Don't trust EVRi

[The Guitar Weasel]

As a guitarist  and also double bass player – and like lots of folks I use eBay for some purchases.  I’m also ‘trade’ and own a guitar pickup winding company – so I have loads of experience with various courier companies.

I had bad experiences with Hermes before it became EVRi , but as eBay pushes its partnership with EVRi, one can’t really avoid having this company used to send purchases from eBay sellers. I NEVER use EVRi for any personal selling on eBay or indeed in my capacity as a business owner: preferring Royal Mail or at a push DPD for my business parcels.

I did however need a new set of double bass strings – and as anyone who plays double bass will know these are not cheap. I was delighted to find an ‘opened but not used’ set of quite hard to find strings on eBay and proceeded to order them.

After longer than the estimated delivery time I got a notification from EVRi that my parcel had been delivered. Ironically I was doing Jury service at the time but my wife was home to collect any mail. Not unexpectedly for EVRi my parcel hadn’t been delivered when I returned from a difficult day in court – neither had the doorbell been rung – my wife was listening out for it.

I was provided with a ‘proof of delivery’ photograph’ which actually only showed a hand holding my parcel held in front of my next door neighbours firmly closed front door! That – to my mind - is not any ‘proof of delivery. I visited my neighbour, and they had had no mail left with them that day.

So we have a delivery driver at best not bothering to even try to deliver parcels correctly and ensure their safety, and at worst a criminal driver who is faking delivery pictures and keeping other folks goods.

Now I realise these delivery drivers are under-paid, rushed and over worked, but it is for EVRi to sort its house out: pay drivers properly, ensure their honesty and competence, and deliver proper service for the money they get both for their service and from their lucrative deal with eBay.

I realise that it’s not just EVRi, our whole courier industry is generally poor. The courier industry’s fast expansion and lack of proper recourse and regulation has turned the industry into the ‘Wild West’ where companies like EVRi can make huge profits while short changing both their customers and their employees.

Will I get my money back for my strings? Who knows. What I will do is take this as a catalyst to approach others in my industry and get them to boycott couriers that don’t clean up their act. To possibly start a petition to the UK parliament to try and get tougher controls on these companies. To ensure they don’t try to hide behind chat bots and convoluted complaints procedures to escape their duties to give value and security in their services with respect to goods entrusted to them that we have paid for!.

Please share this on social media if you can, this industry needs to be cleaned up. 

[lemmywinks]

Yep, that's Evri alright. I stopped using eBay because of this.

 

If the seller refuses to play ball then contact eBay (via live chat, type "talk to agent") with a picture of your front door showing it was delivered to the wrong address (also a link to Streetview) then you'll get your money back, they may require you to sort it out with Evri yourself (they did with me) which is really their problem and not yours. I got my refund then closed my eBay account.

 

I had a similar issue with a problematic driver where I live, the proof of delivery picture just showed the parcel label with nothing surrounding it, not even the whole package in frame so presumably it never left his van. I had to provide CCTV records showing no delivery attempt had been made but if you have a picture of the wrong house then you should be good. Our regular driver is decent but every so often we get this guy and parcels go missing.

 

[mcnach]

The company is consistently bad, but just how bad depends a lot on the individual drivers. To say I dislike EVri is putting it mildly, but I moved to a new area about a year and a half and the driver that delivers around here is pretty good. Fingers crossed!

 

However I've noticed a general tendency to simply leaving parcels at the door step without knocking at the door. What can possibly go wrong :rolleyes:

[knirirr]

5 minutes ago, mcnach said:

 

 

However I've noticed a general tendency to simply leaving parcels at the door step without knocking at the door. What can possibly go wrong :rolleyes:

 

I've had this with beer deliveries, and my front door is right on the pavement as it's a Victorian terrace.

[lemmywinks]

38 minutes ago, mcnach said:

The company is consistently bad, but just how bad depends a lot on the individual drivers. To say I dislike EVri is putting it mildly, but I moved to a new area about a year and a half and the driver that delivers around here is pretty good. Fingers crossed!

 

However I've noticed a general tendency to simply leaving parcels at the door step without knocking at the door. What can possibly go wrong :rolleyes:

 

 

Yeah the driver makes a massive difference, a mate of mine used to have an Evri (Hermes back then) driver who introduced himself to everyone on their new build estate when he delivered parcels, gave his personal number out and wrote down their preferences for alternative delivery addresses or locations. Super reliable guy, Evri went from being their worst courier to their best and pretty much every house gave him a decent wedge of money at Christmas. He went back to Portugal (due to the thing which cannot be named but everybody knows was a ridiculous idea) and now their new driver is awful with things going missing all the time.

 

Was the same with us and our good driver is still the one dleivering parcels 95% of the time, it's that 5% where we get the other guy and we consistently don't get our stuff. because of that 5% I just don't use them aside from via AliExpress where I get the option of Parcel Shop delivery every time.

[PaulWarning]

It does depend on the driver, the one that usually delivers to my house is very reliable and friendly, I've sent stuff via EVRi as well as the the drop off shop is just round the corner from me, never had any problems

[Beedster]

All I can say is "Don't get me started....." Appalling company who clearly secure massive contracts with the likes of eBay by bidding lower than the competition, and are able to bid lower because they have such poor processes, checks, sadly people (a couple of the Hermes/EVRI drivers I've met were very sketchy, for example I came out of my studio one day to find the driver in my back garden having climbed over a locked gate, and looking into my kitchen window; he was f***ing surprised to me standing there, I asked him what the f*** he was doing in my garden and he said having got no reply he needed to check that i was definitely not home before returning the package to the depot. Yeh, right), and zero customer service ethos. They have a 50% fail rate delivering to me to the point that I ask people not to use them (I slipped up this week,....). I guess they're call ed EVRI as there's a 50:50 change of losing EVRI package. 

[The Guitar Weasel]

For those who frequent Fretboard Forum I've also started a thread there under the same title - I really want to see if I can use google algorithms to draw EVRi into a dialogue or a statement on their performance - I may take a crack at my MP about this. 

[edstraker123]

Our Evri guy at the moment is really good but some of the previous ones have been shocking. Lets be honest though we've probably had issues with all of the couriers at some time or other. I completely agree with the OP - its obscene to have to pay extra for insurance to ensure you get the service you paid for in the first place . To me its like ordering a steak in a restaurant and then having to take out insurance to ensure you don't get a burger or more likely nothing at all. Regulation is definitely needed.

[Aidan63]

I think you will find that Evri are already way ahead of you on manipulating the algorithms, all those positive feedbacks they do legitimately receive pretty much obscure the terrible ones

All the courier companies now have terrible customer service, some terrible staff and some people working hard to do the job right, and paying more doesn't seem to make a difference because they just change their practices to maintain profits; the government (all of them not just this one, they are all the same because they reflect our complete lack of interest in doing different/better and using actual common sense or a decent moral foundation as a basis for society) has absolutely no interest in managing the sector; we've sold Royal Mail to a Czech billionaire, we/they have washed their hands, got more important things to worry about like building shit we don't need and making sure the haves continue to become better off and prevent the rest from actually revolting and hoping the others don't find out about their mistakes/wrong doings, while working to/hoping the dangerous idiots don't blew us all to oblivion

 

[Beedster]

In principle I don't think paying for insurance is the problem, that's a simple business device to give customers choice, take the risk or don't. What is criminal is that so many people find that when they make a claim the firm simply draws their attention to the small print and don't pay. I'd hazard a guess that in the case of 80% of the gear sold on basschat and then insured, the courier would be able to refuse to pay (IIRC there was an issue a while back when a driver dropped an amp head and pretty much smashed it. The customer sent photographs to the courier who replied after a pretty long saying that there was clear evidence of glass in the photos - a single pre-amp tube - and that given items containing glass were not covered in their policy, they would not be paying out) 😡.   

[Rich]

1 hour ago, mcnach said:

However I've noticed a general tendency to simply leaving parcels at the door step without knocking at the door. What can possibly go wrong :rolleyes:

My DHL delivery driver did precisely that with 800 quids worth of Trace Elliot amp. 'Unimpressed' is a gross understatement. 

[Beedster]

Just now, Rich said:

My DHL delivery driver did precisely that with 800 quids worth of Trace Elliot amp. 'Unimpressed' is a gross understatement. 

 

I'll see your £800 TE and play my £4000 '73 Precision left on a neighbour's doorstep by DHL. In the rain. This is why two weeks ago when I sold a couple of basses I jumped on a train and had a lovely couple of pints with the buyer and handed them over in person. Possibly worse for my wallet, but way better for my mental health 👍

 

I

[Beedster]

4 minutes ago, Beedster said:

In principle I don't think paying for insurance is the problem, that's a simple business device to give customers choice, take the risk or don't. What is criminal is that so many people find that when they make a claim the firm simply draws their attention to the small print and don't pay. I'd hazard a guess that in the case of 80% of the gear sold on basschat and then insured, the courier would be able to refuse to pay (IIRC there was an issue a while back when a driver dropped an amp head and pretty much smashed it. The customer sent photographs to the courier who replied after a pretty long saying that there was clear evidence of glass in the photos - a single pre-amp tube - and that given items containing glass were not covered in their policy, they would not be paying out) 😡.   

 

...I'm trying to find the link, but IIRC the irony was that the tube was about the only bit of the head that had survived the drop 👍

[Beedster]

3 minutes ago, Beedster said:

 

I'll see your £800 TE and play my £4000 '73 Precision left on a neighbour's doorstep by DHL. In the rain. This is why two weeks ago when I sold a couple of basses I jumped on a train and had a lovely couple of pints with the buyer and handed them over in person. Possibly worse for my wallet, but way better for my mental health 👍

 

I

 

I'm going to target future gear sales on the basis of BCers I'd like to meet and who reside in nice destinations on that basis  

[neepheid]

6 hours ago, Beedster said:

 

I'm going to target future gear sales on the basis of BCers I'd like to meet and who reside in nice destinations on that basis  

 

I'll get the kettle on.  Oh, wait, double fail...

 

Edited 17 hours ago by neepheid

[binky_bass]

Not quite your £4000 P-bass @Beedster, but on Monday a brand new bass got delivered while I was away in Scotland, it was left outside our front door in the rain. Luckily we live (as you've seen!) down a pot hole ridden 'private' road that doesn't really even look residential! So it's unlikely for things to get snatched up, but still... a new bass (the driver had no idea of value) left outside in the rain... Top work!

 

It's little things like this, all these little 1% gripes, that are more and more prevalent in life which causes more and more anger and agitation in society and gives way to the 'anything is better than this' mindset which creates paths for the Trump and Farages of the world. IMO. 

Edited 16 hours ago by binky_bass

[Beedster]

26 minutes ago, neepheid said:

 

I'll get the kettle on.  Oh, wait, double fail...

 

It would be a pleasure @neepheid 👍

[Beedster]

3 minutes ago, binky_bass said:

Not quite your £4000 P-bass @Beedster, but on Monday a brand new bass got delivered while I was away in Scotland, it was left outside our front door in the rain. Luckily we live (as you've seen!) down a pot hole ridden 'private' road that doesn't really even look residential! So it's unlikely for things to get snatched up, but still... a new bass (the driver had no idea of value) left outside in the rain... Top work!

 

It's little things like this, all these little 1% gripes, that are more and more prevalent in life which causes more and more anger and agitation in society and gives way to the 'anything is better than this' mindset which creates paths for the Trump and Farages of the world. IMO. 

Agreed, it’s the ‘we don’t give a f***’ attitude of the whole process that can be quite draining. Glad it was sorted Russ 👍

[Lozz196]

I’m fortunate that I can get items delivered to my workplace, and as our reception is permanently manned (or is that personned  perhaps) any deliveries and I get notified straight away. 
 

But it does annoy me that the no signature thing which happened - rightly imo - during the pandemic has not been stopped, surely the industry regulator should now put things back as they were, no signature and back to depot. We’ve (my work) had Royal Mail claim to have delivered something and when challenged their reasoning was that as GPS showed their vehicle was at our post code that is sufficient. No proof of delivery, no signature, no photos, just GPS in our location. And the regulator is letting this happen.

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

I notice big name companies such as M&S, Qvc use them . Always been a cheap and nasty company from my experiences .

 

When I see an item I am thinking of buying  I now check if I can , the name of the courier co used.

I recently purchased an item from a nice eBay seller . "2-3 days " so contacted him ( not reached out to him) ,and he agreed to use Royal Mail Speciall Deelivery , and I paid a bit more for this. 
 

My mine gripe with evri , is that it's always between the hrs 08.00-20.00 hrs . I always find the tracking app absolutely useless. Just a picture of a van saying " on its way " or words to that effect. Then I'll get a message apologising for delays which mean parcels are delivered arounf 10 pm! 

 

[Burns-bass]

The only thing we can do is to use our purchasing power to influence change.

 

The increase in courier competition has led a race to the bottom. Like Chris I simply won’t post expensive basses anymore.

 

Bit strings? Absolutely.

 

But not with Evri. 

[The Guitar Weasel]

13 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

The only thing we can do is to use our purchasing power to influence change.

 

The increase in courier competition has led a race to the bottom. Like Chris I simply won’t post expensive basses anymore.

 

Bit strings? Absolutely.

 

But not with Evri. 

Unfortunate for me that double bass strings can run to the price of a whole cheaper bass guitar! Over £200 is pretty common. Ordering them online you are generally at the mercy of whichever bunch of losers they pick as carriers.