My Evri package went missing without permission… but it’s a rare item – can I have the company keep looking for it? CRANE IN THE CASE

I sell vintage signs and other interesting items online. In May this year a buyer snapped up a rare Duckhams enamel motor oil sign with a working thermometer attached for £365.

I sent it using Evri’s next day delivery service and paid £7.78.

A few days later, I was told that Evri couldn’t deliver the order to the buyer’s address because there was an “unpaved road leading to the property.” The buyer gave me an alternative address, but Evri said he couldn’t deliver to that address either.

I tried to contact Evri by phone and email to reschedule the delivery or have the package returned to me, but I received no response.

A week later, I received an email from Evri to inform me that my package had been lost “somewhere in the network.” By then, I had already had to refund the buyer’s money, so I had no money to pay for it.

I completed a claim form and 28 working days later I was told that Evri would refund me £20 plus postage and the case would be closed. This money was automatically credited to my account.

But £20 is a lot less than the item is worth. It’s also a rare and unique collectible, and I’d like to see Evri keep looking for it. Doesn’t it seem right that he should give up? DH, Southeast

Helen Crane from This is Money responds: Sending or receiving a letter or package in the mail can feel like going through fire and water right now.

There are plenty of things that can go wrong, from being shocked by the price of a stamp after Royal Mail’s latest price hike, to having your parcel stolen from your doorstep or simply being swallowed up by a courier company’s vast network of warehouses and never seen again. You could even be scammed with a fake delivery text message.

No courier company is loved by its customers, but Evri (formerly known as Hermes) seems to be more hated than most.

In Ofcom’s latest satisfaction survey, which covered the period from January to June last year, it received by far the worst rating.

TO 46 percent of customers said they were not satisfied with Evri’s service, while the next worst company was Yodel in 31 percent.

Evri, like most parcel delivery companies, offers its customers the option of purchasing insurance when paying for the shipping of their package.

You decided against it. Since you had paid for next-day delivery, you figured there wasn’t enough time for anything to go wrong.

You also said, “The package I sent was quite large and well packed. I find it very hard to believe that it was lost.”

Unfortunately, you were wrong.

This problem appears to have occurred because the address provided by the buyer was off a country road on the outskirts of a small town, and was accessed via a short dirt road.

The delivery driver was unable or unwilling to go there, so it was marked undeliverable on the first attempt.

When the buyer provided a different address, Evri said he couldn’t deliver there either as no one was home.

Then they told him that he had disappeared.

I have looked up information about the area in question. Although it is easy to locate on a map, it is a very rural area, located on the edge of the Peak District.

Could it be that Evri, or one of its self-driving drivers, simply didn’t bother to go back and try again?

People living in remote areas need reliable postal deliveries just as much as anyone else. But on the other hand, most couriers for parcel companies are workers in the “gig economy” who are not paid an hourly wage and are paid per package delivered, so a long round trip to deliver an item does not make economic sense for them.

Whatever happened to your poster, it is unacceptable that because it could not be delivered, your package simply disappeared.

After five days without finding him, Evri closed the case.

At that point, eBay demanded that he refund the buyer £365 as the item had not arrived and looked unlikely to arrive. This left him with no money and no sign of the item.

Unfortunately, you were unable to claim the full value of the poster, £365, from Evri.

When something is lost and the sender has not taken out insurance, they are only covered up to a maximum of £20, plus the cost of shipping.

If you had insurance and met the conditions, you could have been reimbursed for the full amount.

But since package deliveries are so unreliable, I think forcing people to take out a policy to get their money back if their item is lost (through no fault of their own) is a little unreasonable.

Customers must be able to trust that their package will arrive at its destination.

I got in touch to ask why he had disappeared and what Evri was going to do about it.

After doing so, he agreed to refund me £345 as a gesture of goodwill, on top of the £27.78 he had already paid.

He said that if he had taken out insurance, the package would have been covered up to £999.

Evri also contacted you and you asked if he could continue looking for the poster. It’s a shame that such a unique piece of memorabilia has been lost to the world.

At first it told you the item was lost, but then it told you it was damaged.

An Evri spokesman said: ‘We offer a reliable, low-cost service, and 99 per cent of the millions of parcels we handle are delivered on time.

‘Our standard service includes free cover up to £20 for most items and for higher value items we recommend all customers purchase additional cover.

‘Every package is important to us and we regret that DH’s experience was not positive and have offered a goodwill payment.’

Sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever know what happened, but I’m glad you’re no longer broke and can continue your garage sales.

CRANE OVER THE CASE