Slowly losing my patience here with a DHL problem…

[FrieAsABird]

I’ve been waiting for a parcel to arrive for weeks now. The parcel is rather big and vaguely guitar shaped, so ya know it’s good. Private seller, I found and purchased the guitar on Friday, March 10th.

The seller was hesitant to ship the guitar at first, I offered to send him an empty box and packaging material- that’s what I should have done, as I know now.
Then he said he found a box, so no worries. On Monday the 13th of March, he sends me a shipping number via DHL/ Deutsche Post, which is my favourite shipping service! He handed it over to DHL on Tuesday morning, so the parcel should normally arrive within three business days, so Friday should have been the latest.

On Thursday, I get a notification- the parcel had almost reached its destination (me!) when DHL realised that the box was not up to their standards, so it’s return to sender.
The only problem? The sender has left Germany for some months, hasn’t put his proper address onto the parcel and DHL don’t know what to do. He calls them, explains the situation and asks them to send it to his girlfriend who’s still in Germany. DHL never managed that, so they tried to get it back to his old, now vacant address. Now they will supposedly return it to the girlfriends house and she will send it to me once more, this time for much more money since it’s a non- standard shipping box. But for that to happen, she’d need to receive it first.

DHL has been keeping the parcel since last Thursday, no changes ever since. It friggin sucks, especially since the seller kinda blamed me, saying he never even wanted to ship it in the first place. What a mess! Sorry for the wall of text, just venting a bit here.

 

[Murdog]

That's a horrible situation. I hope everything works out.

 

[simoncroft]

What an awful situation to be in! It doesn't make any sense, either. If they return to sender, they're shipping it, just the same as if they send it to you. The difference is, if it's almost with you, they're shipping it further when they send it back. Hope this resolves soon.

 

[drp146]

Seems pretty damn picky on their part to have it almost reach it's destination and then, turn around and send it back, just because they didn't like the box. If there was a problem with the box, it seems to me that they only make things worse by shipping it back instead of just the rest of the way to you. It makes no sense. I hope you end up getting it with no damage.

 

[Butcher of Strats]

So DHL can ship it half way then ship it back but cannot ship it to the destination?
Was it like the truck moved it 10 Km to the airport where it failed to pass airline requirements?
How can they ship it at all if they cannot ship it?
And do they not have the technology to box the box and add a surcharge?

 

[Butcher of Strats]

BTW, in Germany do you ever hear the term "going postal"?

Postal workers used to get so frustrated and angry about their jobs they would kill their coworkers...

 

[FrieAsABird]

What an awful situation to be in! It doesn't make any sense, either. If they return to sender, they're shipping it, just the same as if they send it to you. The difference is, if it's almost with you, they're shipping it further when they send it back. Hope this resolves soon.

Yes, this has been exactly my thinking as well, they’re acting completely illogically here.

Seems pretty damn picky on their part to have it almost reach it's destination and then, turn around and send it back, just because they didn't like the box. If there was a problem with the box, it seems to me that they only make things worse by shipping it back instead of just the rest of the way to you. It makes no sense. I hope you end up getting it with no damage.

Thanks, I hope so too. By now, I guess they will be frustrated with the parcel, hope they won’t start playing soccer with it

So DHL can ship it half way then ship it back but cannot ship it to the destination?
Was it like the truck moved it 10 Km to the airport where it failed to pass airline requirements?
How can they ship it at all if they cannot ship it?
And do they not have the technology to box the box and add a surcharge?

I’ve asked myself the same question, they say they’ve got fully automated shipping machines so they detect if something is off with the parcel. I would gladly pay more just to finally get it!

 

[FrieAsABird]

Normally, the shipping status consists of 5 stages, from the very start to delivery. I’m currently on stage 29 on this parcel… that’s gotta be a record!

 

[simoncroft]

About 7 years ago, I bought a large 1980s tape recorder from a dealer in Germany, who agreed to ship it to me here in the UK. He used DHL. Unfortunately, DHL handed over the 19kg item to ParcelForce in the UK, who seem to take out their frustrations as workers on the items they deliver. So then the Teac machine arrived, it was damaged because it had clearly been dropped. That's when I discovered that ParcelForce's Terms & Conditions clearly stated that it was the sender who must take this up with DHL. Meanwhile, DHL's Terms & Conditions clearly stated that the person receiving the damaged item must take it up with ParcelForce…

After spending a very long time trying to sort this nonsense out, I eventually accepted a small discount from the seller, and repaired the damage myself. What a crazy nightmare!

 

[Della Street]

it's a small country - why not just go and get it in person?

 

[Butcher of Strats]

it's a small country - why not just go and get it in person?

From DHL?
Will they surrender it???
Probably not!

 

[FrieAsABird]

it's a small country - why not just go and get it in person?

It’s all relative- the guitar comes from the other side of the country, the gas alone would have cost me waaaaay more than shipping.

 

[Della Street]

From DHL?
Will they surrender it???
Probably not!

i know i've wrestled a package from FedEx once...

 

[crankmeister]

What’s funny, though, is that the seller is probably over at box-talk.com complaining about op/dhl as we speak.

 

[FrieAsABird]

From DHL?
Will they surrender it???
Probably not!

If they were willing to give it to me, I would drive there in a minute, but the dirty basterds say it’s all automated, no way to get it except to wait for delivery and then re-send it…

 

[FrieAsABird]

Another thing that’s bugging me to no end is that someone at DHL must have accepted the parcel in the first place. Why the hell would they do that if they know that their machines are so picky? If they’d just told the sender that he needs another box, this all could’ve been prevented

 

[revtime]

Wow. This makes my thoughts about UPS really childish.
Good luck with a solution.

 

[StratUp]

Well, at least they still claim to know where the package is. That's a big plus. We've certainly heard of worse cases.

 

[FrieAsABird]

I tried contacting them today, using their chat bot, since no one picked up the phone. I’ve never wanted to strangle an inanimate concept more in my life… still no changes in the shipping status

 

[bluejazzoid]

Man, sorry to hear that! And wow, what a dankwad seller (a true dummkopf eh?).