Complaint Review: DHL

We finally recieved our paintings after contacting another freight company -CARGO SPECTRUM IN CANADA.(This co. spent quite a bit of time on the phone to DHL and to us without any kind of re-embursement whatsoever.) Dhl contacted me today and told me the paintings were lost and they were closing the case. Less than an hour later the last one was delivered to our door. I told Scott, from DHL, the paintings were trackable and he said to me "Then someone else sent you something because those paintings are lost and I am closing the case "

This is the poorest customer service I have ever encountered. It is rather sad when a freight co. that has nothing to do with DHL can find items that are totaly "LOST" to DHL.

After 2 months and one of 3 items damaged, and many hours on the phone, we finally recieved everything we were supposed to get. Now why they call it DHL "EXPRESS" I'll never know.
Erwin

We finally recieved our paintings after contacting another freight company -CARGO SPECTRUM IN CANADA.(This co. spent quite a bit of time on the phone to DHL and to us without any kind of re-embursement whatsoever.) Dhl contacted me today and told me the paintings were lost and they were closing the case. Less than an hour later the last one was delivered to our door. I told Scott, from DHL, the paintings were trackable and he said to me "Then someone else sent you something because those paintings are lost and I am closing the case "

This is the poorest customer service I have ever encountered. It is rather sad when a freight co. that has nothing to do with DHL can find items that are totaly "LOST" to DHL.

After 2 months and one of 3 items damaged, and many hours on the phone, we finally recieved everything we were supposed to get. Now why they call it DHL "EXPRESS" I'll never know.
Erwin

We finally recieved our paintings after contacting another freight company -CARGO SPECTRUM IN CANADA.(This co. spent quite a bit of time on the phone to DHL and to us without any kind of re-embursement whatsoever.) Dhl contacted me today and told me the paintings were lost and they were closing the case. Less than an hour later the last one was delivered to our door. I told Scott, from DHL, the paintings were trackable and he said to me "Then someone else sent you something because those paintings are lost and I am closing the case "

This is the poorest customer service I have ever encountered. It is rather sad when a freight co. that has nothing to do with DHL can find items that are totaly "LOST" to DHL.

After 2 months and one of 3 items damaged, and many hours on the phone, we finally recieved everything we were supposed to get. Now why they call it DHL "EXPRESS" I'll never know.
Erwin

We finally recieved our paintings after contacting another freight company -CARGO SPECTRUM IN CANADA.(This co. spent quite a bit of time on the phone to DHL and to us without any kind of re-embursement whatsoever.) Dhl contacted me today and told me the paintings were lost and they were closing the case. Less than an hour later the last one was delivered to our door. I told Scott, from DHL, the paintings were trackable and he said to me "Then someone else sent you something because those paintings are lost and I am closing the case "

This is the poorest customer service I have ever encountered. It is rather sad when a freight co. that has nothing to do with DHL can find items that are totaly "LOST" to DHL.

After 2 months and one of 3 items damaged, and many hours on the phone, we finally recieved everything we were supposed to get. Now why they call it DHL "EXPRESS" I'll never know.
Erwin

I have worked in the international freight
community for 15 years. Your problem/complaint is not uncommon in that persons that import items
for personal use are not prepared for this to
happen. First, Did you ship this on 3 different
DHL bills or as 3 pieces on 1 DHL bill? Second
did you declare A "Insurance" value for the
shipment (this is different than a value for
customs). Third, did you package and drop this
at DHL in Canada, did the individual/gallery
that you bought this from package and tender
to DHL, or did you hire a freight forworder or
other 3rd party to do this? forth how were the
packages marked? Did it clearly show shipper name
address and phone number and your name address and phone number. Were they marked 1 of 3 thru 3 of 3 and what were the individual sizes (L x W X H) of the pieces?

You will need to submit a claim against DHL for
loss and include the freight charges in that claim but you must first pay the freight charges for this shipment which may seem senseless but when you or whomever filed the DHL paperwork for you by signing the bill have agreed to that term per international law agreements (small print on the back of their airbills). Find out from DHL where this freight was last scanned. Ask DHL if they sent a trace to their international stations or just their North American offices and if it was only the North America demand that they send an international requst as they may have put it on A flight so it could be in any of hundreds of cities (just because you tendered this to DHL do not assume that it went on one of their aircraftor trucks as most airfreight companies do contract with airlines to move at least some of their freight). If you tendered the packages to DHL yourself then you might want to contact the Air Export supervisor in Vanouver and put some pressure on that person or if you had an artist/gallery or a freight forwarder move this have them call and apply pressure from that side.

When you do talk to DHL or the Gallery/Forwarder
you need to provide the markings and give them
any detail (no matter how small) that might help
identify the freight/packages as there is the
chance that it might be off in a rarely used
corner of one of their facilities or on another
customs bonded warehouse, vendors facilities,
or on another customer(s) dock delivered but
not accounted for (example, they may have a large
customer such as Boeing or Walmart that would
sign for a truck load but not unload this truck
for a few days, weeks )

Understand that you will more than likely you will not get a full value refund on this unless you took out addtional insurance as international
freight companies, to protect themselves from
fraud, limit the value on Artwork, coins, personal property and items of rare value. This is also in small print on the back of the airbill and is held up by international law.

In most cases, as if it were magic, once the
claim has been submitted, the freight will appear
but you can still get a refund for some of the
charges however not all as you will still have
to pay for the customs duties and taxes as that
goes to US Customs and Border protection not to
the carrier and they have to pay that off of
their customs bond so it goes directly to US

Customs.