Eurosender, or How to Poorly Digitalize Logistics and Ignore European Regulations

Last week, I already told you how Eurosender's digital service is, if not outright "fraudulent"—which I hope a judge will rule when they evaluate the case we are currently working on—at least "misleading." Their system allows a customer to request a service that they know, recognize, and are fully aware from the start they will not fulfill. Yet, they still invoice for it, collect the money, and cause all customers to lose their merchandise, in addition to the financial cost.

Figure 1: Eurosender, or How to Poorly Digitalize Logistics

and Ignore European Regulations

In my specific case, the financial loss is quite small—barely €200—but the treatment we received has made me decide to keep demanding a system correction and a sanction against this company, "Eurosender," to prevent other customers from suffering similar situations.

Figure 2: Jan Stefe, Eurosender´s CEO showing off about technology. A joke?

I brought everything that happened to the attention of their CEO on LinkedIn, so he would know how his company operates in these situations, and the CEO's behavior has been disappointing.

Figure 3: Boasting about digitally transform the industry of logics. 

On his profile, he boasts that his company, Eurosender, is a "Digitalized Logistics" platform, taking pride in it in his description, despite having a system that fails to meet the requirements of European regulations regarding customer information.

The Reality of the Platform against the EUROPEAN DIRECTIVES 

As the European Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights and Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair commercial practices impose an active pre-contractual duty of information on professional operators. It is not for the individual consumer to be aware of the regulatory framework governing international freight transport: it is for the professional operator to verify, REFUSE, and WARM. The asymmetry of knowledge cannot be converted into a mechanism for exemption on the part of the party holding all relevant information who chooses not to act upon it.

Figure 4: Eurosender Platorm. Not WARM, not REFUSE

The contractual clause in order to exclude liability in these circumstances would, moreover, be subject to the unfairness control provided for under Directive 93/13/EEC, insofar as it seeks to exempt the professional from the consequences of its own operational failure to the detriment of a consumer who acted in good faith and with full transparency regarding the contents of the shipment. 

However, in their system, the information provided to the user when the customer—after having explicitly stated it over the phone—marks it on the platform as "WINE" is ZERO. It doesn't trigger any alerts or anything.

Figure 5: Proforma Invoice.

Dear Jan Štefe, in the world of Artificial Intelligence, this is as simple as writing a prompt that says: 

“Check if what the customer wants to ship is an item we cannot ship, and if so, show them an alert and all relevant information about it.”

But no, Eurosender's fantastic system—which is supposedly a leading company in Digitalized Logistics—not only fails to provide an alert, but it also sends the invoice to the customer for payment.

Figure 6: Payment invoice with reference code linked to the proforma invoice.

And not just the proforma invoice. The official invoice, which will be part of the case we are presenting to the European Commission, carries the reference code of the proforma invoice—created by their IT system to digitalize their logistics—and dispatches their carrier to pick it up, leaving the customer in a real mess and a completely defenseless position.

Customer Support: A Complete Joke

To give you an idea of how this company's customer support works, in one of our multiple claims, the response we received was a "laughing" reaction, because their IT support system allows agents to leave reactions that are visible to the customer.

Figure 7: KONSTANTINOS DIMITRAKAKIS laughing in the support system

It is rather amateurish for a customer-facing support system to transmit reactions this way. Mind you, that is exactly how Konstantinos Dimitrikakis kept reacting throughout the entire process.

Figure 8:  KONSTANTINOS DIMITRAKAKIS  removed tag on the post too.

In fact, this company's culture is like this from top to bottom, because when I brought the case to the attention of Jan Štefe, CEO of Eurosender, his response was to untag himself from the post and ignore it—something I called him out for on LinkedIn.

Figure 9: The CEO untag himself from the complaint.

Not the most brave behavior nor customer centric.

Next Steps

Anyway, in the age of AI, boasting about having a company with a digitalized logistics platform is bold, to say the least. And, of course, user management and support are exactly what you saw in the article I shared with you. I have already filed a formal complaint with the Consumer Protection Organization in Portugal. We will see this case through to the end.

Figure 10: Complaint in DECO Portugal

This isn't for the €200, which isn't the important part here, but because of the helplessness and the mistreatment my colleagues and I have experienced from this company since minute one.

So, I promise I will keep you posted on how it evolves. We'll see if I can get their "digitalized logistics platform" to display the appropriate warnings to save future customers from trouble. I already achieved it with Apple's iPhone, so why not fight this too and force Eurosender to stop being such an un-digital, non-customer-centric platform in the age of Artificial Intelligence?

Best Regards,

Autor: Chema Alonso (Contactar con Chema Alonso)