‘Throw the parcel at the back door’

When Becky ordered a Barbie doll for her daughter, she received a notification from the delivery company Evri that the doll had arrived. There was only one problem; He was nowhere to be seen.

There was no package at his front door in Twyford, Hampshire, and the photo showing the location of the package sent to him was not one he recognized.

Becky became a detective and discovered that reports of similar incidents nearby were growing “like a snowball.”

Around the corner, his neighbor Jonathan had received a similar notification. There was a photo of a vehicle package he’d been waiting for – pulled into a car – but nothing had been delivered. He tried to discuss the issue with Evri but “they don’t answer, it’s very frustrating,” he told BBC Panorama.

As millions of people rely on delivery companies to send their parcels this Christmas, we investigate Evri, including sending a journalist undercover as a courier.

The company is the market leader but a recent customer survey The 11 biggest delivery companies, according to industry regulator OfcomHe claimed that Evri had the most problems with packages not being delivered and experienced the highest level of customer dissatisfaction.

Amazon and FedEx ranked first in customer satisfaction.

While Evri disputed Ofcom’s findings, 30 current and former employees told us the problems were due to increased pressures on couriers: “They have to deliver too much volume at the moment for a reasonable fee,” he told us.

The link between poor service and work pressure was further confirmed by Panorama’s research:

• Couriers at the Evri warehouse in the Midlands describe cutting corners to complete deliveries on time; “You can even throw the package in the back door,” one of them tells our undercover reporter.
• Changes to Evri’s pay rates have led some workers to claim they earn less than the minimum wage
• New, lower fare rates for so-called “small packages” were also said to be affecting courier earnings.
• Some couriers said larger items, including heavy demountable furniture and radiators, were “misbanded” into small packages.

In Hampshire, packages started disappearing in Twyford six months after regular courier Dave left Evri. He worked as an Evri courier for six years, mostly with his wife, earning around £60,000 a year between them.

Like all Evri couriers, Dave was self-employed. However, since Evri pays couriers per package and determines the price per package, I felt as if the company was behind the wheel.

Dave told us that changes to Evri’s package rates last January meant it no longer made financial sense to continue. He says this will result in him being paid less than minimum wage.

The price paid to Evri couriers depends on the size and weight of the package they deliver and how far they have to travel.

Couriers like Dave on the Evri Plus contract are required to be guaranteed at least the National Minimum Wage (currently £12.21 per hour for those aged 21 and over).

Dave says he estimates Evri will earn £10 an hour with the changes he’s made, including the new “small pack” tariff.

“You were always looking over your shoulder and wondering what could happen next in terms of lowering your rates,” he told us. “So even if you are doing the same job, you get paid less for the work you do.”

Another Evri Plus courier told Panorama he was able to earn as little as £7 or £8 an hour when fuel and running costs of his vehicle were taken into account.

This should not have happened, Evri’s legal director Hugo Martin told the parliamentary select committee in January. The company’s pay-per-package model enables “couriers to earn well above the national minimum wage”, he told MPs.

The committee’s chairman, Labour’s Liam Byrne, told Panorama that the company should be recalled to Parliament to examine the full picture because of “categorical assurances” that people were not being paid below the minimum wage.

His comments came after a group of MPs from across parties expressed their own concerns about Evri’s delivery record last week.

We put Mr Byrne’s comments to Evri and a spokesman said the company’s couriers “earn significantly above the National Living Wage”.

The National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage are currently the same for everyone over 21 – £12.21 an hour.

An Evri spokesman said average courier earnings “exceed £20 per hour”. “The industry is highly competitive, but we measure pay locally,” they added.

Dave wasn’t the only one who said the launch of Evri’s “small packages” was making it harder for us to make ends meet.

Other couriers said they started seeing them more on their tours and that it cut into their earnings because they were getting paid less for deliveries.

Prices vary, but Evri charges couriers as little as 35p for delivery.

The company told us it implemented new “small pack” sizing in January to “stay competitive.”

But some couriers who spoke to the BBC said larger packages were consistently mislabeled as small packages, for which couriers are paid more per delivery.

They said Evri did not make sufficient efforts to check that the items were weighed and measured correctly by the senders; heavy knockdown furniture and radiators were listed as examples of large items that were “mis-taped” and paid for in small packages.

One courier told us he had delivered “countless numbers of the wrong tapes” and had them replaced on short notice.

The company told the BBC that the packages were labeled by customers, not Evri. It said 99.2 percent of all packages were banded correctly and that “couriers can request a check and upgrade via the courier app if they believe a package has been banded incorrectly.”

An Evri courier of 10 years said his colleagues were “getting the easy jobs” because they had to make so many deliveries in terms of volume to get a decent wage.

“They’re not doing their job right… packages are getting lost,” he added. “There are piles of parcels between the fences.”

“If you want to make money, you have to find a safe place and leave it there,” another courier told our undercover reporter, whom we named Sam because he wanted to remain anonymous.

“You can even throw the parcel in the back door, you only get paid if the parcel is delivered,” the courier said during Sam’s six-day stint at Evri’s West Hallam delivery unit, near Nottingham, in October.

As a fresh start, Sam was put on a Flex contract which, unlike his Plus contract, did not include sick or holiday pay and did not promise to pay the minimum wage.

It can be difficult for beginners to make the same money as more experienced couriers because they don’t know their patches and therefore aren’t as efficient.

Sam was told he might qualify for extra money. In a statement to the BBC, Evri’s lawyers said that they received payments to ensure that new hires earned enough money during the recruitment process.

Couriers told us they were not charged extra for the time it took to scan packages at warehouses and load them into their vehicles, but Evri says he also took package fees into account this time.

Couriers are also only paid if the package is delivered and photos are taken; This means giving the package to the customer, a neighbor, or finding a safe place and not leaving it in a visible place outside the delivery address.

If drivers fail to deliver a package, Evri rules require them to try at least two more times, but this takes time.

Back at the warehouse, a courier told Sam there wasn’t much point in redelivering since couriers weren’t paid for returns.

“You’re not going to make any money, man, unless you take out all your packages. Take them all out,” he said. “There’s a safe space for everything, man.”

The company says it will deliver around 900 million parcels this year, and they will go to almost every home in the UK.

But in the six months between January and July, 7% of customers said they reported their Evri package had not been delivered; This rate was 4% of the industry average. According to Ofcom’s latest consumer survey.

The survey also found that Evri had the most problems with delays in the UK, with 14% of customers reporting a package arriving late in the same period. According to Ofcom, the industry average is 8%.

Evri told us that it offers a “fast, reliable and cost-effective delivery service” and that “the couriers are local and the vast majority do an excellent job and comply with our delivery standards to the letter.”

“If a courier receives a low customer rating for a delivery, this is investigated immediately,” he says.

The company, which was rebranded from Hermes UK in 2022, has been owned by American investment company Apollo Global Management since last year. In the 2023-24 financial year, Evri’s pre-tax profits almost doubled to around £120 million.

“I think Evri has made a fortune off the backs of the couriers, and I think the couriers are completely ripped off,” one courier told us.

At least all was not lost for Becky and Jonathan in Hampshire.

Becky started a spreadsheet for other people in the area to list missing Evri parcels after seeing how many comments were left on the village Facebook group.

Approximately 90 incidents were reported to the police. One man was arrested but never charged.

Evri’s lawyers told the BBC that this was an isolated incident and the company took immediate action.

“The performance of our couriers is tracked in real time, with mandatory photographic evidence of every delivery,” the company said.

Becky got her money back from the seller and purchased a new Barbie, and Jonathan had his tools replaced by the seller.