The couriers make it hard.
We make it easy.

How bad is it really?

According to Citizens Advice's 2025 research, a record 15 million people experienced a problem with their latest parcel delivery — that's more than a third of everyone who received one. The rate of parcel problems is now at its highest level in five years, and shows no sign of improving. The most common issues: drivers leaving before anyone could get to the door, parcels dumped in insecure locations, and deliveries arriving late. Disabled consumers are particularly badly served — three million people with accessibility needs still cannot get couriers to acknowledge them.

And when things go wrong, can't I just complain?

You can try. But Citizens Advice found that of the people who experienced a delivery problem, almost half faced further issues just trying to resolve it — slow responses, broken chatbots, having to contact the company multiple times and getting nowhere. The complaints systems are not there to help you. They're there to exhaust you. Yodel scored just 2 out of 5 for customer service. Evri and DPD aren't far behind. Citizens Advice has been calling on Ofcom to fine the worst offenders for years. Nothing has changed.

Can't Ofcom sort this out?

Here's the part that should make you angry. Ofcom can fine Royal Mail — because Royal Mail carries statutory obligations under the Universal Service Obligation. It has been fined £5.6m, then £10.5m, then £21m in three consecutive years for missing delivery targets, and is still missing them. But private couriers like Evri, Yodel, and DPD? Ofcom can issue guidance. It can monitor them. It can publish league tables showing they are failing. What it cannot do is fine them. There is no financial penalty for ignoring the rules. Ofcom doesn't investigate individual complaints at all — it simply collects data and hopes that public shame changes behaviour. Five years of league tables showing the same firms at the bottom suggests it doesn't. Citizens Advice has explicitly called on Ofcom to be given fining powers over private couriers. As of 2026, that has not happened.

Isn't this just the water companies all over again?

Yes. Exactly. The parallels are uncomfortable. In both cases, privatised companies providing what is effectively a public service have been allowed to prioritise shareholder returns over the people they serve — while a regulator watches, reports, and largely does nothing. Since privatisation, water companies have paid out an estimated £76 billion in dividends to shareholders while accumulating around £56 billion in debt — and discharging sewage into rivers and seas for a combined 16.3 million hours between 2019 and 2024. Ofwat, like Ofcom, set targets, published reports, and issued fines so small relative to company profits that they barely registered. The Independent Commission on the water sector concluded in 2025 that a "fundamental reset" of the entire industry was needed. For couriers, we haven't even got that far. The lesson from water is clear: when regulators lack the will or the power to act, it is ordinary people who pay the price — whether through sewage on their beaches or a lost parcel they'll never be compensated for.

So what can I actually do about it?

This is where it gets particularly unfair. If Royal Mail loses your parcel, you have a clear escalation path: complain to them, then take it to their independent Postal Review Panel, and if that fails, refer it to POSTRS — the Postal Redress Service — an independent ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) scheme that can make binding decisions.

If Evri, Yodel, DPD, or any other private courier loses your parcel? No such scheme exists. There is no independent body you can escalate to. If the courier rejects your claim, your only formal options are to seek legal advice or take them to the small claims court — a process so time-consuming and intimidating that the vast majority of people simply don't bother. That's exactly what the couriers are counting on. Citizens Advice has called for all consumers to have the same right to independent redress regardless of which courier delivered their parcel. As of 2026, the government has not acted on this.

4.1 billion parcels were delivered in the UK in 2025. The overwhelming majority of consumers who were failed had no meaningful route to compensation. That is the gap ParcelClaimer exists to fill.

Why do most people never claim?

At least 30,000 parcels are lost or stolen in the UK every single day — most of which go completely unclaimed. The process is deliberately time-consuming and resource-draining. Most people simply give up. It's designed to be that way.

Couldn't I do it myself?

Yes, of course — but will you? In our experience, contacting the courier directly takes a minimum of 2–3 hours even for the most straightforward claim, by the time you chase them up, jump through their hoops, and provide increasingly unrealistic proof of value. The courier will almost certainly deny liability on insurance, culpability, proof of delivery — at which point most people give up. Guess what? It's designed to be that way.