Brierfield: Evri driver had eggs thrown at van amid parcel backlogs

Evri said they have a "zero tolerance policy" for employee abuse and say the parcel backlog has now cleared.

Ben Jones, originally from Liverpool but now living in East Lancashire, has been working as a self-employed courier for the company for around two months.

He says he has been given abuse and even had eggs thrown at his van as a result of his career, sharing some of the incidents on his TikTok account.

The 27-year-old says people need to treat responsible drivers, like himself, with some humanity.

He said: “Even though the backlog isn’t my fault a lot of people and customers have been giving me abuse.

“We’ve even had people chucking eggs at the van.

“Many people are saying ‘You lot have been chucking parcels into gardens’ and telling me to leave the company.

“When I see the hate comments, I am often tempted to leave.”

Ben Jones (Image: Ben Jones)

Ben added that a working day can often be stressful.

He said: “The days have been busy and stressful, knocking on doors at half 12 which I shouldn’t be doing but the parcels need to be delivered.

“I understand the company is going through a lot at the minute but there needs to be systemic changes within the company so things improve.”

Posting to his TikTok account Ben has been updating his followers about the backlogs posting images of delayed parcels and depots piled high with parcels.

@scousebenji #fyp #evri ♬ original sound - BenjiBoo

In one video Ben posted a video of parcels which he says were damaged before he collected them.

He said: “This is how they’ve been given to me. It looks like I am the bad person.”

Ben says a toy pram was ordered at the start of November but was only being delivered by him earlier this month.

He said: “I’ve had two Christmas trees in the back of the van this week and expensive kids toys, which I assume were meant to be delivered by Christmas.

“They could have potentially a kids’ main present but because of the backlog they haven’t been delivered on time.”

Ben said he has been getting a lot of hate comment on his TikTok videos, for people who have been critcising Evri drivers.

He said: “I’ve been receiving a lot more negative comments than I used to.

“I understand there are some delivery drivers out there who want to get as many parcels delivered as possible and don’t care about how they are delivered.

“I am one of the good ones who will always knock on the door and phone the customer up if possible.

“There are good delivery drivers out there, don’t judge a book by its cover.”

A spokesperson for Evri said: “We are sorry to hear Mr Jones found his first two months stressful. 

“All our couriers are self-employed and have the option to choose the hours they work and the volumes of parcels they want to deliver.

"If he has faced any kind of abuse from customers he should report it as we have a zero tolerance policy in place. 

“All parcel companies had a challenging Christmas period impacted by a unique set of circumstances - successive Royal Mail strike days leading to unprecedented parcel volumes, poor weather conditions and staff shortages.

“This was by no means an issue across the whole country and we successfully delivered three million parcels a day in the run up to Christmas. We can confirm that any delayed parcels are now clear.”