A woman has lashed out at a 'shambolic' service which saw her package containing a £160 pair of designer trainers left behind a wheelie bin.
Karen Hindaugh said she received a message from Hermes on Sunday afternoon while she was out, saying her parcel had been delivered and 'signed for at the delivery address'.
But the attached photo showed the expensive package left behind a wheelie bin on a busy road in a clumsy attempt to hide it.
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The wheelie bin belonged to a neighbour some metres from Karen’s Tynemouth home on what is a well-used public road in the centre of the coastal village, ChronicleLive reports.
Karen thought the parcel had been left inside the bin, but after arriving home an hour later she found it wedged beneath it in "full view" of passers-by.
"Because most of the houses in Percy Street don’t have access to a back lane, many of the residents leave their bins in a dirty and muddy recess by the side of the road which is easily accessible to anyone who’s passing.
The managing director of Tynemouth-based Right Angle PR, said: "I’m horrified that Hermes could have left my package beneath a wheelie bin on a public road.
"Anyone who saw the parcel being delivered could easily have taken it. It’s shambolic."
Karen said her parcel was due to be delivered between 12pm-2pm on Sunday, and had expected it would be left with a neighbour if she wasn’t home in time.
She said her earlier Amazon delivery had been 'successfully left with a neighbour'.
The frustrated businesswoman added: "It was wrapped in a bag that clearly said it had come from Moda in Pelle, so anyone would have known it contained shoes.
"If I hadn't seen the parcel under the bin, I might never have got it. The bins are emptied every Wednesday and the chances are it would either have gone out with the rubbish or, if a passer-by had seen it, they would probably have thought, given where it was left, that it had been discarded and they may well have just taken it.
"I would then have been left trying to get my money back from the retailer, who would have been notified the parcel had been successfully delivered and signed for.
“You have a choice of whether your delivery is left with a neighbour or in a safe place. Leaving a parcel under a neighbour’s wheelie bin on a public road at a distance from the delivery address could no way be regarded as a ‘safe place’.”
After being contacted by ChronicleLive, Hermes has apologised to Karen.
In a statement the company said: “We successfully deliver over 700 million parcels a year, but occasionally things do go wrong. We have been in touch with the customer to apologise and have provided a gesture of goodwill.”
Karen is not the only Hermes customer to have been left dismayed by the courier’s service after Citizens Advice published a league table of delivery firms last year, seeing Hermes and Yodel at the bottom.
No firm scored more than three out of five stars for their service.
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