legal lingo

[CiRuS]

hey all.

I ordered some things from a company in Germany. When the box arrived it was heavily damaged. The contents were fragile so I refused to accept the delivery (as advised in the confirmation email from the company). I am now trying to get a refund as the parcel was poorly protected to begin with and I don't think any further attempts to deliver the items will have a different outcome.

Here's what I need help with:
The company emailed me a form to print, sign, scan and return with the following wording:-

Herewith I declare that the above mentioned parcel has arrived in damaged condition.

I cede the damage to above mentioned the shipper.

I don't have much dealings with things like this, so what exactly does that wording mean? Do I sign it or no?

[Binerexis]

"Right, I'm not saying that the parcel I mentioned earlier got to my hands damaged/buggered/otherwise not in a good condition.

I say that the damage is due to the shipper I mentioned earlier."

[CiRuS]

so in other words, its their fault not mine, and by signing im not accepting any blame etc?

[SkeletalBOB]

I sign for packages all day long and deal with damaged packages sometimes worth upwards of half a million pounds.

This is the companies way of getting you to officially blame their shipping company so they can recover the costs from them. (DHL?Fedex?UPS?)

They should refund you immediately once they have this document back, don't let them wait till they get the money back from their shippers, if you can put the pressure on them they should release your funds.

Either way TL:DR, as Bin so rightly put above sign it as it simply says it was the shippers fault not mine.

[CiRuS]

excellent guys, thank you. im one of these paranoid types that thinks as soon as i have signed it they'll turn round and say 'neenerneenerneener you fucked up' lol