Ontario woman distressed Purolator lost her passport. She was offered $100 gift card as goodwill gesture

A London, Ont., woman says Purolator lost her former Indian passport while it was en route to a consulate office in Brampton, and after months of not being able to locate it, the courier service closed her case and offered her a $100 Amazon gift card for the inconvenience.

Jaya Chevendra, 62, said the document had legal and sentimental value, and its loss has jeopardized her plans of retiring in India and having citizenship rights. She said she turned down the gift certificate offer, and believes Purolator's financial compensation dodges accountability for the distress caused by the error.

"There was no extension of wanting to help make this right in any shape or form, except throw a few dollars at me because I was out a few dollars," she said. "The financial portion is irrelevant in this case. It is a critical document and I have no other document that would replace it."

In early 2024, Chevendra — who was born in India and has been a Canadian citizen for decades — applied for an Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) that allows her benefits including the ability to open a bank account and buy property in India, which does not allow dual citizenship.

To obtain an OCI, she had to surrender the Indian passport issued to her in 1980. She sent it to BLS India Visa Application Centre's Brampton office using Canada Post's registered mail service, which ensures a signature upon delivery, a mailing receipt and tracking information.

BLS sent it back to her, stating it doesn't accept packages from Canada Post and directed Chevendra to use Purolator instead. In September, Chevendra created an OCI application for a friend and sent off both passports together through Purolator. Her friend's package was delivered by Oct. 2, but Chevendra's was last seen in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke and couldn't be tracked after that.

BLS couldn't be reached for comment, but its website says Purolator is its third-party logistics company and its system platform is "integrated with BLS to track any Application's Life Cycle Status from 'Receiving at BLS' to 'Delivery from BLS.'"

The website said BLS cannot track applications coming through other mail services.

In a statement to CBC News, Purolator said it cannot comment on individual customers' packages, but once a customer reaches out to its support team, Purolator initiates a trace investigation and searches its facilities. If a package still isn't found, customers can start a claims process.

"Purolator makes every effort to ensure that packages are delivered on time. However, issues do at times arise, either because of the way the shipment is tendered by the shipper or during the delivery process, which can prevent a package from being successfully delivered," the statement said. "While it is a very rare occurrence, we sincerely regret when a package goes missing."

After this article was published, a Purolator representative contacted CBC News to say the gift card was offered as a gesture of goodwill.

For months, Chevendra said, she followed up with both BLS and Purolator, but neither company had any idea where the package went. She said she wrote a letter to Purolator expressing concern and asking for more support to help find her passport.

"There's a lot of identifying information about me, my address, my signature is on every single document in that envelope, and so I'm really concerned about identity theft. I stated my concern about that and it was not addressed in their letter back to me," she said.

"It's appalling that they can be so dismissive of something so important. They took responsibility for that package when they accepted the money and said they would deliver it. They failed to deliver it and I don't feel they're doing nearly enough to make it right."

Chevendra showed CBC an email thread with a Purolator customer relations employee, who apologized to her and explained the company's thorough search, which included a check of its records dating back to September 2024 and BLS's records using her Indian passport, but to no avail.

The employee acknowledged Chevendra's frustration and offered to cover the cost of her $51 bank draft, plus a $100 Amazon gift card as a gesture of apology.

In using courier services, there's always a chance items can go missing, despite signed contracts and regulations, according to Ken Whitehurst, executive director of Consumers Council of Canada, a volunteer non-profit.

"Transferring a document that is unique is always going to be risky because things will go wrong in any system that's large scale with documents," he said.

The decline of in-person customer services means more people are left to figure out next steps on their own, said Whitehurst, calling it a "buyer beware world," with increasing risks.

"As people flock to convenience, governments reduce their service locations and don't have to offer them face-to-face services, but ultimately that can prove very problematic because of exactly this kind of situation where there's a loss of custody of something very important," he said.

Customers in contracts can take action based on the terms or conditions for delivery and compensation for non-delivery. They can also look into taking the merchant to small claims court to seek damages, said Whitehurst.

In Chevendra's case, she's calling on Purolator and BLS to locate her passport or find an alternative way for her to get her an OCI.

"They need to make it right and that means they need to talk to higher-ups and do all the running around because at this point, I don't know what to do. They're the ones that have my passport — it has to be somewhere."