Girl, 13, 'finds "help me" note stuffed inside Amazon Christmas parcel describing bosses as "evil"'

 A mum says her teenage daughter discovered a "help me" note hidden inside an Amazon Christmas delivery.

Kim Dorsett said April, 13, found the words scrawled onto an invoice inside a £30 make-up advent calendar ordered by her dad Philip.

The note said: "Help me please, PMP staff are evil."

PMP is the recruitment agency used by Amazon to fill jobs at its distribution sites.

Our exposé found exhausted warehouse staff were falling asleep on their feet as they chased impossible targets.

A parcel is expected to be packed and ready every 30 seconds.

Kim, 32, from Bolton, Greater Manchester, said: "I want to know if it's a prank or if they have people in sweatshops.

"My other half ordered the calender as a present. He ordered a note in it saying 'love from mum and dad'.

"We asked April 'have you read the note?' and she said 'do you mean this one?'

"That's when we saw it. I thought 'this isn't right'. Then I thought it must be a prank and I was overreacting, but then people pointed out all the stories about Amazon lately."

PMP said the note is not "an accurate or fair representation" of the experiences of the people it recruits, but is investigating the incident alongside Amazon.

Kim continued: "My daughter was worried. She is a vegan and she likes to know people and animals are OK.

"She said 'mum, you need to contact Amazon'. I have ordered loads from Amazon before and I've never had any problems.

"This is quite worrying. It's the sort of thing you hear about happening in sweatshops in China."

A Sunday Mirror reporter spent five weeks undercover at Amazon's Tilbury plant.

The investigation led to a widespread backlash against the £7.3billion-a-year online giant.

Staff at Amazon’s “fulfillment” centres, where orders are put together, packed and shipped, work up to 55 hours a week for £8.20 an hour.

We photographed “packers” asleep at their stations where, if they achieve 120 boxes an hour, they earn 7p per box.

Staff also said their toilet breaks were monitored and they weren't allowed to go outside of scheduled break times.

Amazon said our report was “inconsistent with [the experience of] the many thousand we employ all over Britain.” They added: “There is on-site physiotherapy. We do not monitor toilet breaks.”

A statement from PMP about the note said: "PMP Recruitment employs over 100,000 people across a range of clients, many of whom have stayed with us for a number of years or return each year during our peak trading period, so we do not recognise the comment made as being an accurate or fair representation of the employee experience we provide.

"We provide various channels to raise concerns, including a confidential helpline, and have not received any complaints of this nature.

"We do, however, take such comments extremely seriously and will be investigating in conjunction with our client."

Staff on gruelling 10-and-a-half-hour shifts were given one Celebration sweet in the first half of their day and another in the second half.

The bizarre gesture is revealed today by former employee Neil Drinkwater – who quit after his partner read our exposé and realised for the first time what he had been enduring.

Amazon's full response to our investigation

Amazon provides a safe and positive workplace for thousands of people across the UK with competitive pay and benefits from day one.

We are committed to treating every one of our associates with dignity and respect. We don’t recognize these allegations as an accurate portrayal of activities in our buildings.

As with nearly all companies, we expect a certain level of performance from our associates and we continue to set productivity targets objectively, based on previous performance levels achieved by our workforce.

Associate performance is measured and evaluated over a long period of time as we know that a variety of things could impact the ability to meet expectations in any given day or hour.

We support people who are not performing to the levels expected with dedicated coaching to help them improve.

Associates are allowed to use the toilet whenever needed. We do not monitor toilet breaks.

Amazon has a range of initiatives to support our people if they become ill at home or work.

As well as private medical insurance that is available to all permanent employees, there is on-site occupational health and physiotherapy support, and our Employee Assistance Programme supports people with independent, confidential legal and financial guidance, as well as practical and workplace advice. We have first aid rooms in all of our sites and people are not treated in our canteens.

In the US, as with any workplace, all our sites include medical kits available to employees which includes aspirin, ibuprofen, plasters, etc.