The Evri delivery situation in West Cumbria has descended into such chaos that residents have created a Facebook group dedicated to playing “parcel hide & seek” – literally hunting down missing parcels dumped in random locations and hand-delivering them to their rightful owners themselves.
Hundreds of people across Workington, Maryport, and Egremont have joined the group “Maryport Evri- parcel hide & seek” after weeks of reports about parcels being dumped on strangers’ doorsteps, thrown over random gates, marked as delivered when they haven’t been, and in one case, an entire bag of Evri parcel labels being found abandoned in the Egremont area.
The ongoing delivery chaos has left residents facing a grim reality just weeks before Christmas: expensive presents going missing, electrical items being hurled over gates with no address information, and people having to spend their evenings walking around town peering through yard doors trying to locate their own parcels.
Evri has apologised for the delivery chaos and claims to have replaced the delivery partner operating in the region, though residents report the problems continue.
When The Parcel Delivery Chaos Gets So Bad You Need a Search Party
Jade Sewell created the Facebook group after noticing the sheer volume of people desperately reaching out on social media trying to locate their missing Evri parcels.
The breaking point came when Jade received a photo from Evri showing her parcel – containing an electrical item – thrown over a random gate with no address attached, leaving her to somehow figure out whose gate it was dumped behind.
Rather than accept this as normal, Jade spent an evening walking around Maryport looking through yard doors trying to find her own parcel.
What she discovered was far worse than one misplaced delivery.
“Whilst doing this, Jade found a number of piles of Evri parcels dumped in various spots and along with her mother had to hand deliver them to people herself,” according to local reports.
Think about that for a moment. A customer paying for delivery service ended up personally delivering other people’s parcels because the actual delivery company had simply dumped them in piles around town.
After setting up the Facebook group to help coordinate these amateur search-and-rescue operations for missing parcels, over 200 people joined within the first half hour.
Even some of the local Evri drivers joined the group to try helping people track down their parcels, which tells you everything about how dysfunctional the situation has become when the couriers themselves are resorting to Facebook groups to figure out where parcels ended up.
The Parcels Dumped on Random Doorsteps
Multiple incidents this week have highlighted just how spectacularly Evri’s West Cumbria operations have collapsed.
One batch of parcels was dumped on the doorstep of a property close to a hairdressers on Wilson Street in Workington, with the actual parcel owners having to be contacted by a good Samaritan on social media to come collect their deliveries from a complete stranger’s address.
Another pile of parcels appeared dumped at an address in Maryport, with photographs showing multiple packages left in a heap at a property that had nothing to do with any of the intended recipients.
The most bizarre incident saw a bag filled with Evri parcel labels – just the labels, apparently separated from the actual parcels – found abandoned in the Egremont area, prompting a police report on November 2nd.
Cumbria Police confirmed the incident was reported and that Evri is now carrying out its own investigations, though what exactly happened to the parcels those labels were supposed to be attached to remains unclear.
These aren’t isolated incidents or one-off mistakes. This is systematic failure across an entire region, with residents reporting weeks of ongoing chaos that shows no signs of improving despite Evri’s claims about replacing their delivery partner.
“How Do You Explain to a Kid on Christmas Morning?”
For Jade Sewell and the hundreds of other West Cumbria residents dealing with missing parcels, the timing couldn’t be worse.
“It’s horrible, it’s so close to Christmas and people can’t afford to just be paying out money for parcels, them not being delivered and not being able to get a refund either,” she told the News and Star.
She continued: “People pay expensive for presents, people in the group have been saying they’ve lost parcels that are Christmas presents for kids, and birthday presents for kids. How do you explain to a kid on Christmas morning that Santa has been delayed because he hasn’t got your parcel, because Evri has run away with it.”
The financial impact hits particularly hard because when parcels go missing through Evri, getting refunds often proves difficult, leaving customers out of pocket for items they’ve paid for but never received.
For people on tight budgets trying to make Christmas happen for their children, having expensive presents simply vanish into the Evri void represents more than an inconvenience – it’s a genuine crisis.
And the fact that residents have resorted to creating volunteer search parties to hunt down parcels dumped around town shows that Evri’s official customer service channels clearly aren’t resolving these issues in any meaningful timeframe.
Evri’s “Very Sorry” Response (Again)
Faced with hundreds of angry customers in West Cumbria and a Facebook group dedicated to finding parcels their company has misplaced, Evri issued its standard apology.
A spokesman told the News and Star: “Customers are at the heart of what we do and we’re very sorry that our service in the local area hasn’t met our high standards. We have replaced our delivery partner previously operating in the region, with a marked improvement already seen as a result.”
The claim about “a marked improvement already seen” will come as news to the residents still joining the parcel hunt Facebook group in their hundreds and reporting ongoing chaos with deliveries across the region.
The statement continued: “Anyone who needs help with their parcel should contact our customer service team for support.”
Which is all very well, except that contacting Evri’s customer service team is exactly what people have been trying to do, only to be told their parcels were “successfully delivered” based on photographs of random gates and strangers’ doorsteps.
The fact that Evri has “replaced our delivery partner previously operating in the region” raises questions about what oversight the company maintains over the self-employed couriers operating under its brand.
If an entire region’s delivery service can collapse into chaos with parcels being dumped in piles around town, what exactly is Evri doing to monitor and manage the people delivering parcels on its behalf?
The Pattern That Keeps Repeating Across the UK
West Cumbria’s Evri chaos isn’t an isolated regional problem but part of a broader pattern of delivery failures that have made the company Britain’s most complained-about courier service.
Just weeks ago, we reported on Evri’s recruitment crisis heading into Christmas peak season, with thousands of courier positions unfilled across the UK despite offering £1,000 sign-up bonuses.
The company continues to rely heavily on its Evri Flex workforce – self-employed couriers picking up shifts via an app who get different routes every single day, never building the local knowledge that allows for efficient deliveries.
Earlier this year, Tesco dumped Evri’s ParcelShop service across all UK stores, representing a significant blow to the company’s retail network.
And we’ve covered multiple incidents of organised theft operations targeting Evri’s network, including cases where Romanian nationals were found with tens of thousands of pounds worth of stolen parcels.
The West Cumbria situation simply represents the latest chapter in Evri’s ongoing struggle to provide reliable delivery services whilst operating a business model that prioritises low costs over consistent performance.
What This Means for West Cumbria Residents (and Everyone Else)
For people in Workington, Maryport, and Egremont, the message is clear: if you’re ordering something important online, check which courier the retailer uses before completing your purchase.
If it’s Evri, you might want to consider whether you’re prepared to potentially join the parcel hunt Facebook group and spend your evenings walking around town peering through strangers’ gates trying to locate your delivery.
Evri’s claim about replacing their delivery partner and seeing “marked improvement” rings rather hollow when hundreds of people continue reporting missing parcels and the Facebook group dedicated to finding them keeps growing.
For retailers using Evri as their delivery partner, the West Cumbria delivery chaos should raise serious questions about whether the cost savings are worth the customer service nightmare when parcels end up dumped in random locations or simply vanish entirely.
And for Evri itself, at some point the endless cycle of regional delivery collapses, profuse apologies, and promises about replacing delivery partners needs to be broken by actually fixing the systematic problems in how the company operates.
Until then, West Cumbria residents will apparently continue playing parcel hide & seek – because that’s what passes for “customers are at the heart of what we do” in 2025.
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