Fearless Adventures and Basecamp founder, and former Social Chain COO and co-founder Dominic McGregor has taken to social media to describe how students training with his company were “scammed” by much-maligned delivery firm Evri.
In a post on LinkedIn, McGregor described how three brand new laptops sent out to learners had been replaced with dresses at some stage in the delivery process, leaving the perplexed students unable to progress with their courses.
McGregor’s post read: “Our learners have been SCAMMED!!! By Evri
“Part of our mission to remove barriers to those gaining meaningful careers in digital means we provide laptops on loan for those who don’t have one or access to one.
We sent 3 brand new, boxed laptops out to learners last week, tracked and signed for delivery via Evri.
The learners received/signed for the packages only to find that each laptop had been replaced by a dress in a see through bag (no doubt swapped from an ASOS order or similar)
The labels from the laptops had been removed from the laptop packages and stuck on these items…at first we thought it may be a driver issue (replacing labels and taking the laptops) BUT all 3 we sent went to 3 different locations in the UK – Manchester, York and Berkshire which means that this swap must have been done in their warehouses.
We are absolutely outraged, more so as this prevents our students from learning, trying to better themselves.
As standard there is no one to talk to and no reply from our enquiry.
Disgusting!”
A spokesman for Yorkshire-HQ’d Evri, which rebranded from Hermes last year following reports of mishandled deliveries, a Times investigation which reported parcels being thrown against walls, and a poll on Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert which found 48 per cent of respondents rated Hermes’ service as “poor, told Prolific North: “Our ambition is that every customer’s experience is a positive one and we’re looking into what happened with these parcels. We’ve spoken to Ms Wild [assumed to be Basecamp CEO Amy Wild] to apologise and made a gesture of goodwill for the experience.”
Evris further added in its response that:
Evri successfully delivers 720 million parcels per year with 99% delivered on time with no issues.
Fraud is rare and taken incredibly seriously. In those rare instances we will seek prosecution against individuals involved.
Laptops are excluded from compensation, and this is made clear during the booking process.
The laptops were valued at £400 collectively, we have offered £800 as a gesture of goodwill.
Our Trustpilot score is ‘Great’ with over 3 million customers giving us 5 stars.
Over average courier star rating is 4.7 out of 5.
Wild added: “The team at Evri have mobilised, been in touch via email and phone and have advised they have opened an investigation and will refund the cost of replacement laptops which is great news.
“It is however a shame that this is happening and since posting this finding we are not alone, we hope Evri can find those involved and hold them accountable for their involvement and put measures in place to prevent this happening further. We have asked them for updates as the investigation takes place.”