Complaint Review: DHL - Alaska

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.