This is the shocking moment an Evri delivery man carelessly throws parcels out of his van and into the gutter, in front of a disgusted customer.
The courier in Torquay, Devon, threw the parcels, which come in different sizes, to photographer Maciej Olszewski, who feared one of the items could be his new camera.
Now footage has emerged of the incident, which took place on April 18 and shows the driver’s white van parked on the side of the road.
A growing pile of packages lies scattered along the gutter beneath the sidewalk, just a few feet away from a drain.
With the back door of the van open, you see a brown cardboard box being thrown from the vehicle into the gutter before a softer, bright blue package joins it on the side of the road.
This is the shocking moment an Evri delivery man carelessly throws parcels out of his van and into the gutter in front of a disgusted customer
A large cardboard package is seen being thrown from the white van and onto a growing pile of packages in the gutter
Items of various sizes lie on the side of the road in Torquay, Devon, just a few meters away from a drain
As the camera zooms in on the large pile of items that need to be delivered, a few more soft packages fly out of the van.
Finally, a large, heavy-looking cardboard box is thrown from the vehicle and lands on top of several other packages.
The shocking scene takes place in broad daylight, as cars zoom past along the busy road.
Evri told it The sun that the driver responsible for slinging the packages has undergone ‘training’, but continues to work for the company.
The company added that they take their responsibility to “care” for each package “seriously.”
Mr Olszewski, who was on his way to work when he witnessed the incident, said he had previously received damaged packages.
“I thought, ‘What the hell could this be my new camera?'” he said.
“Someone could have just as easily stolen them.”
Evri told The Sun that the driver responsible for slinging the parcels has undergone ‘training’ but is still employed by the company.
Maciej Olszewski, who was on his way to work when he witnessed the incident, said he had previously received damaged packages
In December, The Mail went undercover at the delivery company after it was dubbed Britain’s ‘worst’ courier company.
We have found a workforce, assembled after minimal training, and battling to earn the minimum wage in all weather – as those soggy plots can attest.
Desperate for drivers in the run-up to Christmas, and amid what was billed as the ‘largest recruitment drive in our history’, our reporter was offered work by Evri within hours of completing an online application.
After receiving just three hours of face-to-face training, he was immediately sent on the road with a carload of 30 packages.
While Evri claims that drivers ‘have the opportunity to earn a competitive rate of £10 to £15 per hour’, he found that to achieve those figures he had to deliver a parcel every few minutes at the rate of one – a large amount of order.
It meant that during the four days he spent collecting, loading and delivering from a depot in the Midlands, his basic pay never reached the minimum wage of £10.42 per hour on any day.
Evri, meanwhile, insists that ‘new starters’ like our reporter would actually earn more than that amount, as they get bonus payments for the first few days to compensate for their lack of experience.
It should be noted that minimum wage laws do not apply to self-employed couriers.
His total wages for the four days were £107.25, including £3.44 for collecting a handful of parcels for onward delivery by Evri.
For the 187 packages he delivered, he received an average of 55 cents each. The rounds covered approximately 50 miles using £8 worth of petrol, excluding daily returns to the depot.
When contacted by the Post, an Evri spokesperson said: ‘All couriers earn above the national minimum wage with wages averaging over £15 per hour, with many earning much more at this busy time of year.
‘New starters will receive training and an upgrade allowance as they will not be as fast as the more established couriers.
‘Couriers are super organised, have good time management and live in their local community, meaning they know the area and routes, earning over 3 million five-star reviews on Trustpilot. Some people feel that the job is not for them because they need to have these skills and qualities.
‘The name change to Evri was the result of Hermes’ sale of the UK company to Advent, and not for reputational reasons as you claim. Because the company was no longer part of the Hermes group, it could not keep that name.”
Evri disputed the accuracy of the reporter’s findings, saying their data shows couriers scan and load an average of 124 parcels within 30 minutes, and that previous couriers earned around £18 per hour on the same rounds.
A scene from an undercover Evri video in Burntwood, Staffordshire
We went undercover to see for ourselves what’s going on at a company responsible for delivering 700 million packages a year (Stock Photo)
Their data showed that he also moved slowly between drop-off points. New participants will receive an additional payment of £120 as they gain experience.
The Post understands that couriers are expected to sort packages ‘from cage to cage’ rather than placing them on the floor. As for cars overloaded with parcels, couriers are trained in how to safely sort parcels and can make two trips, with additional compensation.
The tight margins and, for some, the flexibility of the job offset the hard work and hidden costs.