A man says a £10,000 gold bar, which he planned to use for part of his pension, has been lost by Royal Mail.
Rob Hobson bought a 100g gold Britannia bar from his dad’s inheritance and had agreed a buyback offer from the Royal Mint after it was valued at £9,731.
But despite sending it special delivery and with extra insurance, the bar never arrived at its destination.
Royal Mail has launched an investigation, and Devon and Cornwall Police said it is carrying out inquiries after it was reported to them.
But Rob, 65, of Torquay, Devon, said: ‘I put my trust in the Royal Mail. The terms I sent it by surely say it all….SP Guaranteed next day!
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‘I don’t want compensation. I want my gold back. Someone knows where it is.’
Despite buying extra insurance for the parcel, Rob was later told it only has a maximum compensation of £750.
‘I bought a gold bar using money from my dad’s inheritance, and with the price of gold being so high, I decided to sell,’ he added.
‘The proceeds were being used to put towards my pension. I have 11 months to go and was looking towards that time. I bought the gold from the Royal Mint and contacted them for resale, and they agreed a buy-back estimated value of £9730.’
Rob said he posted it on October 15 under what was described as Royal Mail’s gold standard Special Delivery Guaranteed next day by 1 pm.
‘I paid for additional insurance cover, including consequential loss up to £10k and started tracking my parcel using the reference number,’ he said.
But after tracking the parcel from Exeter to Romford, its status didn’t change over the weekend.
He then contacted the Royal Mint, which confirmed it hadn’t received the gold bar.
After finally reaching Royal Mail, he got an ‘escalated incident call back’ to say the item was lost and he would have to put a claim in.
‘I decided to go to the Exeter sorting office and spoke to two managers who were horrified and said it can’t have disappeared but had,’ he said.
‘They could see it being scanned through their system and then into a sealed bag along with other parcels. However, it seems my parcel never arrived in London despite all the other parcels in that bag did.’
Rob believes the only way his parcel could have vanished was if someone ‘intervened’ with it.
He’s since reported it as a crime to the police, but says in hindsight, he thinks he was ‘naive’ to trust the Royal Mail.
Royal Mail said it was investigating and would be in direct contact with Mr Hobson.
It added it took the safety and security of all items in its care extremely seriously.
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