When Christopher Cook withdrew a £20 note from a Sainsbury’s cash machine in Sherborne, Dorset, last April he noticed it had two squiggly lines on the Queen’s neck.
The 75-year-old immediately felt a rush of excitement: either he was holding a fake — or, more likely, an extremely rare mis-printed banknote worth far more than its face value.
Local firm Charterhouse Auctioneers confirmed it was a mis-print that could fetch up to £2,000 under the hammer, but it didn’t have any suitable auctions coming up.
Complaints: Evri is the UK’s largest parcel carrier, delivering more than three million packages a day from 80% of the Britain’s biggest retailers
So Christopher found a specialist auctioneer 14 miles away — Lawrences, in Crewkerne, Somerset — and posted the note for an auction scheduled for November as he didn’t want to make the journey himself.
Unfortunately, that’s where his luck ran out. For Christopher chose to send the valuable £20 banknote with the delivery firm Evri, from a ParcelShop in Sherborne.
He posted it on September 27 but, much to his dismay, the note never got to the auction house. Evri says the small package is lost and cannot be found. And because Christopher didn’t pay for signed-for delivery, he is not entitled to any financial compensation.
Christopher, a former chartered accountant, is among tens of thousands of people who have made complaints about Evri in recent months.
Evri is the UK’s largest parcel carrier, delivering more than three million packages a day from 80 per cent of the UK’s biggest retailers, including Debenhams, John Lewis and eBay.
Formerly known as Hermes, the firm rebranded last March, promising a top-notch service. Yet, in November, the business was voted the worst delivery firm in a poll of 8,421 people by Citizens Advice.
Earlier this month, the delivery firm apologised for severe delays over the festive season, after a number of retailers diverted deliveries to Evri and rival firms due to Royal Mail strikes.
The situation has become so bad that Labour MP Carolyn Harris has even asked whether the Prime Minister should ‘take action’ against Evri after it received more than 40,000 complaints.
Ofcom, the regulator, says it’s conducting a review into the entire deliveries sector after complaints were up 40 per cent on last year.
Christopher lodged a formal complaint with Evri about his lost bank-note in October. He was still waiting for a reply when he contacted Money Mail this month.
A spokesman for Evri now says Christopher’s case has been rejected because currency is excluded from compensation in its terms and conditions.
Christopher says: ‘I would never use Evri again — and I would advise anyone else against using them.’
Missing: Victoria Capel paid £19.25 to ship her scooter to the auction winner – but two weeks later, it still hadn’t arrived
Lost e-Scooter
Victoria Capel was shocked to learn that the electric scooter she had sold on eBay had been ‘disposed’ of by Evri.
To top it off, she was told she wouldn’t be fully compensated.
The 53-year-old paid £19.25 to ship her scooter to the highest bidder — who had paid £235 — from her home in Dorset, Somerset, on November 19.
But two weeks later, it still hadn’t arrived. When she emailed Evri’s chief executive, the company admitted her package had been damaged beyond repair in transit.
Victoria says: ‘I was given 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 images of damaged goods and they are disposed of immediately for health and safety reasons.’
After raising a claim for a lost item, she received just £25 in compensation for the e-scooter on December 14, despite being told she would also be refunded the postage cost.
Evri claims the parcel was ordered through eBay, which is responsible for decisions about compensation regarding items sold on its website.
Victoria had no choice but to reimburse the private buyer on eBay.
She says: ‘It’s atrocious, but we are supposed to accept it and forget about it. The whole experience has been extremely frustrating.’
Vanishing tins of biscuits
Sarah Dale, 45, sent four tins of £10 Marks & Spencer biscuits as a Christmas treat to two of her friends, her sister-in-law and her mother-in-law in various parts of Britain.
She used Evri at her local Tesco Express in Derby on December 14. However, only her sister-in-law in Slough received the gift. The other three tins were lost in transit.
She found herself going round in circles with an Evri online chatbot. Then the firm sent an email to say she couldn’t claim redress as the items were posted more than 28 days ago.
Complaints: Evri delivers more than three million packages a day from 80% of the UK’s biggest retailers
A spokesman for Evri says Sarah has now been fully compensated.
Former courier service owner Jeffrey Axon, 78, lost almost £60 after a vacuum cleaner he listed on eBay went missing in the post.
The father-of-two, from Stoke-on-Trent, had put his Dyson V6 Animal Extra on the online marketplace and secured a sale.
Yet when he sent the device to his buyer in Dumfriesshire with Evri, it failed to arrive. Instead, the buyer received a bottle of pink strawberry-scented liquid.
When Jeffrey attempted to get in touch with Evri he says he was unable to speak to anyone.
Couriers have been under extra pressure as Royal Mail strikes in December caused deliveries to be diverted to other providers.
An Evri spokesman says: ‘We are sorry some customers are experiencing short delays in receiving their parcels.
‘We have invested over £60 million in our network infrastructure so our service remains strong with no delays or backlogs in the majority of our network.’
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