the times | Saturday December 18 2021 2GM 9
News
Delivery drivers can work for Hermes,
the parcel company, without telling it
their name, criminal history or whether
they can work legally. It encouraged
drivers on its books to get other people
to help them with deliveries, an under-
cover reporter found.
The company referred to them as
“substitutes” and even though they
could handle expensive items and have
access to customers’ homes and phone
numbers, its policy was that it did not
need to be given any details about them.
In some cases drivers have had 18 sub-
stitute drivers working under them.
Last month Graham Kennedy, 40, a
Hermes courier, was convicted of sexu-
ally assaulting a 73-year-old customer
in her flat in Glasgow.
A reporter worked as one of the com-
pany’s 30,000 local couriers for a week
this month. He was repeatedly encour-
aged to use substitute drivers to help
him increase his number of deliveries.
Hermes’s contracts for its self-em-
ployed “lifestyle cover couriers” said
that if the courier wanted to get other
drivers to help them “they do not need
to seek permission from anyone at the
company before doing so, nor do they
have to tell the company”.
Managers said that many couriers on
self-employed contracts operated as
their own businesses and found other
drivers to help them and gave them a
proportion of their earnings. In some
cases Hermes couriers had as many as
18 drivers working for them.
The reporter asked managers how
common it was for couriers to use sub-
stitutes. Gesturing to other drivers, one
manager said: “A lot of these couriers
are other people’s drivers.”
Contracted Hermes couriers have
their driving licences checked and au-
tomatically have £1 a day taken from
their earnings to cover motor insurance
if they need this, but there are no checks
that substitutes have insurance, licen-
ces or the right to work in Britain.
After negotiations with the GMB
union, couriers who take on regular
rounds are entitled to a “self-employed
plus” contract, with benefits such as
holiday pay.
Hermes said that this meant they
could “enjoy the flexibility that so many
treasure”, adding: “The ability to pro-
vide a substitute for their round is key to
this and is often a member of the family,
a friend or another courier.” It said that
substitutes were expected to deliver to
the same standard as the contracted
courier, who was accountable for any
problems.Hermes lady is absolutely fantastic. She
is pleasantness personified.”
Hermes, which is majority owned by
an American private equity investor,
handles more than 600 million parcels
a year. Its revenues have risen consider-
ably during the pandemic as people
have become more reliant on deliveries.
Last month Citizens Advice, the con-
sumer charity, reported widespread
concerns about a range of companies,
along with a parcel delivery league
table. Hermes was rated bottom, with
criteria including customer service,
delivery problems and accessibility.
Hermes did not respond to the alle-
gations related to individuals’ experien-
ces. It has begun a “full investigation”
into this newspaper’s findings but said it
was confident the “vast majority” of
allegations were “unfounded and do
not reflect our business”.
It said the Citizens Advice research
was “flawed” and the number of cus-
tomer inquiries it had received had fall-
en in the past 18 months when adjusted
for the increased volume of orders.
A spokeswoman said its couriers all
earned at least the national living wage,
98 per cent of next-day deliveries
arrived on time and at the delivery units
where the reporter worked “there are
no issues regarding service or damage”.
Retailers said they were in urgent
discussions with Hermes, that they
took the allegations very seriously and
that customers should contact them
directly if they had problems.Homeowners near the M5 have con-
demned the “cruel and barbaric” felling
of 100 trees which left their properties
exposed to the motorway.
Residents in Quinton, Birmingham,
have likened their circumstances to
“living in a petrol station” after highway
officials began chopping down sturdy
conifers from behind their back gar-
dens last month.
The trees had been growing for 50
years, shielding homes from light, noise
Paul Morgan-Bentley
Head of Investigations
George Lindsay-Watson
Kevin Reynolds
been unhelpful. On social media, read-
ers shared images of broken goods. One
posted a picture of a shattered soup
bowl, claiming: “The handiwork of a
Hermes delivery driver who flung my
parcel over my garden fence.”
A driver from York sent The Times a
video taken in September showing a
Hermes worker repeatedly hurling
parcels into a van behind a petrol sta-
tion. A Hermes courier also wrote to re-
porters claiming the findings of the in-
vestigation tallied with his experiences,Thousands of disgruntled Hermes
customers have told of their experien-
ces of parcels being late, lost, damaged
or stolen after a Times investigation in-
to the delivery company.
Shoppers reported waiting months
for gifts they had bought online and
shared pictures of purchases that were
smashed after being delivered by
Hermes couriers. In one case, a bowl
arrived in pieces after a Hermes driver
allegedly threw it over a garden fence,
while a video also shared with reporters
showed a courier repeatedly throwing
parcels with force into a delivery van.
Hermes couriers, who deliver parcels
for retailers including John Lewis,
Marks & Spencer and Next, spoke
about the huge pressure they were
under to deliver parcels as quickly as
possible. The responses came after a re-
porter worked undercover for Hermes
and found couriers mishandling par-
cels, routinely failing to complete next-
day orders and being encour-
aged to lie to customers.
Footage taken inside a Her-
mes delivery unit in High
Wycombe, Buckinghamshire,
showed workers hurling pack-
ages across the room, with
some clattering into hard
cages, walls and the floor. A
manager encouraged couriers
to mislead customers who
complained, saying they should
“act stupid”, and a driver joked
about throwing parcels over
gates to avoid having to wait for
people to answer their doors.
Ruth Davidson, the former
Scottish Conservative leader,
was among those who shared
their experiences with Hermes, say-
ing she had been waiting two months
for a delivery for her three-year-old
son. She wrote on Twitter: “This will
come as zero surprise to any Hermes
customer.”
Other claims from shoppers in-
cluded that a Hermes driver had
stolen a parcel and that a delivery
that was meant to be signed for was
left on sodden grass overnight.
One customer, who gave her name as
Rachel, shared a CCTV video showing a
driver scanning a parcel in a car outside
her home. She claimed: “The driver
took a picture of my front door from
afar and claimed to have delivered my
parcel. I went to get the parcel when I
received the notification — lo and be-
hold there was nothing there.
“I checked my home security footage
and saw the driver scanning my parcel
from his car, taking the photo and driv-
ing off.”
She was given a refund by the retailer
but said Hermes customer services had
including witnessing parcels routinely
being thrown with force.
He said: “I have to do at least 17-
[deliveries] per hour just to get £10 per
hour. This is one parcel every three
minutes including driving time,” he
said. “Just stress on top of stress.”
The chairman of parliament’s
business select committee called for
legal changes to protect workers
in the gig economy.
Darren Jones, Labour MP for
Bristol North West, said: “This is
why it is urgent for the govern-
ment to bring forward their prom-
ised employment rights bill and
protect workers. Reform of this
area of law has been promised time
and time again but has been
delayed.”
Online readers also shared their
experiences. Robert Sutera said that
he had stopped ordering from retail-
ers that use Hermes and “almost
daily on our village Facebook group,
people are searching for Hermes deliv-
eries that have gone to the wrong ad-
dress. They are beyond appalling.”
Some readers said they had positive
experiences with Hermes and if a local
courier was routinely on the same
round of deliveries, the individuals pro-
vided a good service.
Rachel Muller wrote: “We’ve never
had issues with Hermes in our area, we
have a regular courier who is excellent.”
Michael Thompson, from Portstewart,
Northern Ireland, responded: “OurThousands share tales of parcel pain
‘Substitute’
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peoReaders shared claims of damaged Hermes deliveries, left, after the Times reporttimes investigation
It’s like living in petrol station, say M5 neighbours after trees felled
and pollution from the motorway.
National Grid said the trees had been
removed due to the risk they posed to
traffic and power lines as part of a part-
nership with National Highways.
Melanie Davies, 51, who moved into
her £175,000 terraced property last
April, said she broke down in tears when
she saw the removal. “It has been heart-
breaking,” she said. “It is like living in a
petrol station. You can smell the motor-
way, it’s vile.” Before and after photos of
Davies’s garden show a landscape that
has been stripped of greenery and leftbarren. Residents, campaigners and
local politicians have criticised the deci-
sion as damaging to the environment.
“There was a wildlife belt running
between our fences and the motorway
but now we haven’t seen any bats or
birds in our gardens,” Davies said.
A spokesman for National Grid said
that the removal was “essential safety
work”. Ian Doust, National Highways
programme development manager,
added: “We’re working with National
Grid to replace trees that need to be
removed near the M5.”Nina Lloyd
Melanie Davies says the removal of the trees behind her garden has hurt wildlifeSWNS