DHL Sucks

An advertiser pays me by cheque, sent by DHL courier. It doesn't arrive. The advertiser passes on to me this log from DHL:

1/4/2007 3:48 pm Delivery Attempted.
Please Call 1-888-273-8876. Axxxxxx, Canada

Odd. There was no delivery attempt notice left at the door. In any case, someone was here all day.

I call 888-273-8876. The automated message assures me that delivery is DHL's top priority, and then asks me to enter my 5-digit ZIP code. Here in Canada, we have 6-character postal codes.

I press 0 to get an operator. No response.

I enter my postal code on the telephone keypad. I am told it is incorrect, and to reenter it. I do, and after a while, a human answers the phone. She takes information from me, and then explains that this 888-number only handles "domestic" deliveries, which I take to mean the United States (DHL is a German company). She has no answer to my question, "Why are Canadian addresses asked to call a number that only supports US addresses?"

She attempts to transfer me to the international desk, but cannot. She tells me to call 1-888-899-0289.

I call the number. It rings once, then silence.

I call the number again. Again it rings once, then silence.

I call the number a third time. This time someone picks up the phone. I explain the problem. She responds that I have called the wrong number, but she will transfer me.

I am finally transferred to a DHL employee who can deal with the problem. She looks up the info. The only problem she can determine is that my street address was printed "Donl yn" instead of "Donlyn." Everything else is correct, including the street number, city, and postal code.

She cheerfully tells me that the package will be delivered "Monday or Tuesday." I am aghast: that's another four days! "You don't deliver on Fridays?" I ask. "Yes, but the address needs to be corrected."

When I tell her that I will tell the shipper to apply for a refund on this delivery (since it is delivered late), I hear only stoney silence. With the DHL rep no longer responding, I hang up.

Update

The envelop arrived Friday, after all. I asked the DHL driver about the address problem. "That's B.S!" he exclaimed.

The more likely reason, he continued, is that the envelop arrived late, and a driver couldn't be bothered delivering it, so he put in the "Address Incorrect" code.

When I reported all this to the advertiser, he replied, "DHL isn't my favorite shipping company, this is reason number 8,0000!"

Comments

[R.K. McSwain]

My wife receives shipments at home from her employer, who frequently uses DHL.

The last two times, after waiting past the due date on a shipment, she calls and was told a delivery attempt was made.

In neither case was a delivery attempt notice left, and in the same case as yours, someone was there both times.

A call to DHL the first time results in basically nothing - it took another 3-4 days. The last time this happened however, she got in touch with our drivers supervisor, who ended up personally delivering this package about 8PM that night...

It seems that the driver just didn't feel like making our delivery on that Friday afternoon...

Well, you know how it is... Late Friday, you want to get home, get a head start on the weekend, right.....?

"An advertiser pays me by cheque, sent by DHL courier"
People still courier cheques?!

[Ratchbrat]

Funny. We sent a check on DHL from here in Denver to Randall's house in Tonasket, WA on Dec 29th, 2006. We slipped up and sent it '3 day ground'. When randall emailed me on Jan 3rd 2007 to say it hadn't arrived, we started tracking it but were not too concerned. There was, after all, the distraction of the Denver snow, and New Year's day to contend with. When it has not turned up by the 5th Jan, we started getting concerned.
The Tracking Info said that it was at a distribution point some 120 miles away from Randall's house but would be delivered the next working day. By Monday 8th, still no check. On Tuesday they start saying things like 'Address unknown'. Randall calls and they tell him that the address given is a pharmacy (it's not but there is one a block or so away down the street.) On Wednesday, the admit that they gave it to a local delivery firm, who is, apparently, lost. Randall keeps calling.
On Wednesday they tell him that they can have it to him by Friday (that's the 12th, some 2 weeks after it was sent!) Randall says to hell with that and drives the 120 miles to pick up the check while on another errand.

We are now in a fight to NOT pay for the delivery and Randall has asked for gas expenses from DHL.

The anomoaly is: DHL was mostly developed out of Airborne, that was HQd in Washington State, yet that state seems to be the most underserved...why is that?

[DHL-TakesDonkeyCockNutsDeep]

I recently was expecting a return from DHL (and yes they suck) and they couldn't even find my place (its not hard and with GPS nowadays they have no excuse) So they decided to drop it off at my fathers office. Never told me where they dropped it off (there crappy tracking system online lacks a lot of info such as the address of the final destination)

So i'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off because someones name I am not familiar with had signed for my package and it sure didn't come to my house. Then after all the tech support crap the last person to call and tell me where it was could not speak well and was hard to distinguish what she was saying.

They still even said they where not sure of the name of the place they left my package or even the address! The just told me its near such and such bank but did not have a. Gee that helped. Luckily I know of the location there where talking about and figured it was my fathers office. But that address was not on any of the shipping or billing info ever!

So some dumb ass worker of theres just left it there without notification and didn't even make a note of the damn address they left it at! I had no choice but to use DHL because thats what Logitechs return service shipped through. I will never purposely use these incompetent moronic fools again!

[DHL Fiasco]

Well, this is a blog I really needed to find right now!

I live in Tampa, FL. My mom used Puro-LATER for express delivery of my Canadian income tax refund. The fact that my accountant neglected to check mark that I no longer want direct deposit, rather a paper cheque mailed to my mom's address, was the first problem: Revenue Canada deposited my refund into my old bank account, which I no longer have access to. So, to make a long story short, it was hell to try and recover the money from the bank. Finally, the issue was resolved and the money given to my mom.

So, my mom sent money orders to me via overnight delivery through pure-O-Crap. It was to be delivered last Friday, but when 5:00 PM rolled along, I decided it was time to get on the phone. They said the entire shipment was held up by customs, and there will be no shipping fee refund -- because it was not within their control. I asked when it would be delivered, and they told me Monday -- because they don't deliver on weekends. Begrudgingly, after telling them that I don't know how they stay in business when other services, including USPS delivers on weekends, I said I understood.

Monday finally arrived, and I stayed home from work, as I had on Friday, to wait for my delivery. A work issue came up at 11:10 AM, and I had to go in.

I arrived home at 6:45 PM and found a notice on my doorknob claiming that they attempted delivery of my package at 9:30 AM. I lock my door from the outside, and when I left at 11:00 AM, there was nothing but my key near the doorknob.

The delivery notice says "DHL" rather than Puro-LATER. I called DHL. They told me that puro-LATER was short staffed, and passed my package onto them. I told them about the little lie left on my door, how it was supposed to be delivered on Friday, and that I wanted to pick it up. They told me I couldn't do that because it was already on the truck for re-delvery the next day.

I took today off work, thinking that they can't possibly mess things up anymore than they already had. So, here I waited until 1:00 PM, at which time, I called them. They tracked my number, and said they see it in the system as "out for delivery". Fine, I waited until 2:00 PM, called back and told them that they have federally issued money on their possession, and I want it delivered immediately. They informed me that their system was updated, and it would not be delivered today because of "severe weather conditions". I looked around to see whether I had somehow missed a hurricane, or something, and saw a few drops of rain falling from the trees. I said "Severe weather conditions -- where are they located"? She gave me a location, which so happens to be two blocks away from me. I laughed, told them to hold it and I will pick it up this evening. An hour later, they called me to tell me I can't pick it up until tomorrow.

I called DHL headquarters to tell them that it is a federal crime to withhold my income tax refund. The very nice woman told me that she doesn't understand what they're doing, and she will investigate and get back to me within a half an hour. We'll see.

I am at my wits end, and yes, DHL does suck the big one. I only thought pur-o-LATER was this bad, but now I see why they passed the job onto who they did.

Lazy people really should not acquire employment that requires light physical labor if they're not up to the challenge.

What flippin' year are we living in, anyway -- the dark ages?

[DHL Fiasco]

Two hours after telling me they'd call in 30 minutes, no call. What a surprise.

[justin]

When DHL failed to deliver my item by 3PM I checked its status online. According to DHL they attempted to deliver sometime after 2PM, but there was neither a knock on my door at that time or a missed delivery slip on my door afterwards. It was as if they went to the wrong address or only pretended to actually have made the attempt.

So I called DHL, at which point I was transferred a bit rudely to dispatch, where the phone rang, ....and rang, .... and rang.

I called back. This process was repeated several times.

I finally spoke with someone who said they would page the driver to redeliver the package.

After an hour the status online changed and said I needed to call their 800 number. I called and again was transferred to an unanswered extension (5th time). So I called back and asked to speak with a manager, who told the package was at their center and I needed to come pick it up.

So I drove to Alexandria, VA and then was told that my package was in fact still on the truck for delivery, and that the woman I spoke with was not actually the supervisor. I was told that the truck would return in 30 minutes, so I waited.

An hour later and nothing has happened, so I asked for an update and a woman told me it would just be ten more minutes. Nearly an hour later there is still no truck so I ask to speak with the manager.

Mind you all this time I was not treated very well, but rather as someone inconveniencing them.

The manager comes up and he tells me that he actually has no control over the drivers, but would go check with the dispatch manager. Twenty minutes later and he has not returned. I asked the woman if he was coming back and she looked at me blankly and walked away without a word.

All of this time I was treated unprofessionally. Never once did anyone actively approach me, let alone try and fix the problem or even apologize and assure me that things would be taken care of. Never once did anyone show concern that I was hung up on multiple times, and then made to come down and stand in their lobby for two hours waiting for my package for which overnight shipping was paid. My entire day was wast6ed for naught.

I took today off receive the package; I will not be available to receive it tomorrow, and which is more I purchased OVERNIGHT shipping, not second or third day. It's the principle of the matter. Dell chose a shipper which has a reputation for poor service, and I was the one that was inconvenienced and mistreated by DHL. Therefore I will not be able to sign for the item and Dell will need to reverse the order.

I will never again buy anything from Dell that is shipped DHL; I'd rather take my chances with UPS or pay extra for Fedex.

Perhaps Dell should reconsider its choice of carrier.

[Becker C.]

I've heard stuff like this and last December it happened to me: Bad experiences with DHL it seems like if there is no need for for intervention on the delivery it works. But just have a number misspelled or something like that it will not be fun. My package was sent with a misspell on the address number and although they left me a message their local drivers/office people lost it made me change my flight as I needed this package and calls to their service was very painful a couple of times the lady hang up on me and lead me to nowhere.

It looks to me they do not have a good management and hire the wrong people or they don't pay them too much that they do not care about customer service and are there just until they get the better job.

[Jess Davis]

OK, can't resist telling my DHL story: I live in a small town about 2 hours NW of Oklahoma City--big enough that there are at least two UPS trucks running around town every day, though. The last couple of times someone sent me something via DHL, I received it IN THE MAIL. Apparently, if the address is not somewhere they want to go, they just re-label at the DHL office in Oklahoma City, and drop it off at the post office. I really can't think of a comment that is smart-ass enough to use here......

[Tracy G.]

I'm in the middle of a DHL nightmare. In the four months that I've used DHL, they have "lost" four packages. However, they knew where the packages went, and what human error had caused it to be mis-routed. This week's nightmare is completely different. The package that they lost last Friday (it is now the following THursday) was to be delivered to Oregon on Monday. They have no idea where the package is, and haven't had any record of it since Friday when it left the local facility. Did anyone call me about this? No. I started tracking it myself when I realized that I hadn't heard fromt the client. I called customer service - who don't understand what the name of their department implies - and had an on-line chat with an animatron who could only apologize for "any inconvenience that this may have caused me." This was a customized thank-you gift for one of my largest clients, took me hours to put together and is now almost a week late. No one has phoned or e-mailed me, even though they promised an e-mail response within 24 hours. The people on the phone are rude and unhelpful. I'm so disgusted. How does a global company survive with this attitude and track record? Hello Fed Ex? I'm back!!

[123@123.com]

Well I have a minor complaint but it also adds to how bad DHL sucks. A few days before I was expecting my DHL package I got a UPS package....so clearly my house is able to be delivered to. There is no gate or anything. I track the package for DHL and lo-and-behold they say address undeliverable. I call them up and verify the address TWICE with them.....nothing was wrong. I get the package the next day with "address correct" written on it. Drivers are retarded....should ask the UPS guy how to find my house.