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00:00A toy for the kids, a present for your partner, a gift for grandma.
00:16This Christmas, millions of us will be relying on delivery companies to make sure our presents
00:22get there on time. About 25% retail sales go through online. We'd expect e-commerce to be
00:29even bigger this Christmas than it has been before.
00:33Evry is one of the biggest courier companies in the UK. It's also got one of the worst reputations.
00:40With Evry you feel like you're playing Russian roulette as to whether it's going to arrive
00:43or not. Some Evry delivery drivers aren't happy.
00:48I think Evry are making a fortune off the courier specs.
00:54We go undercover at Evry to discover the tricks of the trade.
00:57We're going to have a parcel of back doors too. We're going to have a parcel of back doors.
01:02Increasingly, people are relying on couriers to deliver their Christmas. So can they depend
01:09on Evry?
01:12Hello. Nice to meet you, I'm sorry. It's 30 years since my granny taught me to knit, but here goes.
01:21I'm finding it quite therapeutic, I have to say. Last year you and Ply were getting ready for the Christmas rush.
01:38We send out sort of an average of 12 to 15 parcels a week. So it's not huge. And we really offer it as a service to our customers. So they can get in touch with us, they know that they can order more stuff online.
01:55For a decade, they'd use Royal Mail to send parcels. But they switched to Evry, thinking it would be better value.
02:03It sounded like we were going to be able to offer a cheaper service to our customers.
02:08So tell me what happened.
02:10And everything was fine for the first, I don't know, first couple of weeks.
02:14Then we started getting emails about, from customers, where is my parcel? And this makes your heart sink.
02:23When this was going on is when people are starting their Christmas knitting for Christmas presents.
02:29So it starts to get really busy. And then parcels started to get really delayed. And then a parcel didn't turn up at all.
02:37And then another one got damaged, turned up really damaged.
02:40They say they had problems with eight parcels. Six were delayed for between one and two weeks.
02:48A survey by industry regulator Ofcom suggested every customer's experience the most delays.
02:5514% reported a parcel was delivered late, nearly double the industry average of 8%.
03:03Lawyers for Evry say it disputes the accuracy of Ofcom's data.
03:08Evry didn't give refunds for the two parcels that were damaged or lost.
03:14We had comments through social media saying things like,
03:18had I known you were sending parcels with Evry, I would not have placed my order.
03:23Since then, Becca and Terry have stopped using Evry and gone back to Royal Mail.
03:29Over the ten years that we've been in business, Royal Mail have lost, damaged,
03:38irretrievably, I think.
03:40About a handful of parcels.
03:43A handful of parcels.
03:43Over ten years.
03:45Over ten years, yeah.
03:46Whereas Evry, in the course of 11 weeks.
03:50Did the same thing, hit almost the same numbers in 11 weeks.
03:54So, well done Evry, that's cracking.
03:57I've just got to, I've just got to have a little.
03:59Look, it looks a little bit squiffy, but it's not too bad.
04:05I think my granny would be quite pleased.
04:11Lawyers for Evry say contact information wasn't available for two of Ewan Ply's deliveries.
04:17It says Evry responded to one of the shop's customers on social media to resolve their issue.
04:26Evry is one of the big players in parcel delivery.
04:29It says it will deliver about 900 million parcels this year,
04:34going to almost all homes in the UK.
04:39Evry's about the third biggest parcel carrier in the UK.
04:41The biggest is Royal Mail, second is Amazon Logistics.
04:44Evry's got about a fifth of the market, depending on how you calculate it.
04:47Evry made a profit of almost £120 million last financial year.
04:55But what about the quality of its service?
05:00Ofcom monitors the 11 biggest delivery companies.
05:07Royal Mail had issues with delays.
05:10Yodel leaving parcels in an inappropriate location.
05:15Evry, though, was the worst performer for delivery issues.
05:19On five out of ten measures, it came bottom.
05:22Evry's lawyers say there are flaws in these statistics and the sample size was too small.
05:32Some customers have become so fed up, they've posted footage of their deliveries on social media.
05:39Why do delivery companies feel they can miss people about Christmas?
05:46Panorama's been talking to more than 30 former and current Evry workers.
05:51Some say Evry's couriers are being put under increasing pressure.
05:55They're speaking anonymously because they're worried about losing work.
06:02I believe Evry's couriers, they are cutting corners because they have to deliver so much volume now
06:08for a decent pay. They are not doing the job correctly.
06:19We sent an undercover reporter to get work as an Evry courier.
06:24He wants to remain anonymous so we're calling him Sam.
06:28He worked at the West Hallam delivery unit near Nottingham for a week in October.
06:33Morning, I'm here for the induction service.
06:35Oh, right, no problem. Are you parked over here?
06:37I'm just there.
06:39After he does some online training, his manager talks him through what's expected.
06:44You scan the delivery parcel, that's gone green, you press continue and a list comes up and this is the list.
06:50Knock on the door. Delivery!
06:52Some people in the back garden doing I don't know, whatever.
06:56His manager continues to help him find his feet but Sam quickly finds out the delivery unit
07:03doesn't have some basic facilities.
07:07Where are the toilets?
07:09The toilets are a bit of a drive away so are you desperate?
07:12This is really important, no pissing in the fence.
07:15No pissing in the fence. We've had a massive issue last week because we have the security
07:20marching on to our sites and giving one of our couriers what for.
07:28That road is a one-way street, so you drive down there.
07:34The toilets are more than 300 metres away, most drive.
07:40And that's not the only problem of this delivery unit.
07:44The uneven ground outside makes it difficult for couriers to get parcels to their cars.
07:50Oh, it's rubbish though, isn't it?
07:54Yeah.
07:56In tarmac.
07:58Yeah, right, yeah.
07:59Yeah, and it's done my travel there twice.
08:03Do you break it?
08:03Not break it, but I can feel it, do you know what I mean?
08:07I can feel it, do you know what I mean?
08:12Every says it takes health and safety very seriously, and it audits sites to check safety
08:18and compliance. It says it has accessible facilities at all locations. The company's lawyers say
08:26couriers can ask for help when loading parcels.
08:29Sam's contract says he should provide Every with a certificate showing he has no unspent criminal
08:41convictions. We've seen other Every Courier contracts that say the same thing. It's known
08:47as a DBS check. I've done my DBS check, they haven't asked me for it. So do I need to go to them
08:54and then tell them that I put the DBS check? They didn't check mine. I did it, they never asked
09:00for it, so I won't bother. Just don't worry about it. I know an awful lot of couriers that have never
09:06had a criminal record checked. People that work on the next rounds of me haven't had one done.
09:10John has worked for the company for more than a decade. I believe that the company are putting
09:18the public at risk because of the lack of background checks that they do on couriers.
09:26Royal Mail and Amazon say all their delivery drivers are required to have a DBS check.
09:32Every says it's under no legal obligation to do them. This Every Courier says there's been a problem
09:40with theft. I know on several occasions where parcels have disappeared from delivery units
09:47and either delivery unit staff or the delivery unit manager has been detained by the police and carted
09:52off with a whole load of parcels. It does happen. So you think theft is happening? I know theft is happening.
10:00In the village of Twyford in Hampshire, residents have been trying to work out what's been happening
10:11to their Every Parcels. Three months ago, Becky ordered a new Barbie for her daughter.
10:19My dog had ripped the head off and so we had to replace it before my daughter found out. Just managing
10:26expectations in the household was quite an interesting effort for a few weeks.
10:33Around the corner, Jonathan was waiting for some tools.
10:37I'd ordered a couple of things from eBay and they told me they were going to deliver the first one
10:43on a Sunday afternoon. They both got messages from Every.
10:48I got an email an hour later saying it's been delivered.
10:51The photograph was a parcel on a car seat. So it didn't say name, address or anything like that.
11:01And you couldn't tell where it was because it was in a car.
11:05I got a delivery notification that said your parcel's been delivered. So it went to the front door but it
11:13wasn't there. I noticed that the image that they had sent wasn't a location that I recognised.
11:22Jonathan took it up with Every but got nowhere.
11:25I tried to contact Every. They're uncontactable. They don't respond. Somebody called Sophie responds,
11:32who I presume is a bot. So it's very frustrating.
11:36Becky then found out there were others looking for their parcels.
11:42Somebody else in the village Facebook group had said, has anybody seen my every parcel?
11:46And their picture was in the identical location to my picture. Then somebody else jumped on,
11:52then somebody else jumped on and it kind of snowballed.
11:55Did you get to the bottom of where this was, this picture?
11:58No, no one knew where this location was.
12:07Becky turned detective. She started a spreadsheet for other people in the area to list their missing
12:14Every parcels. It was clear that something not quite right had gone on. And because of the consistency
12:21in these images, we then reported it to the police. None of the missing parcels turned up.
12:27Hampshire police received reports of 89 missing parcels. They made an arrest, but no one was charged.
12:36Lawyers for Every say this was an isolated incident and Every took prompt action.
12:41Every says, couriers are tracked in real time with mandatory photo proof for every delivery.
12:51In the end, Jonathan got his tools replaced by the seller.
12:56Becky also got a refund and bought a new Barbie.
13:05Ofcom's survey suggests Every has the worst reputation for parcels not being delivered,
13:11with 7% of customers reporting they'd recently had an Every parcel go missing,
13:16compared to an industry average of 4%.
13:21Every lawyers say only a tiny fraction of parcels are lost and dispute these figures.
13:32In Twyford, there used to be a regular Every courier. Six months before the parcels went missing, he quit.
13:39I'm a friendly guy and I would always go out of the way for customers.
13:46Dave was a courier for more than six years. Together with his wife, they did three delivery rounds and
13:52between them earned around £60,000 a year. But in February this year, he says his earnings took a hit.
13:59The last pay cut was the most severe in terms of how much they were actually going to take.
14:10Like all Every couriers, Dave was self-employed.
14:14But because Every pays couriers by the parcel and sets the rate per parcel, it felt like they were in the driving seat.
14:22You were always looking over your shoulder wondering what might come next in terms of reducing your rates
14:29so that you're paid less for what you're doing, even though you're doing the same job with the same amount of hours.
14:35After paying the running costs for their vans and working out how much they would make an hour,
14:43Dave and his wife found they couldn't make a living if they accepted the pay cut.
14:49I'd actually worked it out that on the Twyford round, if I had taken it, I would have been well below minimum wage.
14:59If you'd included fuel into that, the totals that you'd earned, I might have made £10 an hour.
15:07Dave was on an Every Plus contract which guaranteed him pay equivalent to the then minimum wage of £11.44 an hour,
15:16plus extra benefits like holiday and sick pay.
15:20You were left for £200 to choose between feeding a family of four for a month
15:25or fueling two vans for a week.
15:34We wanted to find out how much Every Couriers were getting paid right now.
15:40As a starter, our undercover reporter is on what Every calls a flex contract.
15:46He doesn't get sick or holiday pay.
15:49Thousands of Every Couriers are on these contracts.
15:52It can be difficult for new couriers to earn the current minimum wage of £12.21,
16:04as they don't know their patch.
16:07Every's lawyers say new starters get extra money to ensure they earn adequately while they get up to speed.
16:15Sam asks an experienced courier how much she earns.
16:19I can earn about probably £12 a month.
16:23£20 a month, how many hours do you serve?
16:25It's probably about 20, 25 hours, 26.
16:30Is it a week?
16:31Yeah, probably a bit more.
16:33You don't get...
16:34I do more sometimes.
16:37Assuming an average of 25 hours a week, this courier's pay works out at about £12 an hour.
16:43She doesn't think she gets paid for the time spent scanning and loading parcels into her vehicle.
16:49Do you get paid for the... when you're loading?
16:52No, you have to try and pull that back.
16:55I don't think we do anyway. I'm not 100% sure.
16:58No, only I do.
17:00Because it's changed that much.
17:02Is every good company to work for?
17:05Is this company a good company to work for?
17:12Give it a try, give it a go.
17:14Give it a good go.
17:15If you're doing the same amount all the time, you get faster because you know where you're going.
17:25Sam met other experienced couriers who say they were satisfied with their work and pay.
17:31Lawyers for Every say couriers in West Hallam were paid £17.04 per hour on average.
17:38Every pays their 34,000 couriers by the parcel.
17:42They're not the only courier company to use this model.
17:45But how it's worked out is complicated.
17:50First, it's to do with size and weight.
17:53There are four different payment rates depending on the size and the weight of the parcel.
17:59Next, it's to do with distance travelled.
18:02The further a courier goes on their round, the more they get paid per parcel.
18:07And finally, it's to do with the contract they're on.
18:10If they're on Every Plus, they might get more benefits from the company.
18:14But actually, they get paid less per parcel than Every Flex.
18:24Sue and George are on the Every Plus contract.
18:26They both say at times they earn less than the minimum wage.
18:32If I've got, sort of, 170 parcels, I won't be finished until 5, 5.30 at night.
18:40From 7 in the morning, it's a long day.
18:43And have you got an idea of how much you think on a day like that you would be getting an hour?
18:50If it was 170, it would probably be about £120 a day.
18:57Then I'd have to deduct the fuel and the running cost of my van and the insurance,
19:02which is pretty exorbitant.
19:07So, at the end of the day, some days it's sort of £7 and £8 an hour that you're working for.
19:14Sue gave us pay slips covering three months so we could estimate her hourly rate.
19:19It can be between £7 and £10 an hour.
19:24Is it worth doing the job?
19:27Not now, I don't think so. Not now.
19:36This shouldn't be happening, according to what Every told a parliamentary select committee.
19:42We do pay careers on a per parcel basis.
19:47Those rates are calculated according to the sort of geography of the area in which they're delivering.
19:52So, it's basically the number of parcels they're able to deliver it in an hour.
19:57Because we model that to make sure that careers earn well above the national minimum wage.
20:02We showed some of our evidence to Liam Byrne, the chair of the committee.
20:07The last pay cut was the most severe in terms of how much they were actually going to take.
20:14So, the test is really simple.
20:16Are people working for Every enjoying the minimum wage or not?
20:20You know, are they basically getting a minimum wage per hour to cover all of the work that they do?
20:26Not bits of their work, all of their work.
20:28We were given categorical assurances that people were not paid below the minimum wage.
20:33So, those are clear grounds for us as a committee recalling Every to Parliament with a view to making
20:40a report and with one very simple recommendation that a full and thorough investigation is conducted
20:46into what the hell is going on at this company.
20:53Every says all of its couriers generate earnings significantly above the national living wage,
20:59averaging over £20 an hour.
21:01The sector is highly competitive, but it benchmarks pay locally.
21:13Couriers have told us about another way they think Every is reducing their earnings.
21:18It all comes back to parcel sizes again.
21:21In January, Every introduced a new parcel size at a lower price rate, the small packet.
21:29While the rates vary, Every pays couriers as little as 35 pence to deliver a small packet.
21:38Small packets is the second lowest earning for us couriers.
21:43And that is about 80% of our daily volume down.
21:48So, it's a huge cut to couriers.
21:52Dave says the small packet was a big reason why he stopped working for Every.
21:57It was going to be with the new packet rate that they brought in,
22:02combined with the reduced rate that they were going to offer.
22:08So, yeah, it was a large chunk of my wage that was going to go.
22:13Every couriers have told us they're seeing more and more small packets and it's eating into their earnings.
22:24They think it's partly because Every isn't checking whether parcels have been accurately weighed and
22:30measured by the sender. So, they keep getting big parcels labelled as small ones. It's known as misbanding.
22:38Some of them I have measured. I had a 15 kilogram flat pack furniture that was a small packet.
22:48That was a small packet as well, which was 16 inches by 10 inches and weighed five kilos.
22:54Last week, I delivered a set of car mats down as a poster ball. That meant that I was supposed to
23:01deliver those car mats through the letterbox. This one was a massive parcel down as a small packet,
23:11and it should have been a standard. You can clearly see that it's not a small packet.
23:15Some couriers say Every isn't doing enough to stop misbanding.
23:21I mean, isn't this just a mistake?
23:23It's not a mistake. We are witnessing about 20 to 30% of our daily volume of parcels wrongly banded.
23:33Every month, there are irregularities with the amount that couriers are supposed to get that
23:40can be created by countless numbers of misbands on a daily basis.
23:45Day after day, we get this new evidence that there is yet another technique that every has
23:53invented to try and make sure that the pay packets for their couriers are as light as possible. It's
23:58simply wrong. Every says parcels are labelled by clients, not Every. 99.2% of all parcels are
24:09correctly banded. Couriers can request checks and upgrades via the courier app if they think a
24:15parcel has been misbanded. On small packets, Every says it introduced a new small packet sizing to
24:23remain competitive. Back at the West Hallam Delivery Unit, Sam is learning he needs to deliver quickly
24:36to earn more money. He gets talking in Punjabi to another courier.
24:40Sam worked for seven hours and earned nearly £33 that day. Couriers only get paid if a delivery is
24:59completed and they take a photo to prove it. Every's delivery standards say parcels should be given to
25:05the customer or their neighbour or left in a safe place. Please leaving the shit. Right, OK.
25:15If they can't deliver a parcel, they should give it at least two more goes, but that takes time.
25:24They shouldn't do this. After calling the customer, our reporter left a parcel visible from the street,
25:31which meant it could have been stolen. Sam sometimes found it difficult to stick to Every's standards
25:38and deliver faster. As the week went on, his manager urged him to take more parcels.
25:44So maybe I do not want to take more than 60, I guess. So that's OK.
25:50Can you take... Oh, ****. OK. So, I'll take 80 because third day should be doing it at the same time.
26:01I need you to be fast. I want you to earn some money. How many parcels normally can you deliver in an hour?
26:06Look, some people are 50 on that round.
26:09Every tells their couriers to make up to three attempts to deliver.
26:16Some more experienced couriers told Sam they always left the parcel on their first visit.
26:22I don't know why you can make no money. Yeah.
26:27You don't get paid unless you deliver it, so... Oh, so any parcels that I could not deliver today,
26:33and I do a second attempt or the third attempt, right, only I get the money when I do the third attempt.
26:38But I deliver them. How many attempts do you normally do with this?
26:42What? Just deliver it.
26:47Oh.
26:48You'll make no money when I find it, and I still have to let you get all your parcels out.
26:53Get them all out. OK.
26:55It's a safe place for everything, mate.
26:57But it's not easy to be put in, and I'll put it in place.
27:01We want to make a parcel.
27:03Let's take place, we can put it in front, for a pair.
27:05Just put the parcel back door.
27:07The parcel is still on the back door.
27:09I will deliver the parcel there.
27:11Where do you get the parcel?
27:12Where do you get the parcel?
27:13No, you've got lots of parcel.
27:15Get the parcel out.
27:15Put it in the back door.
27:17This is the parcel.
27:18Every says it provides a fast, reliable and cost-effective delivery service and that its
27:27couriers are local people and the vast majority do an excellent job and strictly follow its
27:32delivery standards.
27:34It says if a courier receives a low customer rating for a delivery, this is immediately
27:40investigated.
27:47Some customers have given up on Every and won't be coming back.
27:51The faceless nature of businesses like Every, they don't actually care about the service
27:58that they're providing.
28:01Every don't really want to engage with the communities that they're delivering to and
28:04their customers.
28:05All they care about is making money.
28:08Our love of online shopping, especially at Christmas, means the parcel delivery market
28:13is only set to get bigger.
28:15As Every grows, can it win back the trust of some of its customers and couriers?
28:20And couriers?
28:22Do not buy their other foods in lumpings butし vests that they take примерно a lot of
28:26hours.
28:27There can be a business food right now in the past.
28:30Always sell yourself to a Simple写ery market and your family community.
28:30Weonton!
28:31We're getting together!
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