My son's Sports Direct jacket got lost: Has Evri charged me £53 for a phone call to sort it? CRANE ON THE CASE

In October 2024, I ordered a winter coat online for my son from Sports Direct, costing £32.99.

It didn't fit, so I started a return with the courier, Evri. I printed off the label and took it to the drop-off locker to be sent back.

But Sports Direct then contacted me in November to say it never arrived.

I've been contacting both Sports Direct and Evri to try and get my money back, but have had no luck.

Sports Direct says the loss of the parcel was Evri's responsibility and I need to contact them directly, while Evri says it can't start the claim unless it is contacted by Sports Direct.

To make matters worse, I called Evri in January to follow up and was charged £53.27 for a 20-minute phone call. Can you help? G.D, Birmingham

Helen Crane, This is Money's consumer champion, replies: When you first contacted me about this coat that had been lost in the post, I thought it would be fairly simple to sort out.

However, it has taken several twists and turns - and led me to discover a new type of scam I'd never come across before.

My first port of call was to speak to Frasers Group, the parent company behind Sports Direct.

When an item you have ordered gets lost in transit, whether it is on its way to you or you are sending it back as a return, it is always the retailer's job to make things right - not the delivery firm.

This is because your contract is with the retailer. I'm not sure why Sports Direct tried to tell you otherwise.

When I contacted Sports Direct, it apologised for the delay in processing the return and quickly issued a full refund of £32.99 for the jacket.

Sadly, it did not explain why you were told that the refund was Evri's responsibility, or why this took so long to sort out.

Now you had the cash back for the jacket, I set out to find out why a 20-minute phone call to Evri's customer helpline had cost you an eye-watering £53.

I've put Evri through the ringer in this column many times, but on this occasion it turned out it wasn't in the wrong - or at least, not directly.

That is because, as it turned out, you never spoke to Evri.

You did speak to someone on the phone for 20 minutes, handing over your reference number, going through the details of your complaint and being given an apology for the fact that the problem hadn't been sorted yet.

But this person didn't work for Evri at all - something we didn't discover until I challenged the company on its hefty call charge.

After becoming frustrated in your attempts to speak to someone on the main Evri number, you had searched online for an alternative.

You found a post on a local Facebook group, where someone had posted about a missing parcel and another person replied with the phone number, saying it was 'the human Evri helpline, not the robot'.

You decided to give it a call, spoke to someone and were quickly transferred to what the person told you was another department.

But unfortunately this was a scam, and the 'other department' was a premium rate number starting with 09. These numbers can charge up to £3.60 per minute as well as a per-call charge on top.

These numbers are regulated by Ofcom and there are rules stating that the charges, and how the service works, must be made clear.

But fraudsters aren't troubled much by regulatory rules, and can simply set up their own number and watch the money roll in.

Evri confirmed to me that it doesn't have a premium rate phone number, and that it had been made aware of people running a fake customer service line scam.

It also apologised for the way the original return was handled. A spokesman said: 'Evri is on track to handle 800 million parcels this financial year with more than 99 per cent successfully delivered on time.

'We’ve apologised to G.D for their experience and any inconvenience caused and have supported them in getting in a refund from the retailer.'

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I then contacted your mobile network, Sky Mobile, to report the phone number as malicious and see if it would be willing to refund the charge.

Often phone companies will refund customers who have fallen victim to a scam which has taken money from their phone bill, but they aren't obliged to.

Unfortunately, Sky has decided not to reimburse you on this occasion.

The reason Sky gave was that you made the outbound call, rather than a scammer getting in touch with you.

However, Sky did say that it had spoken to you and advised you on how to report this to the Phone-paid Services Authority - the part of Ofcom which regulates premium rate phone numbers and text messages.

While it isn't your fault you got scammed, it is a good idea to only contact companies using the phone numbers published on their legitmiate website.

That said, I completely understand why customers search for 'secret' back-door phone numbers, frustrated as they often are by long wait times and having to navigate several levels of instant messages and annoying robots before speaking to a real human.

This is by no means a problem unique to Evri. Plenty of big organisations have a terrible record when it comes to picking up the phone - from His Majesty's Revenue and Customs to banks.

It appears this failure has now handed a golden money-making opportunity to scammers.

I would like to say that perhaps this will prompt companies to put more real people to work in their call centres - but I won't hold my breath.