CRANE ON THE CASE: UPS charged me £441 to post my boat sail 

I am a keen yachtsman, and in March 2023 I sold a sail that I no longer needed on Gumtree to someone on the other side of the country.

I carefully packed it up and went to the website of parcel carrier UPS to pay for and print the shipping label.

Based on its 80cm by 50cm size and 15.5 kilogram weight I paid £35 for the postage, and the sail was collected from my home by a UPS driver.

But shortly afterwards, I discovered that UPS had charged an extra £441 to the bank card I used to pay the original postage cost.

Sail sale: Our reader listed his yacht sail on Gumtree, but got a nasty surprise when he posted it

UPS claimed that I had entered inaccurate dimensions and charged me for a 40kg package.

I contacted customer services, and got the buyer of the sail to confirm the dimensions and weight of the package as he received it.

I did receive a refund in early April, but only for £35. I have heard nothing since despite getting in touch several more times. Can you help? G.F, via email.

Helen Crane of This is Money replies: You are a pensioner and were hoping to make some extra cash by selling this sail – but UPS’ incompetence threw you off course.

You couldn’t fathom why the firm charged you nearly £450 to send a parcel which weighed 15 and a half kilograms – especially without warning. 

To put that in context, it is about the same weight as eight standard bricks, two large bowling balls or a microwave. Not a small parcel – but easily manageable for a courier.

I imagine you felt seasick when you checked your bank account and discovered the hefty charge.

Given you had sold the sail for £110, you were left hundreds out of pocket.  

You tried to navigate the choppy waters of UPS’ customer service centre, but sadly it didn’t get you very far.

You told me the company accused you of putting in the wrong measurements for your package – although you have emails proving that you entered them correctly.

You even asked the buyer of your sail to confirm how big it was when it arrived, which he did. 

But according to UPS, you had claimed the package was 2cm by 1cm by 50cm, but weighed 40kg. 

I can’t think of a single item that would fit that description – answers on a postcard, please.

It seems you did manage to get someone at UPS to see some sense, as on 5 April, you were told you would be refunded the extra charges in full.

Dead end: Our reader emailed UPS to ask for his £441 parcel charge back, but didn’t get it

However, it is now almost three months later and that refund never came.

I am pleased to say that, when I got in touch with UPS, it quickly got everything ship shape. 

It has refunded you the erroneous charges and you told me that it also offered you a £100 goodwill gesture, which you accepted.

A UPS spokesperson said: ‘Serving our customers is at the centre of everything that we do. We are refunding the charges, and we regret any inconvenience caused.’

A box clever idea from Sage

Reader Annemarie has been in touch to praise kitchen appliance seller Sage for its ‘sensible’ policy when it comes to returning faulty goods.

When her combi microwave, oven and air fryer stopped working, she said she was ‘dreading’ having to return it as she hadn’t kept the bulky box that it came in.

Do you keep the box? Retaining bulky packaging in case you need to return an expensive purchase can be inconvenient

Many of us suffer from box anxiety – and me included, which is why the huge package my TV arrived in has been taking up most of my under stairs cupboard for the last year.  

Some retailers will accept returns without the original packaging, especially if the item is faulty – but they don’t have to, and some will insist on it. 

So Annemarie was delighted that with Sage it was not a problem.

‘Sage delivered the new oven and told me to pack the old one in the new packaging, then contact DPD to collect it,’ she said. ‘They took a deposit which would be returned when they received the oven.

‘How sensible. How many of us have the space to store boxes full of polystyrene that packaged our numerous appliances?’

It’s good to see a firm thinking outside the box – or in this case, within it.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk