This is the story of how I got ripped off by DHL when trying to send a small but important package from Berlin, Germany to Tenerife, Spain. Sorry, according to DHL I should say Tenerife, Canary Islands. I went to a DHL office here in Berlin last thursday afternoon and, with the help of DHL staff, I filled the form to send a package from Berlin to Tenerife for the hefty sum of 53.9 euros.
I asked why so much money? and they told because it was “Zone 2” which is EU but not on mainland, I said ok, there you go 53.9 euros (Zone 1 would have been 42 euros) and they told me it would arrive the next day (Friday). Next morning I track my package and Find this!
VITORIA? Wrong facility? Well yes, I will show you a map of where Vitoria is in Spain and how far from it Tenerife is:
Just about 2400 kms away, not so bad right? I immediately figured the package would be delayed because of DHL’s mistake for sending to the ‘Wrong Facility’. I calmy call customer service in DHL (here in Germany it costs about 50cents per minute plus the normal rate, but I found this page http://www.0180.info/suche.html?s=DHL that helped me out) and they tell me to wait until monday and that I will not get a refund since it is a mistake for filling “Spain” as the destination country in the shipping form, I of course lost my temper and the DHL customer service had the great idea of hanging up on me after repeatedly stating that Canary Islands is a country different from Spain.
This sounds so crazy but I started to fill complaint forms online here https://www.facebook.com/dhl/app_425425010836610 and here http://www.dhl.com.my/en/contact_center/contact_global_forwarding/compliments_and_complaints.html at the end somebody contacted me finally… FROM VENEZUELA!!!! What the hell???? look at this:
So yeah, not even complaints can be handled correctly by DHL staff. I of course exchanged some emails with this customer service from Venezuela that could speak a very good Google Translate english, it was fun and of course resolved nothing for me, he did not say that the Canary Islands is a country though.
Finally I managed to speak to someone in DHL friday night and they assured me they would send me the documentation to apply for a refund. I waited over the weekend and I received another call this morning from a DHL employee from Germany and he started to repeat the same thing about this being my fault for saying that Tenerife is part of Spain and not of Canary Islands Land, or the kingdom of the Canary Islands, who knows? I looked for a recorder and told the employee to repeat the statement of Canary Islands not being part of Spain and he hung up after saying that I will get a letter with an explanation; my God how I’m waiting for that letter to arrive and show it to people around.
Here is a picture of the shipping form:
Now remember, next time you are using DHL to send an important package just make sure to add a map so the very professional and intelligent staff can understand where the package is going, nevermind the postal code! nevermind the price! Just make sure you ask them what country do they think the destination city is!!!
So yeah, just to remind you there are other services out there such as:
http://www.tnt.com/express/en_us/site/home.html
THANK YOU DHL FOR NOT STAYING TRUE TO YOUR POLICIES, FOR BLAMING YOUR MISTAKES ON YOUR CUSTOMERS AND FOR TEACHING ME A VERY VALUABLE LESSON ON GEOGRAPHY AND POLITICS!!!
DHL claims that the Canary Islands are a Country on its own! 