Evri’s shame as full scale of Christmas parcel chaos is laid bare
THE delivery firm Evri has apologised for delays over the festive season amid evidence of wider chaos across the courier network and Royal Mail.
The number of late deliveries between Black Friday and Christmas was up by around one third on the same period the year before, according to new evidence.
Delivery companies were accused of ‘ruining Christmas’ after customers’ parcels went missing, were stolen and even sold off at a car boot sale.
The postal regulator Ofcom has told the industry that customer service on late and missing items is so bad it is considering enforcement action.
Research by the courier experts par
‘Service has fallen short’
celLab found that the number of items listed as late rose by 33 per cent over the festive period compared with the year before.
It put the total at 1.38 million for the period from Black Friday – November 25 – to Christmas Day, which equates to 47 per cent of items in the courier system.
The organisation said this reflected a problem across the year, with more than 14 million UK deliveries arriving late in 2022 compared with 5.2 million in 2021.
Ofcom said the customer service some experienced when a delivery went wrong ‘simply isn’t good enough’.
It added: ‘If we don’t see significant improvements in customer service, we’ll consider enforcement action or tighten regulations further.’
As strikes hit Royal Mail, a number of retailers diverted deliveries to Evri, previously known as Hermes, and DPD, which struggled to cope. A 38-year- old mother of two told the Mail her Evri parcel was found more than 60 miles away from her Great Yarmouth home after a delivery driver’s wife took packages to sell at a car boot sale.
Two weeks after ordering clothes that were posted with Evri in November, she received a message from a stranger on Facebook with a picture of her parcel – still with her address on it – with a pile of other deliveries at the car boot sale in Mildenhall, Suffolk.
Darren Hilton, 51, from Essex, said as many as 12 of the parcels he was expecting, worth £800 in total, were missing with Evri at one point. These were mainly presents for his wife and the problem ‘ruined Christmas’.
Dr Richard Frenneaux, from Porth, South Wales, captured video footage of an Evri driver delivering an item to his doorstep and taking a picture, before returning to steal it. The driver was sacked and the incident reported to police.
Evri said it was working to clear a backlog of parcels that built up after it took on extra work because of the impact of Royal Mail strikes.
It apologised to customers and added: ‘Despite incredible efforts from all of our people, our service has not been as good as we would have liked and we are committed to redoubling our efforts this year.’
Which? consumer law expert Lisa Webb said: ‘Evri service has fallen short of customers’ expectations this festive season and caused huge inconvenience.
‘It’s really important to remember that if something goes wrong with your delivery, it’s the retailer and not the delivery company that you need to ask to fix the problem.
‘If a delivery goes missing, you should immediately contact the retailer, which should either help track down their order or send a replacement.’