A Maitland couple says Pep Stores het vir hulle ‘n kop aangesit after their parcel was apparently hijacked en route to the Eastern Cape.
Faiek and Zubeida Fredericks have been buying and selling clothes for over a year but says on 27 July, their R4500 parcel – mailed via Pep – failed to reach its destination of Jansenville.
Zubeida says she paid the R120 delivery fee: “I have been using Pep and their courier service PAXI, for more than a year.
“I dropped a R4500 parcel at the Kensington store but it did not reach the destination.
“My customer complained in the first week of August because it normally takes three to five days to arrive and after many calls we were only informed last week that the truck was hijacked but we have no idea where.
“They also informed us that their insurance policy only pays out R500.”
The couple says their business consists of a network of buyers and sellers and if one part fails, it affects everybody.
“My customers have orders that they have to fill so if we cannot make delivery then it means we have to pay those costs and getting only R500 on a R4500 expense is an obvious knock to our pockets.
“We are not a massive corporation.”
Pep spokesperson Tara Swanson-Pauw told the Daily Voice they are aware of the incident but failed to provide any details of the alleged hijacking.
“In the case of a lost parcel, PAXI or any associated company’s liability is specifically limited to the value of the parcel or R500, whichever amount is less,” she said.
“Paxi now offers additional parcel cover which customers can take out should their parcels be of a high value in order to protect customers against unexpected losses.
“This is, however, up to the discretion of the customer.”
But the couple says this was the first time that they were made aware of these terms and conditions.
Faiek says: “Nobody told us about these conditions and it is not posted anywhere in their stores or on the website.
“They have to be upfront with the customer, I mean how can they only pay us R500 on a R4500 order?
“Also we have no information about the hijacking so how do we know it really happened and they did not just lose the parcel?”
junior.bester@inl.co.za