My Evri parcel went AWOL… but it’s a rare item: Can I make the firm keep looking for it? CRANE ON THE CASE

I sell vintage signs and other interesting items online. In May this year, a buyer purchased a rare enamel Duckhams motor oil sign with a working thermometer attached for £365. 

I posted it using Evri’s next-day delivery service and paid £7.78.

A few days later, I was told Evri couldn’t deliver to the buyer’s address because of an ‘unmade track leading to the property’. The buyer gave me an alternative address, but Evri said it couldn’t deliver to that one, either.

I tried to contact Evri via phone and email to rearrange delivery, or get the package sent back to me. However, I heard nothing.

A week later, an email arrived from Evri to inform me my parcel had been lost ‘somewhere in the network’. By this time I had needed to refund the buyer, so was out of pocket. 

I filled in a claim form and 28 working days later was told Evri would refund me £20 plus postage, and that the case would then be closed. This money was automatically credited to my account.

But £20 is far less than the value of the item. It is also a rare and unique collectable, and I’d like Evri to keep looking for it. It doesn’t seem right that it can just give up? D.H, South East

Helen Crane of This is Money replies: Sending or receiving a letter or parcel in the post can feel like going through fire and water at the moment. 

There is just so much that can go wrong, from being shocked at the cost of a stamp after Royal Mail’s latest price hike, to having your package stolen on your doorstep, or simply being swallowed up by a courier firm’s vast warehouse network, never to be seen again. You could even get scammed by a fake delivery text. 

None of the parcel firms are loved by their customers, but Evri – formerly known as Hermes – seems to be hated more than most. 

In the latest Ofcom satisfaction survey, covering January to June last year, it received the worst rating by some distance. 

A net 46 per cent of customers said they weren’t happy with Evri’s service, while the next-worst firm was Yodel at 31 per cent.

Undeliverable: D.H posted the enamel sign using courier Evri, but it never got to his buyer

Evri, like most parcel couriers, offers its customers the chance to take out insurance when they pay for their package to be sent. 

You opted not to do this. As you’d paid for next-day delivery, you thought there was hardly enough time for anything to go awry. 

Besides, you said: ‘The parcel I sent was quite large and well-packaged. I find it very hard to believe it could be lost.’

Unfortunately, you were mistaken.  

This problem seems to have occurred because the address that the buyer had given was off a country road on the outskirts of a small town, and accessed via a short dirt track. 

The delivery driver either wasn’t able, or wasn’t willing, to go there so it was marked as undeliverable on the first attempt. 

When the buyer provided a different address, Evri said it couldn’t deliver to that either, as no-one was at home. 

You were then told that it had gone missing.  

I’ve looked up the area in question. While it is easy to locate on a map, it is very rural, located on the edge of the Peak District. 

Could it be that Evri, or one of its self-employed drivers, simply couldn’t be bothered to go back and try again? 

People in out-of-the-way areas need reliable postal deliveries as much as anyone else. But on the other hand, most parcel firm couriers are ‘gig economy’ workers without an hourly wage who are paid per package delivered – so a long round trip to deliver one item isn’t in their financial interests. 

Whatever happened to your sign, it’s unacceptable that, because it couldn’t be delivered, your parcel simply went AWOL. 

After it hadn’t been found for five days, Evri closed the case. 

At this point, you were required by Ebay to refund the buyer £365, as his item had not arrived and looked unlikely to. This left you with no money, and no sign. 

You unfortunately couldn’t claim the sign’s full value of £365 from Evri, however.

When something is lost, and the sender hasn’t taken out insurance, it is only covered to a maximum of £20, plus the cost of the postage. 

Lost to the world: D.H’s sign went astray ‘somewhere in the network’… or was it damaged? 

If you had the insurance, and met the conditions, you could have been reimbursed the full value. 

But given parcel deliveries are so unreliable, I think making people take out a policy to get their money back if their item is lost – through no fault of their own – is a little unreasonable. 

Customers should be able to trust that their package will get to its destination.  

I got in touch to ask why it went missing, and what Evri was going to do about it. 

After I did, it agreed to refund you £345 as a gesture of goodwill, on top of the £27.78 it already paid. 

It said that if you had taken insurance, the parcel would have been covered up to £999. 

Evri also got in contact with you, and you asked if it could keep looking for the sign. It is a shame that such a unique piece of memorabilia is simply lost to the world. 

It initially told you that the item was lost, but later said that it had been damaged. 

A spokesperson for Evri said: ‘We offer a low-cost and reliable service with 99 per cent of the millions of parcels we handle delivered on time. 

‘Our standard service includes free cover up to £20 for most items and for higher-value goods we encourage all customers to take additional cover. 

‘Every parcel matters to us and we are sorry that D.H’s  experience has not been a positive and we have offered a goodwill payment.’

Sadly I don’t think we will ever find out what happened, but I’m glad you are no longer out of pocket and can keep motoring on with your sales of garage memorabilia.