The customer fakes a house fire to talk to a human in Evri

Angrily, Sani Shah told Evri one of her couriers set her house on fire – trying to get a response from customer service after being ignored for a month.

The 27-year-old, who sells made-to-measure clothing, had called daily to track down two missing packages she had sent to customers and left her £200 out of her pocket.

After being rebuffed by automated replies, she finally started a conversation on the Courier’s live chat service.

“They gave me a reference number and said someone will be in touch with you, so I said, ‘Help, your courier has set my house on fire!'” she explained. “They asked for two photos to start an investigation, so I went on Google and found a burning house.

“People texted me saying this was someone’s actual house but I just needed someone to call me, I didn’t want to send a message.

“The next day I got a call. It was a lady who sounded like she was from headquarters. They obviously saw the fire and thought, “Oh, this is serious.”

Sani confessed, but the worker took pity and gave her a refund so she could send replacement items to customers.

Milton Keynes’ Sani said: “I’m not trying to encourage lying and cause stress for Evri, but that’s the extent to which people have to go to make contact.”

German-owned Evri – part of the Hermes group, which changed its name after previous issues – apologized and blamed a third-party company. It added: “We deliver 700 million packages a year and are proud to say that 99 percent are delivered on time.”

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