[Darandio]

The PakEx number is 01707373734.

I'm unsure whether you have rang them already, you said you couldn't find details on them but have made many phone calls, were these to somewhere else?

 

[Wreford]

Hi Darandio, thanks for your quick reply. I had tried calling them on a number of occasions - though the number I was given was 01707 325 355. Every time I called the number either rings out, or else goes to a message saying "This is Greater Anglia lost property office. You are currently being held in a queue, thank you for your patience"..... then, after repeating this twice, it goes to another message: "Sorry for the delay in answering your call. To enable us to provide the best service possible, please [leave details on our answerphone]". I have left about 15 messages but no one ever called back.

However, I just called the number you gave me and someone actually picked up for the first time. She said that her manager is dealing with my case, she would speak to him and call me back this afternoon. So, thank you very much indeed for that advice. I will post any outcome on this thread.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

what is Abelio's legal obligation to return lost property?

They must follow the procedure enumerated in the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977. Which is to say, they are in what is known as "involuntary bailment" of your property, and they must take reasonable care of it.

what recourse do I have for compensation if I do not get my coat back?

If the coat is lost through their negligence, you are entitled to its value at the time it was lost (i.e. not the cost of a new one, unless you had only just bought it that day), less GA's reasonable costs in being the bailees of your property.

 

[Wreford]

They must follow the procedure enumerated in the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977. Which is to say, they are in what is known as "involuntary bailment" of your property, and they must take reasonable care of it.


If the coat is lost through their negligence, you are entitled to its value at the time it was lost (i.e. not the cost of a new one, unless you had only just bought it that day), less GA's reasonable costs in being the bailees of your property.

That's very helpful. Many thanks. Let's see if they do actually call back this afternoon. Seems to me that they must have lost it, which is why the manager is dealing with it.

 

[tiptoptaff]

They must follow the procedure enumerated in the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977. Which is to say, they are in what is known as "involuntary bailment" of your property, and they must take reasonable care of it.


If the coat is lost through their negligence, you are entitled to its value at the time it was lost (i.e. not the cost of a new one, unless you had only just bought it that day), less GA's reasonable costs in being the bailees of your property.

As this would be a civil litigation, don't forget there can and will be said to be an element of contributory negligence on the part of the OP, as, it was their negligent act of leaving their coat on the train that caused the initial loss. (I mean negligence in its' legal term, whereby forgetting your item is deemed to be negligent as you did not take reasonable care of it. The fact it was an innocent mistake, one I'm sure many of us have done, myself included, is by the by)

It would be fairly difficult to prove that GA or their agents were negligent.

 

[gray1404]

Did you receive the call back from the manager today regarding your coat?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

As this would be a civil litigation, don't forget there can and will be said to be an element of contributory negligence on the part of the OP, as, it was their negligent act of leaving their coat on the train that caused the initial loss. (I mean negligence in its' legal term, whereby forgetting your item is deemed to be negligent as you did not take reasonable care of it. The fact it was an innocent mistake, one I'm sure many of us have done, myself included, is by the by)

It would be fairly difficult to prove that GA or their agents were negligent.

I doubt it would change the award made if GA simply "lost" the item. Being unable to account for it - despite admitting having the item somewhere - is clear evidence of negligence.

 

[Wreford]

Did you receive the call back from the manager today regarding your coat?

Hi gray1404, no: I have had no reply whatsoever yet, despite chasing 3 more times since. Oddly, I have tried calling the same number back (the 01707 325 355 number above) and it went to a "VirginTrains Lost Property" voicemail. I have no idea

 

[Wreford]

I guess my problem with this is that GA is refusing even to log this as a complaint as they say that, by logging the item and passing to PakEx, they have fulfilled their obligations. Yet they give no apparent means to contact PakEx, and PakEx appears, to all intents and purposes to have no public profile. So, even if I wanted to pursue a claim against PakEx, I have no means of contacting them or citing them in a small claims court.

But, on a more holistic level, it seems to me that GA should take some sort of responsibility for the service that they have chosen to outsource their lost property service to; and for the levels of customer service that their chosen provider gives GA customers.

 

[Clip]

Are you sure the company is PakEx? Have you tried the Excess Baggage company who normally deal with these things at the terminals so in this case liverpool street station?

 

[vinnym70]

If the initial summary is correct (ie: Ipswich customer services confirmed the guard had handed in the coat described) then I really do feel that GA need to deal with their third party on your behalf. You have reference numbers, which I presume were given with reasonable confidence of picking up of the missing coat as described.

The mere fact that the numbers given to contact the third party weren't accurate or don't get answered is something GA really should be helping you with.

What always surprises me with these kinds of situations is the willingness of companies to pass lost property to third parties so immediately. It seems perfectly sensible to me to hold onto lost property for a short period within the immediate region/franchise before getting third parties involved. Surely that just complicates the process of reunification in a large proportion of cases? After all, I'm sure GA are paying their third party for their services - if the customer isn't getting the service they have reasonable right to expect, GA should be telling their third party where they're going wrong. If everyone just shrugs and looks at each other and does nothing constructive situations like this are only to be expected.

Very sad, especially given the circumstance of the journey in the first place.

 

[SickyNicky]

After all, I'm sure GA are paying their third party for their services - if the customer isn't getting the service they have reasonable right to expect, GA should be telling their third party where they're going wrong.

Are you sure about that? I understand that some of the lost property companies offer their services for free, on the basis that they make money by charging the customer to collect their property. If that's the case, then the train company can quickly wash their hands of the administrative problem by passing the goods to the lost property company, costing them almost nothing (just a little labour to follow whatever the procedure is). Most importantly, they don't then have to employ public-facing staff to deal with customers.

 

[gray1404]

As a way forward email a complaint to GA. They will have to log that. If they do not help or if the information they provide is incorrect or upon following it you are still unable to get your property back, ask for your complaint to be looked at by a Manager and explain your reasons why. Should this still not be productive at this point then ask Transport Focus to take up your case for you (given the date the problem occurred).

 

[vinnym70]

Are you sure about that? I understand that some of the lost property companies offer their services for free, on the basis that they make money by charging the customer to collect their property.

Nope - total stab in the dark as far as lost property is concerned but generally observed in other outsourcing operations. You'd have to successfully re-unite a lot of lost property with it's owners to make a living if that's your only source of income. I'd also expect that a lost property operation is quite labour intensive. You need to catalogue all the property as it comes in and ensure that it's well recorded so that searches against the database are useful. You need to take incoming queries which some, at least, I would assume will be phone-based. You need to have sufficient storage to keep the lost property. You probably also need to have a reasonable mailing operation to return property. I'm not sure that an operation like that scales well based purely on payments from customers collecting their property... unless that fee is significant which in itself would be a deterrent to a lot of people.

As you point out, the train company no longer has to employ its own staff to do the role. So there's a nice saving there but outsourcing services are usually priced to make sure the service works out a little cheaper than doing it yourself just to keep everyone happy.

Would be very interesting to know for sure with way.

 

[Wreford]

Hello all: good news! I finally got a call back from PakEx yesterday saying they had located my coat and were sending it back free of charge by courier by way of apology for the delay/aggravation, etc. I just got confirmation of delivery from DPD, so all's ended well in the end.

Thanks in particular to Darandio and FortheLoveof for their very helpful advice. After my last post, I went into a frenzy of contact activity, which may have prompted their call - or maybe just a coincidence, but my guess is that the combination probably triggered their focus and call back. For anyone reading the thread in future,
I:

On Friday 4/01:

• Left a message on PakEx's switchboard, using the number above provided by Darandio (which now answers as Virgin Trains);
• Also a message with Greater Anglia's lost property number (0345 600 7245 - option 7);
• Also posted another Lost Property Report through GA's web site form;
• All messages said that I was filing a complaint with Transport Focus, given the complete lack of response to date; I also said that, if I did not receive any response within two working days, I would file a small claims court application against the Directors of PakEx for compensation on the basis that they have been negligent in following the procedure enumerated in the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 relating to "involuntary bailment" of goods.
• I then reported the case to Transport Focus (I actually reported it via a web form to the new Transport Ombudsman, which was very efficient: reviewed and allocated a case reference number, and transferred the case to Transport Focus as beyond their scope, within 10 mins of receipt).
  
• I then issued some tweets to @greateranglia complaining about the poor service from #PakEx. They referred me to PakEx's web site: www.pakexuk.com/Contact-us/info/3-3/ and recommended that I call their switchboard number 01707 384 858. (weirdly, the PakEx web site makes no mention of the relationship with GA, nor any mention of Lost Property service provision, and it seems to be primarily "a specialist supplier of industrial packaging products', which has now expanded into 'janitorial products, personal protective equipment, cleaning chemicals, first aid products and paper hygiene products'. I checked with the GA twitter account and it is definitely the correct company).

On Monday 7/10:

• I was going to call the PakEx switchboard (01707 384 858) on Monday morning but their call to me pre-empted that.

Anyway, many thanks to everyone for your help and interest in this - I am very grateful to have my coat back!

 

[TurbostarFan]

You should complain to GA in writing in my opinion, their contact details are on their website.