A woman with vulnerable health who has decided against gathering with family for Christmas this year was left dismayed after gifts sent by loved ones got lost in transit, with a box of 'rusty old car parts' landing on her doorstep instead.
Julia Harris has suffered three heart attacks over the course of the past year, and so didn't want to risk organising a big family gathering. As they wouldn't be seeing her in person, her son and his father, Adrian, instead sent her a box filled with several gifts they intended to open together over a Christmas Day video call.
Unfortunately, when a large box arrived at Julia's home on Tuesday, December 20th from DPD, it was clear the outer packaging was a different shape than the one she'd seen in a previous video message. Upon opening it, she found 'rusty old car parts' rather than lovingly wrapped gifts, all packed with bubble wrap and Amazon cardboard, Bristol Live reports.
Julia, from Avonmouth, told the publication: "I rang my son and his dad straight away. They thought I was joking and winding them up, so I showed them on a video call, and they couldn't believe it. My son's dad got straight onto DPD, who were absolutely useless and didn't want to know."
Parcel tracking information would suggest the box was repacked at a DPD depot in Rumney, Cardiff, with Julia noting the tracking information 'looked normal' right up until it reached this point. According to Julia, it was then repacked and re-labelled at 9am on the delivery day.
Julia said that she did attempt to phone the depot throughout the day in question but was not able to get a response. Her son's father also contacted DPD and was initially told that, as this was a DPD Local delivery, they had to reach out to Parcel2Go, a delivery and courier services that work with the company.
Although he persisted in attempting to speak to a DPD employee, he says he was asked to email over video evidence to an address that wasn't valid, with the email repeatedly bouncing back. He allegedly then waited in a phone queue for more than an hour before being given another email address.
The family claims the only response they received was a message stating that the company would 'look into it in due course'. The presents are said to be worth around £200 collectively, and so the parcel had been insured for £200.
They chose DPD to deliver the gifts as they had wanted to avoid any issues due to the ongoing Royal Mail strikes, but say they won't be using the company again, regarding DPD's apparent lack of willingness to engage in communication as inexcusable.
Julia said: "They don't care, we're just another customer to them, just another barcode. The little Christmas we were going to have we haven't got now, it's been ruined."
A DPD spokesperson said: "We are very sorry indeed to hear about this and have launched a full investigation.
"From our security images, we can see that the packaging failed in transit, and we are now conducting a search to locate the missing items, as a matter of urgency. We will be in contact with the customer to resolve this issue."
Do you have a nightmare delivery story to share? Email us at julia.banim@reachplc.com
