“MECHANICAL LIFT REQUIRED”—EVRI SENT ME ALONE. NOW I HAVE A HERNIA AND NINE YEARS OF MISSING PAY TO
“MECHANICAL LIFT REQUIRED”—EVRI SENT ME ALONE. NOW I HAVE A HERNIA AND NINE YEARS OF MISSING PAY TO INVESTIGATE
I gave approximately nine years of my life to delivering parcels for Hermes and Evri.
Nine years of long days, hundreds of miles, vehicle costs, physical strain and repeatedly lifting parcels that should never have been given to one person.
What am I left with?
A serious hernia, years of potentially missing pay and the loss of the rounds that provided most of my income.
PARCELS MARKED “MECHANICAL LIFT REQUIRED”—SENT TO ONE COURIER
I was repeatedly sent enormous parcels to deliver alone, including team-lift items and parcels explicitly marked “mechanical lift required.”
Read that again: mechanical lift required.
Yet these parcels were still allocated to one courier, who was expected to get them into a van, move them and deliver them without proper equipment or assistance.
I have years of photographic evidence showing:
Parcels marked “mechanical lift required.”
Team-lift parcels allocated to one person.
Oversized furniture and extremely long boxes.
Parcels that appear to have been placed into lower weight bands than their true size or weight.
An exceptionally large parcel carrying an apparent handwritten “49kg” marking while its printed label appears to show a much lower weight.
Heavy and oversized parcels being sent repeatedly—not as isolated mistakes, but over a period of years.
I now have a serious hernia. My doctor confirmed that it was caused through heavy lifting, and this is recorded in my medical records.
I continued working because I had bills to pay and because my livelihood depended on those rounds.
How can a company send a parcel marked “mechanical lift required” to one person and then hide behind the claim that the courier is self-employed?
Calling somebody self-employed does not make an unsafe parcel lighter. It does not replace lifting equipment. It does not turn a two-person job into a safe one-person delivery.
NEVER PAID PROPERLY—ALWAYS FORCED TO CHASE MY OWN MONEY
As if risking my health was not enough, payments were repeatedly wrong.
Parcels I had completed were missing from invoices. Rates were incorrect. Money I had already earned was not paid properly.
When I raised these discrepancies, they were not properly investigated or resolved. They were repeatedly brushed under the carpet.
I had to spend my own unpaid time:
Counting completed parcels against invoices.
Finding missing parcel payments.
Challenging incorrect rates.
Contacting managers again and again.
Waiting for corrections.
Chasing the same missing money more than once.
Trying to prove work that Evri’s own systems should already have recorded.
Why should a courier have to audit the accounts of a huge delivery company just to receive the money they have already earned?
My checks indicate that I could have been approximately £200–£300 short in an average month. Over approximately nine years, that potential loss could be enormous.
During the COVID period, a former manager attempted to recover money that I was owed, but the matter was never properly resolved.
Another experienced courier from the same depot has stated that their invoices were regularly wrong or had between 50 and 120 delivered parcels missing.
This raises a frightening question: if more than one courier at one depot experienced these problems, how many other couriers around the country have unknowingly been underpaid?
Evri relies on thousands of couriers. If even a small amount is missing from large numbers of individual payments, it may look insignificant on one company spreadsheet—but collectively it could be worth an enormous amount.
To the company it may be pennies. To a courier it is fuel, vehicle repairs, food, rent, heating and money needed to support their family.
PAY REDUCED, WORK REDUCED—THEN MORE MILEAGE DEMANDED
Over time, my parcel volumes fell while the mileage required to service my rounds remained.
My rates were then reduced further. After losing more than £1,200 a month, I was expected to accept additional postcodes, another substantial increase in mileage and several more hours of work without proper additional payment.
When I refused work that was no longer financially viable, my main source of income was removed.
So after approximately nine years of service, the apparent message was simple:
Risk your health.
Pay your own vehicle costs.
Accept lower rates.
Chase your missing money.
Travel farther for no proper additional payment.
And if you object, lose the work.
How is that genuine self-employment?
I AM NOW PREPARING TO FIGHT THIS IN COURT
Over the next few weeks, I will be gathering and organising everything accumulated throughout those nine years:
Photographs and parcel labels.
Team-lift and mechanical-lift warnings.
Manifests and completed-delivery records.
Invoices and payment statements.
Messages and emails concerning missing money.
Evidence from other couriers experiencing similar problems.
Recorded management conversations.
My medical evidence confirming the cause of my hernia.
Records showing the reduction in parcel volumes, rates and income.
Evidence of the additional mileage I was expected to accept.
I want Evri to produce the manifests, barcode records, rates, invoices, adjustments and complete payment ledger so the true amount can finally be calculated.
A large company should not be able to make an individual courier fight for years simply to prove what its own systems already record.
I intend to place the evidence before a court and seek accountability for the damage caused to my health, income and livelihood.
This is no longer only about me. It is about a business model involving thousands of couriers and the urgent need to establish how many others have been left lifting unsafe parcels or chasing money they had already earned.
To everyone who has signed, shared or supported this petition: thank you. Please keep sharing it.
A company may be powerful, but it should never be more powerful than the truth.