In August 2024 I sent a vintage, boxed Pokémon Red Game Boy game away to be graded by a video game company.
These companies give vintage games a grade based on their condition, as well as an information label, which helps potential buyers assess their quality.
I had kept this game from my childhood and it is worth about £540.
When the company sent the game back there was a small mistake on the label. It said it was the US version of the game when it was European.
I sent it back to be corrected, using an Evri postage label I purchased myself.
After three or four weeks I contacted the company to see what was happening, but it said it hadn't received the game.
I contacted Evri and it said the game had been 'damaged beyond repair'.
Full set: D.M's completed collection of Pokémon Game Boy games is now missing a piece
I questioned this as the item was packaged very well, and asked if I could have the game back, even if it was damaged. Evri then said it had lost the game entirely and after 'extensive searching' couldn't find it.
I suspect it was stolen. The address on the package gave away that it was being sent to a vintage games company and could have been high value.
After six weeks of no further contact from Evri, I was sent £24.50 in compensation.
I'm upset that this is nowhere near the value of the game, especially as it was a rare and hard to replace item. Can you help? D.M
Helen Crane, This is Money's consumer champion replies: It's sad to hear that a game you'd treasured from your childhood is now lost to the world - and especially galling given you were able to keep it in mint condition.
I also grew up during the Game Boy craze and have the same Pokémon Red cartridge gathering dust in a box myself - though its condition can charitably be described as 'well-loved'.
You had a full set of Game Boy games from the popular Pokemon series (Blue, Red, Yellow, Silver and Crystal for those in the know) which now has a gap.
This isn't the first time I have dealt with Evri in this column, and I'm sure it won't be the last.
Regulator Ofcom named it as the worst parcel delivery company for customer satisfaction for the second year running in late 2024.
But Evri's boss recently brushed off criticism of its customer service, as it announced it delivered a record number of parcels over the Christmas period.
While you bought your Evri label yourself, most of Evri's customers don't actively choose to use the courier - instead, they order an item online and Evri is the retailer's chosen delivery firm.
When it comes to delivery companies, customers can't vote with their feet in the same way they can with other businesses.
Perhaps this is why their service - not just at Evri, but across the board - is so poor.
Even if they don't do a good job, they will keep getting work as long as the retailers stay on board.
A parcel going missing is annoying under any circumstances, but it is particularly grating when it is a rare item which will be hard to replace.
It is a similar story to this reader who had a vintage motor garage sign go Awol.
If something you have ordered from a retailer gets lost in the post, it's the retailer's responsibility to send you a replacement - but you weren't covered by this as the item was being sent outbound by you and you were paying for the grading service, not the game itself.
So you were left to complain to Evri, but this didn't get you very far.
You were given mixed messages. First you were told the game was damaged, but when you asked for it to be sent back regardless, Evri changed its story and said it had been lost.
You suspect it was stolen, which is a huge problem across all parcel delivery networks.
Your hopes of getting your money back were briefly raised when Evri asked for a receipt for the game - but as it was bought by your parents in 1999, that was a tall order.
Ultimately Evri said that, as you didn't pay for extra insurance when you purchased the postage, you would only be covered up to its standard compensation of £20, plus the £4.50 you paid for the label.
Personally, I don't think customers should need to pay for insurance against the company not doing its job properly - but given the regularity with which parcels seem to go missing, perhaps it is better to be safe than sorry.
I contacted Evri and it has now offered you an additional £280 in compensation.
On top of the £24.50 you were already given, that brings the total to £304.50.
It is not quite the £540 you could have netted had you sold the game, but a big improvement nonetheless.
It addressed my question about whether the parcel was damaged or lost by saying that the packaging had been damaged and therefore the contents had become 'separated' - but as it only contained one item, that still doesn't quite make sense to me.
An Evri spokesman said: 'Evri handles 730 million parcels a year with 99 per cent successfully delivered on time.
'We're sorry that on this occasion the packaging was damaged, which meant the contents became separated, and any confusion caused by our communication.
'We have offered a goodwill gesture to the value [D.M] listed at the time of sending.
'Every parcel matters and we encourage all customers sending a parcel to select the appropriate level of cover in the unlikely event they should need to claim. We offer cover up to £999.'
If you can bear to part with them, I hope you make a tasty profit on the other Pokémon games in your collection to make up for your losses.