A Labrador tore a pack of party dresses to shreds that had been flung over a side gate by a courier driver – as Mail Online was inundated with horror stories from ‘shocking’ delivery services.
Rebecca Cummins said she paid for next day delivery of three dresses as she wanted to chose one to wear at her work Christmas party.
But the Hermes courier threw them over a side gate and into her rather than leave them at the front door before they were torn to shreds by her pet dog, Jack.
Rebecca, 27, is one of thousands of online shoppers who are having their Christmas ruined by courier firms failing to properly deliver their presents.
She told MailOnline: ‘The Hermes driver just threw the packages over the side gate and left a note saying they were by the gate.
‘Both of them were torn to bits by Jack. I had paid extra for next day delivery as I wanted one of the dresses for a work do. It is just ridiculous that the driver did not knock at the door. My parents were home and would have collected the packages.
She added: ‘This is not the first time Hermes have messed up. On another occasion they just left my package by the rubbish bins left outside. I can’t understand why they don’t bother to knock at the door rather than just leave them anywhere they want.’
Rebecca filmed a short video showing the damaged goods and cheekily asking her boisterous Labrador, ‘Who’s a naughty boy?’
A Labrador tore a pack of party dresses to shreds that had been flung over a side gate by a courier driver where the dog was waiting in the back garden
Rebecca Cummins said she paid for next day delivery of three dresses as she wanted to chose one to wear at her work Christmas party, but they were destroyed by her pet dog, Jack
Rebecca said she has been offered a refund for the ruined dresses, but has yet to receive any money.
Customers like the office worker from Merseyside are seeing their parcels delivered to the wrong place, go missing or facing an anxious wait before Christmas to see if their presents will arrive on time.
Many have complained delivery drivers are using ‘sorry we missed you’ notes to avoid having to drop off Christmas parcels during the busy festive season.
Frustrated consumers then face a £3.60 a minute charge calling a premium telephone number for customer service to try and track down their goods.
The major delivery firms Hermes, DPD and Yodel have all been slammed by Mail Online readers for their poor service.
Paul Collier, from Aberdeen, Scotland, waited in all day for a delivery – only to be told it was 8km away from his home in a local nature reserve.
He said: ‘I had a parcel I was expecting to be delivered. Hermes had told me between 10 and 12pm, then it changed to between 2pm and 4pm and finally 4pm and 6pm.
The Hermes courier threw the packages over a side gate and into her rather than leave them at the front door before they were torn to shreds by her pet dog
Rebecca said she has been offered a refund for the ruined dresses that she was going to wear to her work Christmas party, but has yet to receive any money
Rebecca, 27, an office worker from Merseyside, filmed a short video showing the damaged goods and cheekily asking her boisterous Labrador, ‘Who’s a naughty boy?
Rebecca told MailOnline: ‘The Hermes driver just threw the packages over the side gate and left a note saying they were by the gate. ‘Both of them were torn to bits by Jack’
‘I was at home and checked the online tracker and it said they’d attempted delivery but no one was in and they’d try again in two days!
‘I contacted Hermes and they told me it was a new driver who wasn’t coping with the amount of parcels.
‘He had scanned my parcel 8km away in a local nature reserve car park saying I wasn’t in! Hermes had to send someone else out to make the delivery.
Sally Salisbury told how she fears her Christmas has been ruined after DPD failed to deliver her orders.
Customers are seeing ‘sorry I missed you’ cards delivered by couriers when they are in
She said: ‘I took time off work to be at home, on receipt of an email from DPD confirming their delivery time.
‘I was at home, doorbell fully functioning. No doorbell was rung, no knock. I then get an email from DPD stating that my £151 parcel had been left in our front porch – but we don’t have a front porch.
‘DPD attached a photograph of where they had left my parcel. It was not my house.
‘I contacted the retailer who fobbed me off, stating it had been delivered to my front porch. I advised them that I do not have one and that the photograph of the parcel was fraud as it is clearly not my house, nor any of my neighbours. I am now £151 worse off, no compassion, understanding nor assistance. ‘What do I do? I have no Xmas presents, no acknowledgment, no accountability or refund.
Mail Online was flooded with messages from irate shoppers who have fallen foul of lazy delivery drivers who leave ‘ sorry we missed you’ cards rather than wait to drop off goods.
Plumber Richard Dewall almost lost a building job due to one of the cards being left by DPD driver.
He was expecting a shower to be dropped off for a job he was working on and waited home for the delivery.
No one called, but when his girlfriend returned she found a card with the ‘sorry we missed you’ message left in a communal hallway.
‘I rescheduled the delivery to have it sent to an alternative address as I was due to go on holiday the following day.
‘While I was away I received an email from DPD telling me my parcel was delivered and signed for on 12th December 2018.
‘However. my friend had not received a knock at the door or a slip to say they missed him.
‘Two days later my friend found the parcel in an outside communal area where he lives. The packaging was damaged, outer and inner and the shower inside was broken.
‘Their service is shocking. They made a complete mess of a simple order and almost cost me the job it was supposed to be for.
‘I have emailed DPD to complain about it. A guy responded and asked me to confirm the order number. I confirmed the order number and demanded a refund and compensation and I still haven’t heard back.
Stephen Fu had his Christmas present Hermes delivery containing gin, toiletries and decorative lights ruined recently after it turned up with items missing and covered in liquid
One unfortunate incident saw a Hermes delivery driver put a customer’s package down the toilet in Matlock, Derbyshire
Ashlie Flanagan’s delivery from Smyths toy store was ruined after the driver threw it 9ft over her garden fence
Between November and December, 387 million parcels are expected to be delivered by retailers, according to online retail association IMRG.
It is the popularity of online shopping that has been blamed for slowly killing off traditional high street stores who face spiralling rent bills and staff costs
While stores like Marks and Spencer and Debenhams pay millions in rates, online retailers such as Amazon pay much less as they are based on the outskirts of town centres and are charged much less.
Latest figures show that this year 14 stores a day are closing on Britain’s High streets as consumers switch to online shopping.
The growth in internet orders has led to an explosion in the number of delivery drivers needed to cope with the demand.
Many of the drivers are self employed and face a crippling schedule each day to drop off the packages.
Drivers have complained about starting work at 4.30am and not finishing until 11pm with their final drop off.
One driver told Sky News he had to deliver over 150 parcels day with the week before Christmas the busiest.
Waiting for a customer to answer the door eats into valuable time and many choose to leave a ‘sorry we missed’ you card as a way of saving time. Shoppers have to call customer service to re-arrange delivery.
Robert Moore racked up a large phone bill calling a premium telephone number in an attempt to track down his missing packages.
He called Yodel, who use a premium 0900 number and was charged £3.60 a minute in a failed attempt to find out what had happened to his goods.
Social media has been was flooded with complaints about the delivery firms.
Zoe Chantelle wrote on Twitter that when she called Hermes to complain she was told she was number 900 in the queue.
When she got down to the final 100 the automated message suddenly told her she was back to 900.
Others complained in Twitter that they refused to order from online retailers who used Hermes to deliver goods.
A spokesman for Hermes sid: ‘We successfully deliver more than 330milion parcels each year and our couriers are required to operate strict delivery guidelines. The types of incident highlighted in the report are unacceptable and we apologise to anyone who has received poor service from us.’
A DPD spokesman added: ‘While things can occasionally go wrong in our sector, we certainly don’t recognise the figures from the Which? survey. DPD deliver millions of parcels successfully every week and has been voted the UK’s favourite parcel delivery company five years running. We take customer service very seriously indeed and our number one aim is to deliver every single parcel right first time, safely and securely.
‘We’ve invested more than any other parcel delivery company in our people, our network and our technology. With DPD, every customer is notified of their one-hour delivery slot in advance to ensure that they are either at home or they can use one of our unique in-flight options to redirect the parcel to a specific neighbour or their local DPD Pickup shop.
‘In addition, we now have close to 4 million customers using the Your DPD app which gives them even greater control over their delivery.’
A spokesman for Yodel said their customer service number charges 1p and minute and it appears Mr Moore dialled a third party organisation on a 0900 number that routed them to the courier company. He was charged £3.60 a minute by the external company rather than Yodel.
They added: ‘We would like to apologise to Mr Moore and have requested further information so that we can investigate and resolve his complaint.’