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Capital letters

Happy landing after baby baggage is thrown out with the bathwater

In August, I arrived back at Stansted following a Ryanair flight from Italy with my daughter, her small children and a friend with a child.

It was 11pm and all our baggage, except a buggy and child car seat, came through. We were told to wait. By 12.30am we had to go. The next day, Ryanair wanted £60 to send the missing items to my daughter's home.

My daughter tried phoning several times to say her brother would pick the items up. He works nearby.

But when he finally arrived, he was told they had disposed of the items the day before as they had by then been there for seven days. Then another person said our goods were destroyed the day after the flight because my daughter "had argued and been rude".

I wrote to Ryanair. They quoted wrong dates, said the bag had been delivered, and said a form should have been filled in at the time. But there was no one with a form. Can you help?

MC, London

Ryanair has a reputation of having a robust attitude to passenger relations, claiming you can't expect much if you pay peanuts for your plane seat. But destroying goods when a customer argues is in a category of its own.

Ryanair has a legal liability to handle luggage with care even if you paid £1 for the flight. It sub-contracts handling to a firm called Swissport. And Swissport failed to hand out the.....continued below

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necessary "passenger irregularity report" which records complaints of lost items when you arrived.

So as there was no lost baggage form, the airline assumed you needed a normal delivery for £60. Your daughter angrily objected, saying she would rather lose the items than pay. Swissport took her literally, and so it failed to follow Ryanair procedures under which passenger baggage is retained for up to three months.

But there is a happy ending. Ryanair is offering, as a goodwill gesture, an apology and a refund of the full cost of buggy and seat - around £280.

Has my claim gone down the drain?

I am converting an old farm building. I bought a £650 a year policy, underwritten by insurer ACE, to cover problems. In November 2003, I submitted a £1,654 claim for damage to our neighbour's drains caused by my fencing contractor putting a concrete post through a waste pipe. But I am still no nearer payment.

DM, Hereford

Two firms of loss adjusters have visited the site - to no avail. While the contractor admits liability, his insurer refuses to play ball - and ACE is legally right in pursuing the fencer's insurer.

The damage was not on your land. But the policy covers "loss or damage to property not belonging to the insured".

Following a Capital Letters call, ACE has decided to pay your claim in full - less £100 excess under the public liability section to avoid a further protraction of this matter.

Full-bodied response to 'inexcusable' error

My HSBC plastic was hit by a £99.82 fraudulent transaction in September. The card number was from old plastic destroyed in February when I received a new chip and pin card. When I complained, HSBC told me not to worry. So I paid the bill less the £99.82. But in October, the amount reappeared plus £7.48 interest.