Evri parcels not being delivered in Stoke Holy Cross

The vanishing Evri deliveries left the people of Stoke Holy Cross scratching their heads especially as they received confirmation their packages had arrived.

But villagers began to realise they had been duped.

Stoke Holy Cross found itself the victim of a delivery dupe (Image: Geographer/Creative Common)

Lisa-Marie Barake, a Stoke local, said: "I was expecting two parcels which were undelivered, yet I was sent confirmation of delivery from Evri showing fake stock photos from the internet of front doors with parcels in front of it."

In order to prove they made a correct delivery, Evri drivers must take a picture of the parcel in front of the destination address.

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"And dozens of other people in the village have reported the same problem, showing confirmations with exactly the same pictures," Lisa added. 

Social media groups for the area were awash with similar reports and it seemed the whole community had been tricked. 

Three different delivery confirmation emails with the same stock image (Image: Supplied)

Katie Frost, 22, who has lived in Stoke for only a month, was confused when she received one of the fake delivery notices. 

"I haven't had any experiences like this before, it's quite a stressful situation.

"Myself and my partner are expecting so not knowing if I'll actually receive the baby items I ordered is not something I'd like to experience again."

Katie Frost was waiting for baby products which never arrived (Image: Katie Frost)

After jumping through hoops to reach a customer service advisor who could help her, Katie received a refund. Others are still waiting for compensation. 

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She added: "If I knew something was being delivered by Evri in the future I probably would see about changing to a different delivery service."

Evri said the incident fell below its usual standards of delivery (Image: PA)

As word got around, people soon realised their regular - and more reliable - driver had gone on holiday and a substitute driver had failed to make any deliveries.

One report said they had left a pile of around 30 packages outside the church in Norwich Road which were later picked up by another driver.

An Evri spokesman said in response: "This falls below the high standards we expect and the driver will no longer deliver on behalf of Evri.

"This may have impacted a very small number of customers and we apologise to them, we can confirm all the parcels are being scheduled for redelivery as a priority."