Evri customer's £500 Christmas parcel goes missing - and remains unlocated months later
In December 2025, a customer purchased an Evri delivery label at a Post Office counter to send Christmas presents worth around £500 to two teenagers. The £12.70 service should have delivered makeup and other gifts, but instead began a months-long saga of miscommunication and a missing parcel.
Two days after posting, the sender received a text stating the driver couldn't locate the address. A follow-up delivery was promised for the next day, but it never materialised. After several email enquiries, Evri informed the customer in February that the parcel had been delivered to the recipient's doorstep on 30 December.
However, the teenagers confirmed they never received it. In March, Evri changed its account, stating the package had been 'returned back to sender due to damage caused throughout the process'. Despite this claim, the sender never received the returned parcel.
What actually happened
When This is Money's consumer champion Helen Crane investigated, a more complex picture emerged. Evri explained that the delivery address provided was incomplete, missing a crucial line that made it impossible to identify which building on the street was the intended destination. This error could have been caught by Post Office staff when accepting the parcel, though the responsibility ultimately lay with the customer.
Following Evri's standard procedures, when a parcel cannot be delivered due to address issues, couriers make up to two further delivery attempts before returning it to the sender address provided. In this case, because the customer was away on holiday, the parcel was left at their designated safe place. Evri provided photographic evidence and geo-tagging data confirming the courier had been at the correct sender address.
The company, which now handles more than one billion parcels annually following its October 2025 merger with DHL eCommerce UK, acknowledged that its customer service agents could have communicated the situation more clearly throughout the process.
A dispute over conduct
The case took an unexpected turn when Evri informed the columnist that the customer had verbally abused staff during phone conversations - an allegation the sender denied, maintaining they only ever contacted the firm by email. Evri stated it has since attempted to reach the customer to offer further support, but claims these attempts went unanswered. The customer disputes this, saying no such contact attempts were made.
Standard courier compensation for lost parcels is typically limited to £20-£50 unless additional insurance is purchased at the time of posting. For this £500 shipment sent with basic cover, full reimbursement would not be available even if Evri had accepted liability.
Broader service concerns
This incident reflects wider challenges facing the delivery company. Ofcom's October 2024 annual report found Evri had the lowest customer satisfaction for handling complaints among major UK delivery firms, with only 32% of users satisfied compared to 39% who were dissatisfied. Citizens Advice's 2023 delivery company league table similarly ranked Evri last among UK couriers, awarding it just two stars out of five.
The columnist noted this was far from the first Evri complaint to cross her desk during four years of consumer advocacy work, having previously dealt with cases involving lost baby items, damaged collectibles and missing valuables.
An Evri spokesman said:
Evri handles more than 1 billion parcels each year, with the vast majority delivered successfully and on time. Our couriers have more than four million five-star Trustpilot reviews, and independent data has recognised us as having the highest on-time delivery rate of all carriers.
He added that the company had been unable to deliver this particular parcel due to missing address information, returned it to the sender in December, and has since made several attempts to contact the customer to offer further support without receiving a response.
For consumers facing similar issues, it's worth noting that when retailers arrange delivery, they remain legally responsible under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 for ensuring goods arrive safely - though this protection doesn't apply when individuals arrange their own shipping as in this case.
