Who are DHL?
DHL are the company that charged me £80 and couldn't even spare some bubble-wrap for the flutes that I shipped halfway around the world. Bastards.
My Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience with DHL
I've started to build up quite a collection of random world music instruments ... Read review
Advantages: Ship things around the world Disadvantages: But not in one piece
...are DHL?
DHL are the company that charged me £80 and couldn't even spare some bubble-wrap for the flutes that I shipped halfway around the world. Bastards.
My Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience with DHL
I've started to build up quite a collection of random world music instruments in my bedroom at home, and on my recent six-month trip to Bolivia I managed to add to this collection 26 panpipes, 13 tarkas, ... ...I posted back home with DHL just before I left.
One thing that can be said for DHL is that they're almost as prolific as Starbucks - there are offices in every city in Bolivia and a total of seven offices in the capital La Paz. I walked into one of these with my flutes in my arms and was told that I would need a special wooden box made for them, what with them being fragile, delicate, easily breakable instruments and everything, and ... more
Who are DHL?
DHL are the company that charged me £80 and couldn't even spare some bubble-wrap for the flutes that I shipped halfway around the world. Bastards.
My Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience with DHL
I've started to build up quite a collection of random world music instruments in my bedroom at home, and on my recent six-month trip to Bolivia I managed to add to this collection 26 panpipes, 13 tarkas, 10 musinus, 2 charangos and a quena. Most of these instruments are still in Bolivia waiting to be sent back to England, the 13 tarkas I managed to fit into the biggest suitcase I could buy in Bolivia, which broke my hostel owner's scales as I was trying to check the weight of it, and the musinus I posted back home with DHL just before I left.
One thing that can be said for DHL is that they're almost as prolific as Starbucks - there are offices in every city in Bolivia and a total of seven offices in the capital La Paz. I walked into one of these with my flutes in my arms and was told that I would need a special wooden box made for them, what with them being fragile, delicate, easily breakable instruments and everything, and I was thus sent off to the DHL headquarters which were, of course, not in the centre of the city and required a rather expensive taxi ride to get to.
But once I had got to DHL headquarters things didn't take that long at all. The nice DHL girl helped me to fill in the forms, which were easy enough, and then took my flutes and went away and weighed them. She came back with a 'volumetric weight' of 4 kg, and my Spanish wasn't good enough to understand why she wasn't going to charge me for the actual weight of the instruments, which was more like 2 kg. But I've just found the answer to this on the DHL website, which is simply to get as much money out of you as possible:
'Sometimes, large items with a light overall weight can be charged according to the space they take up on the vehicle. In these cases, Volumetric Weight, or dimensional (Dim) weight, is used to calculate the shipment cost.
It is recommended that you calculate the Volumetric Weight for every shipment that you send, then compare this to its actual weight. The greater weight of the two is used to work out the price that we charge you.'
So you're buggered either way, then. I don't know if this is a standard courier service thing, or if it's just DHL, but it does seem a bit sneaky, really. Especially as nothing about volumetric weight was mentioned when I first went into the Sucre DHL office to get an original quote, or when I took my flutes to that first La Paz office and they weighed them there. So it turned out to be rather more expensive than I had first thought, although no mention of any special wooden box that I also had to pay for was made, and I wasn't going to ask. Apparently I didn't need one after all. So I forked out my £80, which is such a lot of money in Bolivia, and was given my receipt and tracking number. The DHL girl told me that they'd take 7 to 10 days to be delivered. She then started taking the flutes out of my dustbin liner and transferring them into another bag, and noticing my rather worried stare she told me that they were going to look after them, I didn't have to worry at all, this was purely to transfer them and then they'd be put into a solid cardboard tube and everything would be wonderful. I was somewhat reassured and left.
I flew home the next day and my flutes turned up 20 days later. They got to England within 5 days and I thought that that was quite impressive, but they then spent 2 days in the East Midlands and almost two weeks Cambridge. And when they finally reached me I was utterly shocked to find that the packaging of my obviously fragile instruments had consisted of absolutely nothing at all. They had been put inside two cardboard tubes and the two cardboard tubes had been tied together and that was it. No padding, no bubble-wrap, no tissue paper, no polystyrene or anything. I paid £80 to 'the global market leader in international express' and they couldn't even wrap my flutes in bubble-wrap! It was hardly surprising that one of them had cracked on the journey and is now unplayable. Fair enough, it might have only cost me about £2, but I can't replace it. Not unless if I fly back to Bolivia, take the other nine flutes with me, find the man in the countryside who made the set for me and get him to replace the broken one, and then ship them all back to England again with DHL who'll probably break another.
I have got to be one of the world's most laid-back people and I don't usually get angry about anything, really, but gosh am I angry with DHL. I don't know, they might be alright with bits of paper and really solid things like crowbars, but if you want to send anything fragile with them then don't expect it to turn up to its destination in one piece. And don't expect it to turn up on time. And don't expect to pay the correct amount for the actual weight of whatever it is you're sending.
***
In summary:
Good things about DHL:
They have more offices than you could possibly ever wish for all over the world. They sort out all of the paperwork for you. Had I of tried to send the flutes myself through the post office in La Paz there would have been a considerable amount of paperwork to do. They have a clever little tracking thing on their website so that you can see exactly where your items are. They package things up for you.
Bad Things about DHL:
Fragile items or anything that can't fit into one of their standard sized boxes potentially requires a trip to a different office, and probably the one which is furthest away from the centre of town. The whole actual weight versus volumetric weight business. Discrepancies between different offices - conveniently not being told certain things, or being told other things which then turn out not to be true. Items might just happen to spend up to two weeks sitting in an office in Cambridge. Their packaging is shite.
Advantages: There not all bad some good couriers & customer service staff Disadvantages: Some couriers too lazy for their own good!
...going to be delivered by DHL I had never really heard a lot about them and I suppose I just thought they delivered to and from companies but apparently not. I wondered why they needed to send such a small package by courier then my mum pointed out that I had actually brought my ipod from a French website! So the guaranteed delivery within 48 hours seemed a little unrealistic for my poor postie to meet thus making the penny drop that no wonder European ... ...A BIT ABOUT DHL
DHL started out in 1969 with three men Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn which made the name DHL they started flying newspapers from San Francisco to Honolulu to cut down the time spent in harbours clearing customs and to save customers money. Parcels where also now being delivered by the end of 1979 as before DHL where only able to ship documents. By 1988 DHL had employed 16,000 employees and was present in 150 countries! ...
gemax2 03.11.2005
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of DHL
Advantages: 100% reliable and the cheapest service to the USA Disadvantages: None
...acting as agents for DHL. DHL are a German company DHL Express and are a division of Deutsche Post World Net.
I parcelled up the duvet and weighed it and made sure it was compressed into the smallest possible size. This is important as the cost is by weight and size. With DHL if the item is not boxed you will also be charged a further £2. I didn't mind this as tightly wrapped in plastic was the best way. Just over £30 was the charge for this which ... ...Air operate on behalf of DHL to fly the goods onwards.
By 20th December it had arrived in Wilmington Ohio which is the hub of DHL a massive airport and distribution centre where parcels are sorted and dispatched. By the 22nd the Duvet was in Phoenix which is about 100 miles north of Tucson and by 23rd December it was in Tucson awaiting delivery. On Christmas Eve I had the knowledge that my son and his wife had received the duvet despite the USA ...
Violet1278 17.01.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of DHL
Advantages: Strong company image Disadvantages: No deliveries on weekends
...may, or may not know DHL is one of the most reputable courier / delivery companies in the world. A few words on how the company works. Basically you call the company (DHL’s telephone number is advertised in the yellow pages), and give all the details of what you want to send and the destination to one of DHL’s customer service staff. I have to point out that each time I have called DHL, I have ended up talking to members of customer service who show ... ...because I have always called DHL early in the evening when the shift is nearly over. You agree a time and a place, and one of those working for DHL comes to collect the parcel. DHL staff does come within the agreed time window. One thing here: the person who comes to collect the parcel checks every single thing that you want to mail / send. While there is nothing wrong with that, I really wonder why those couriers want to even read a letter, or a ...
Montenegrin 10.03.2002 (18.09.2003)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of DHL
...DHL.
Ok fair enough, DHL as far as I knew were not a bad company so hopefully would have some helpful customer services department as well. How wrong was I? I gave them a call on what they call Signline on 0870 2400012. This department is part of the original Securicor and handles all the tracking of their deliveries. After spending some considerable amount of time on hold waiting to speak to an advisor, about 35 minutes, I get an automated answer ... ...add is now covered in DHL branding. It took me a while to find the area on the site I was looking for but eventually discovered the link e-shipping at the top of the page where on this page was a link to track your shipment. You are then presented with a new web page which gives you the various options on what type of service you are using. This includes Nextday, Europe, and what they call Connect; this is for items within the UK. So after deciding ...
Andy0304 21.10.2004 (26.10.2004)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of DHL
Advantages: Let me think ...... No can't think of one Disadvantages: Lack of Customer service, and far too many more to mention
...it would be delivered by DHL on Monday morning. He had the tracking number and checked on Monday that it was indeed out on the van to be delivered. He stayed in waiting for the parcel to arrive. At 12noon he went to the front door to collect the post and saw a bright yellow card which had been put through the door, stating that DHL had tried to deliver the parcel but we weren't in.
He rang DHL who apologised and said they would redeliver Tuesday. ... ...a row a card from DHL saying they tried to deliever but we were out. So again he rang DHL and yet again they apologised and would put a note on our parcel to ring the door bell and knock loudly on the door and wait!
So today I have waited in all morning for this parcel to arrive. I have stayed in the front room next to the front door waiting for DHL to arrive. Guess what I heard the letterbox go popped to the door in time to see the DHL van disappearing ...
hammd1974 12.04.2006
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of DHL
Advantages: Very Cheap for large parcels Disadvantages: None
I used to sell refurbished Laserjet 4 and 5 printers on Ebay and used Parcel2go all the time. The printers weighed 16kg and I sent one by Royal Mail once and it cost £25.
With Parcel2Go, the same parcel only costs around £8.99 so which one would you use ?
Because I was doing this business part time, I used to place the order online at parcel2go.com that evening, pack it up and label it ready to go and then the next morning take it to the nearest DHL depot to me (Loughborough in Leicestershire at the time). I'd get there at about 8am but the depot would not take the parcel until they had a confirmation from Parcel2go for the goods. Normally however, this would arrive whilst I was in the office and if not, I would just phone their office and they would fax it through straight away.
There seems to be some confusion over who ...
Advantages: Low cost Disadvantages: Totaly unreliable and shambolic.
What a shambles! You get what you pay for! This seemed a good idea, low cost hassel-free collection from my home and cheaper than Parcelforce. BUT beware! No collection on agreed date. Then I was told that I had to order an alternative collection (despite DHL agreeing it was a failure on their part) and agree a second collection date as this was not automatic. This took a day to set up and this second collection also failed (and was also admitted as their failure by DHL). I was told then to arrange a third date! I got a refund and used Parcelforce Standard. Goods arrived the following day! This service from Parcels2 Go may appear cheap and low cost but, factor in your time, and it is a different matter. ...
Advantages: TO MANY TO LIST Disadvantages: NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE USING THEM !!
My company has used parcelforce for close to 2yrs now and is absolute flawless. the pricing structure is very fair, the daily collections are reliable, Drivers are very friendly. Billing is easy.
City link and DHL have stupid surcharges for example £10 surcharge if the customer is not home on first attempt made" toll,bridge and fuel surcharges, adding up to hundreds of pounds exta added per month on your account. (most of the time hidden very well within the manifest sheets)
Parcelforce do not do this. !
customer service is fast and efficiant no waiting on hold when calling in. Personal assigned managers for acocunt holders.
I rate parcelforce a perfect 10/10
I have recomended other large internat retail businesses who made the switch over and have not regreted it atall.
IF YOU SET AN ACCOUNT UP MAKE SURE YOU ...
Jayengland999 29.11.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Parcelforce
