AN ANDOVER man has been reunited with his guitar after it went missing for 18 days when he sent it via Parcelforce to a buyer in Kent.

Andrew Whiteley, 66, from Roman Way said he parcelled his guitar in a 1.2mx50cmx20cm box on October 19, but it was not delivered to the recipient’s address.

After he contacted Parcelforce, a customer care executive told him that they could not track where the parcel had gone.

But after the Advertiser got in touch with the Royal Mail, the guitar has been safely returned to Andrew, 18 days after the driver collected it from him.

“They told me they found it in a secure cage in the Basingstoke depot,” Andrew told the Advertiser.

“The whole thing was a bit odd. It was supposed to be delivered in 24 hours. Such a big package went missing and they had no idea where it had gone.”

Andrew, a retired civil servant and an amateur musician, first advertised his £500 guitar for sale in Reverb.com, a website for buying and selling musical instruments.

After a person from Kent agreed to buy it, Andrew packed and sent it via Parcelforce using a tracking number.

“I have been doing this for a couple of years. I sell musical instruments via Reverb and it is usually very smooth,” Andrew said.

“But I contacted Parcelforce when this one was not delivered. I had a collection stamp on the package and hence it showed the driver had collected it from my address. A lovely chap from ParcelForce who looked into it told me that the driver who picked up the parcel had not joined work since that day.

“Interestingly, another person from Andover had also sent a guitar on the day before I sent mine, and his package was also missing. He contacted me using my details on the Reverb website to check if my guitar has been delivered.

“So it looked very odd. Both guitars were collected by Parcelforce, both in Andover area.”

Andrew also filed an online police complaint regarding the missing guitar. Although he was given a crime number, police told him they weren’t prepared to investigate it any further.

When the Advertiser contacted the Royal Mail, they asked for the tracking number for Andrew’s parcel. The guitar was returned soon after we provided them the number.

Following this, the Royal Mail told the Advertiser that their customer services team have got in touch with the customer directly to apologise for the delay.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “Every item we handle is important to us and we always strive to provide the best possible service to all of our customers. We have been in touch with this customer directly to apologise for the delay in delivering his parcel and to rearrange a new delivery.”