How to complain, and what happens next

1. Three stages, and who deals with each

Ask the person who handled itWho deals with it: the person who handled your items. Reply to your offer, message us on WhatsApp, ring or text 07369 296063, email messinabenni@gmail.com, or write to Unit 172, 14-15 Triangle South, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 1EY. Give your reference number if you have one, and say which line you are querying. Whichever way you raise it, the answer comes in writing so that you can keep it.
Ask for a reviewWho deals with it: someone who did not handle your case, where there is someone. If the answer does not settle it, ask us to review the case. The reviewer goes back through the listing, the results of the checks and the photographs taken when your parcel was opened, and writes to you with what they found and what happens next. Assaypost is run by one person, so there may be nobody else to do this. If so, the reply says that the same person has looked at the case again, and offers the independent routes in section 3.
The outcomeWho deals with it: the business, in writing. Where we got it wrong we correct the offer, pay the difference, or return the items, and the correction goes on the record. Where we stand by the result we say so, and we say what it was based on rather than asking you to take it on trust. Either way you are told, in the same letter, that you may take it further and how.

We do not quote a target response time; each written reply says what happens next.

2. While a complaint is open

2.1Nothing involved in the complaint is processed while it is open. If you have already accepted and been paid, we tell you plainly whether the items have been processed. Where they have not, you can have them back by repaying what you were paid, if that is what you would rather.
2.2Complaining costs you nothing and changes nothing else about your case. An offer that is still open stays open while we deal with it, and if it would otherwise lapse we re-issue it rather than let the clock run down on you during a dispute you raised.

3. If you are still not satisfied

3.1A complaint about how your personal data has been handled can go to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. The ICO recommends raising a concern with the organisation first in most cases, so please tell us and we will try to put it right.
3.2For anything else, the Citizens Advice consumer service takes consumer complaints about traders in the United Kingdom and passes them to Trading Standards where they warrant it. You can reach it at citizensadvice.org.uk. Nothing here affects your right to take the matter to court.
3.3We have not joined an alternative dispute resolution scheme, and we will not name one we have not joined. If you ask us to put a dispute in front of an independent third party, we will not refuse on the ground that we are not obliged to. Where items were lost or damaged while in our hands, or in the post on postage we arranged, and we cannot agree what they were worth, clause 12.3 of the terms gives you an independent valuation of what they were worth, paid for by us in full whatever it decides, and binding on us. Clause 12.3 is about lost or damaged items, not about offers: if you do not want an offer, you can decline it and have everything back at our cost. For a disagreement about an offer, or about anything else, we will agree to mediation by a certified provider that you and we can settle on, and pay our share of the cost. The consumer dispute resolution rules in Part 4, Chapter 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 do not require any trader to join a scheme. Our understanding is that they are written for contracts under which a trader supplies goods, digital content or services to a consumer (section 292), rather than a consumer selling to a trader; we do not rely on that. When a scheme has been joined it is named here with a link so you can check the membership yourself.

4. What we do with what you tell us

4.1As well as settling each complaint, we look at every one for anything we should change. Where one leads us to change a process or to reword something on this site, the change is made on the page where the wording appeared and the version, the date and the change history at the foot of that page change with it. Where it changes how a case is handled, it goes into the terms, which carry their own version line and history for the same reason. We do not quietly edit and say nothing.

Version 0.4.5 · 1 October 2026 · Next review by 1 October 2027, or sooner if the process changes · Drafted in-house; legal review pending.

0.4.5, 1 October 2026. Wording only; nothing you are owed or may do has changed. Stage one now lists email as well as WhatsApp, telephone and post. The opening paragraph and stage two speak of the results of the checks rather than readings, because no analyser is in use. The note under the stages says plainly that no target response time is quoted.
0.4.4, 1 October 2026. Wording, plus one correction; nothing you are owed or may do has changed. The opening paragraph and clause 3.3 offered the independent valuation in clause 12.3 of the terms as the route for a disagreement about an offer. Clause 12.3 covers what lost or damaged items were worth, not offers, so both now describe it accurately and say that an offer you do not want can simply be declined; mediation remains open for anything else. Stage one now lists the telephone and a postal address as well as WhatsApp. Stage two now says plainly that Assaypost is run by one person. Each stage says who deals with it rather than naming an “owner”. Clause 2.1 no longer mentions a refiner, because none is named. Clause 3.1 now gives the ICO's own advice to raise a concern with the organisation first. The note about response times and the legal-review line shortened.
0.4.3, 29 September 2026. Wording only; nothing you are owed or may do has changed. The opening paragraph said most complaints turn out to be one unexplained line on a report. No parcel has been through this business yet, so that was a prediction presented as experience; the paragraph now says how a complaint is handled instead.
0.4.2, 26 September 2026. Wording only; nothing you are owed or may do has changed. The opening paragraph spoke of complaints about a valuation. Assaypost makes offers, not valuations, and the paragraph now says so.
0.4.1, 21 September 2026. The opening paragraph said the review is always done by the person who handled your case, while stage two says it is done by someone else wherever there is someone else. The paragraph now says the same as stage two. Clause 3.3 now names the law that has governed consumer dispute resolution since 6 April 2026 in place of the regulations it replaced; what we undertake to do is unchanged.
0.4, 20 September 2026. Stage one now points at WhatsApp rather than the contact form. The forms on this website are not taking submissions, and the first step of a complaints process has to be a route that answers.
0.3, 19 September 2026. Each stage now names its owner. Clause 2.2 added: complaining costs nothing and an open offer is re-issued rather than allowed to lapse during a dispute. Clause 3.3 rewritten to say what we will do about independent resolution today, rather than only that we belong to no scheme, including the independent valuation at clause 12.3 of the terms, and an undertaking to agree to mediation.
0.2, 19 September 2026. First version to carry a version line. Response-time figures removed until they have been set, rather than published as targets nobody had agreed.