DHL lost two shipments of snakes in one week!! One took a week to receive!!
 

I just want to let anybody who is planning on shipping or receiving snakes about two recent experiences I had with DHL. I had them pick up a package in the late afternoon on a Tuesday for overnight 10:30AM Wednesday morning delivery from Arizona to California. It took them until the following Monday to locate the package and it finally arrived around 5PM on Tuesday evening.

The other package was picked up on a Thursday afternoon and was supposed to be delivered by 10:30AM on Friday morning. It finally arrived late Saturday afternoon.

I spoke to several representatives, and both of my customers did, and we each spoke with several employees during the period that the packages were unaccounted for and felt a lack of professionalism and concern on their part. The search was turned over to two investigators (one for each package) and neither one seemed to know what was going on. When I touched base with my customers, they were being told different things than I was on what had actually happened and the location of the packages. When the packages arrived, I had received a telephone call informing me that it was being delivered that afternoon. The other package, I had to find out from my customer as I never heard from DHL. In addition, when this initially happened, I was told that I would receive a telephone call from somebody looking into the missing package and I had to call back three times before I was able to get any assistance.

Since these two incidents, I have not heard from anybody from DHL to follow-up to see if the animals even made it (which they did thankfully) or to apologize for their mistakes.

If this happened once, I would say accidents happen. However, it happened two times in a row, I will not chance my animals with them again.
Brian Aish
Alisaalicia04@aol.com

All i have to say is that's dhl for you...

Brian, I am not certain of this but there is probably a DHL distribution facility in Tucson. From there the shipments have to head up here (to PHX) where they get sorted AGAIN. From there they make it on a plane. You need to bring any animal shipments to Sky Harbour if you want them to make it to their destination on time and alive! It doesn't guarantee anything but according to the shipping companies it's your problem if they don't make it so you need to eliminate any possibilities of a problem.

It ghas happened to me as well.. I have had a DH ghost female BCI shipped to my local terminal and then shipped to AZ.. What kind of idiot does it take? Needless to say she was dead when I got her...
-Matt Graybeal

Brian:
Why does it seem that if they're going to screw up it's going to be w/animals? We've never had a shipment of deli cups lost and we order more of those than animals.

Did the animals arrive live or dead?

quite simply - DHL sucks. I have only had 6-7 animals shipped via DHL, but there were (delivery) issues with 4 of them. THe last 3 were specifically marked to be held for my pickup (on the box, the label, and the airbill) - none were. I can see missing that occasionally, and delivering to the door, but delivering to a door on the wrong street and in the wrong town??? NO MORE. I no longer will allow any animal to be shipped to me via DHL (and I am darned sure not gonna use them). I happily pay the difference for FedEx or UPS, and if the seller insists on DHL...he looks for another buyer.

Before everyone starts to boycott DHL, remember that they are going through a major league shake-up right now...people are being hired and fired at a moment's notice !
Once things settle down, I am sure they will be dependable again, but until this summer, I would use another carrier.
greg

This isn't something new... they had the same track record when it was Airborne so I wouldn't expect any changes.

D.H.L.= Delivers Hours Late

- I had an albino boa shipped to me via DHL. It finally came in at about 7:30pm after I got cursed the sh*t out of them. The animal was almost completly frozen. Luckilly I got him warmed up and he came out of it just fine. A bit of respiratory but it was gone in two days. Not one shipment that came to me via DHL was not delayed. Thats why I changed my shipping companys.

- Thats odd, I had a pretty good expeirence with Airborne. Oh and the DHL letter break down was funny! :crazy03:

"after I got cursed the sh*t out of them."
- Sorry I messed up that sentence. I meant after I argued with them.