UK’s ‘worst delivery firm’ Evri lost my £2,000 banknote

When Christopher Cook took a £20 note from a Sainsbury’s ATM in Sherborne, Dorset, last April, he noticed two squiggly lines on the Queen’s neck.

The 75-year-old immediately felt a rush of excitement: either he had a fake or, more likely, an extremely rare misprinted banknote worth much more than its face value.

Local company Charterhouse Auctioneers confirmed it was a misprint that could fetch up to £2,000 under the hammer, but no suitable auctions arrived.

So Christopher found a specialist auctioneer 14 miles away – Lawrences, in Crewkerne, Somerset – and posted the note for an auction scheduled for November, not wanting to make the journey himself.

Unfortunately that was his luck. Christopher chose to send the valuable £20 banknote with the delivery company Evri, from a ParcelShop in Sherborne.

He posted it on September 27, but much to his dismay, the note never made it to the auction house. Evri says the package is lost and cannot be found. And because Christopher has not paid for registered delivery, he is not entitled to any financial compensation.

Christopher, a former chartered accountant, is among tens of thousands of people who have filed complaints about Evri in recent months.

Evri is the UK’s largest parcel carrier, delivering more than three million parcels a day from 80 per cent of the UK’s largest retailers, including Debenhams, John Lewis and eBay.

Formerly known as Hermes, the company rebranded last March and promised top-notch service. Yet in November the company was named the worst delivery company by Citizens Advice in a poll of 8,421 people.

Earlier this month, the delivery company apologized for severe delays over the holiday season after a number of retailers diverted deliveries to Evri and rival companies due to strikes at Royal Mail.

The situation has gotten so bad that Labor MP Carolyn Harris has even asked if the Prime Minister should ‘take action’ against Evri after it received more than 40,000 complaints.

Ofcom, the regulator, says it is conducting an inquiry into the entire supply industry after complaints rose by 40 per cent on last year.

Christopher filed a formal complaint with Evri in October about his lost banknote. He was still waiting for a reply when he contacted Money Mail this month.

An Evri spokesperson now says Christopher’s case has been dismissed because currency is excluded from compensation in the terms and conditions.

Christopher says, “I would never use Evri again – and I wouldn’t advise anyone else to use them.”

Lost e-scooter

Victoria Capel was shocked to learn that the electric scooter she had been selling on eBay had been ‘removed’ by Evri.

To top it off, she was told she would not be fully compensated.

The 53-year-old paid £19.25 to ship her scooter from her home in Dorset, Somerset, to the highest bidder – who had paid £235 – on November 19.

But two weeks later it still hadn’t arrived. When she emailed Evri’s CEO, the company admitted that her package had been damaged beyond repair in transit.

Victoria says, “I got a lot of different explanations. First it was lost, then it was damaged beyond repair. When I asked for proof of the damage they said they don’t take pictures of damaged goods and for health and safety reasons they will be thrown away immediately.’

After making a claim for a lost item, on December 14 she received just £25 in compensation for the e-scooter, despite being told she would also be reimbursed for postage.

Evri claims the package was ordered through eBay, which is responsible for compensation decisions for items sold on its website.

Victoria had no choice but to refund the private buyer on eBay.

She says, “It’s awful, but we have to accept it and forget it. The whole experience was extremely frustrating.”

Disappearing tins of cookies

Sarah Dale, 45, sent four £10 tins of Marks & Spencer biscuits as a Christmas treat to two of her friends, her sister-in-law and her mother-in-law in different parts of Britain.

She used Evri at her local Tesco Express in Derby on 14 December. Only her sister-in-law in Slough received the gift. The other three cans were lost in transit.

She went round in circles with an Evri online chatbot. Then the company sent an email to say it couldn’t demand a recourse because the items were posted more than 28 days ago.

An Evri spokesperson says Sarah has now been fully compensated.

Former courier service owner Jeffrey Axon, 78, lost nearly £60 after a vacuum cleaner he listed on eBay disappeared in the post.

The father of two, from Stoke-on-Trent, had put his Dyson V6 Animal Extra on the online marketplace and landed a sale.

But when he sent the device to his buyer in Dumfriesshire with Evri, it never arrived. Instead, the buyer received a bottle of pink, strawberry-scented liquid.

When Jeffrey tried to get in touch with Evri, he said he couldn’t talk to anyone.

Couriers are under additional pressure as the Royal Mail strikes in December caused deliveries to be diverted to other providers.

An Evri spokesperson said: ‘We are sorry that some customers are experiencing short delays in receiving their packages.

“We have invested over £60 million in our network infrastructure to ensure our service remains strong with no delays or backlogs across most of our network.”

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