Earlier this year I bought 2 brand new iPhone 12 Pro mobile phones

Both were purchased through vodaphone and sent via DPD, the first was due for delivery on Saturday 20th of February 2021 but the driver failed the delivery as he said he was unable to find our address DPD said he was outside our house and gps puts him their however when confronted with our CCTV footage showing no vans in the culdesac we live on they changed the story to he ran out of time to make the delivery.

10 mins later I received a message on Facebook from the postmaster at the local post office asking if I was expecting a phone to be delivered, I said yes I was and he asked if it was a green iPhone to which I agreed it was.

He said your not getting it as it’s on its way to Romania

And then went on to explain they watched a DPD driver pull up and open a parcel on his lap in plan view of the glass fronted post office! He then went into the post office with a phone and charger bought a box and wrapped up the phone and posted it to Romania. He then went out and got the parcel and came back in and asked the post office staff to re seal the box as it had become damaged.
The staff of the small village post office were suspicious and noted my name and address on the box this is how they knew to contact me.

They had no proof at the time so sealed the box and let the driver go. But didn’t know a crime had been committed until they spoke to me.

Once they spoke to me I called the police who didn’t seem interested being a Saturday I knew I had until Monday to get the phone back and had to quote pace (police and criminal evidence act) to get an office to go seize the parcel the driver had tried sending to Romania and it was indeed the iPhone meant to be delivered to me that day.

Now I knew the phone now due to be delivered to me on Monday was not going to be in the box I recorded the delivery and the footage of that is here.

The police investigation found over 87 phones had been stolen and a small gang of drivers from the agency were involved in doing these scams, DPD did nothing and it wasn’t until the driver was arrested nearly a week later that DPD let him go.

Recovered or not DPD claim on insurance for these types of lost or stolen property which is very profitable because they will claim the full value of a device when most contract phones are discounted so the only winner in these scams is the courier

Vodafone eventually sent a new phone 2 weeks later.