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

L

lizfortune

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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
[email protected]
 
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
 
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...
Click to expand...
- 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.

This isn't something new... they had the same track record when it was Airborne so I wouldn't expect any changes.
Click to expand...
- 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.
 
Attempting to follow up on my initial complaint regarding DHL.

It is unfortunate that DHL has obviously had as many problems as they have had. But if they cannot consistently deliver on time, they should put more efforts into not shipping animals UNTIL they do get organized. And, by the different input from readers, it is obvious that this has been a problem not just currently. To the person who suggested going to Sky Harbor from Tucson, it is over a two hour drive ONE WAY and is not practical in any sense. That logic could be taken a step further with the hubs being in Las Vegas or Ohio and that we should transport the animal to those locations as it would make the likelihood (though still no guarrantee) of the shipments arriving as promised and paid to do.

I also like the definition offered for DHL (Delivered Hours Late), but in my case, it should be called DDL for Delivered Days Late.

Understand that if these were NOT animals, it would still be poor business practice but not cruelty to the animals. What a miserable way to die! Thanks for everybody's input. Hopefully, this will save some animals and a lot of aggravation.
Brian Aish
[email protected]
 
"But if they cannot consistently deliver on time, they should put more efforts into not shipping animals UNTIL they do get organized."

that one is easy - from what I understand, DHL no longer accepts live animals...by policy, if not practice. FedEx is the only shipper that openly accepts snakes. UPS accepts from some, not others - I still have not gotten a clear explanation of this one...but their policy clearly states no snakes. the BIG problem is that the employees of these companies don't know, or disregard, the current policies. I have heard from several people that DHL is the only shipper that will accept from them (UPS and FedEx refuse on the basis that they ship snakes). at various times over the past year, I have had both UPS and FedEx refuse to ship for me because the contents (snakes)were disclosed. almost enough to make me go back to delta
 
Brian,
I understand what you are saying about distance, trust me... I live 45 minutes from Sky Harbour myself and I work but several blocks from it. I have shipped hundreds of packages and recieved hundreds of packages through all the shippers and to ship out you need to go the extra mile to eliminate extra hands on the box. The fewer people that touch it means one less non-caring idiot to send the box on it's merry way to some unknown dest. It doesn't eliminate the chances but it helps. I work in a similar industry and have friends who do work for UPS and Fed-Ex and they will tell you every single time that if you are shipping something you care about, you better take it to the airport.
U pped
P ricing
S eriously
 
If you're shipping from Arizona to California, try out goldenstateovernight. www.gso.com! I have been shipping with them for about a year now, and have to say by far they are the best shipping company i've ever dealt with. a 2 pound package costs $11.00 to ship, they accept live animals if YOU CALL THEM, and I've shipped over 100 packages through them with not 1 being late, they deliver all packages by 10:30 AM. Unfortunately they only deliver and pick up from some parts such as tucson, and pheonix arizona, all of california, and parts of neveda!
 
According to their website "animals alive or dead" are prohibited. So you are saying if you call them they disregard their prohibited items list? Just curious as I do alot of shipping to CA.
 
My wholesaler ships all my animals through this company. When I called them to make sure it was okay to ship live animals, they said as long as the animals can survive during shipping, it would be no problem! It has really saved me a lot of money!
 
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