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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Shipping Beer - Avoid DHL

I get a fair bit of beer sent my way from various breweries in Canada, and I've found that Purolator is the best shipping company to deal with. Not only is the warehouse situated close to my place, but the staff are great and it seems they honestly handle each package that bares a 'fragile sticker' on it with care.

DHL is by far the worst. I have had numerous packages either disappear in mid transit, or break upon arrival to their warehouse. A brewery from British Columbia sent some product my way two weeks ago with this company and by Thursday of last week I still had yet to get anything delivered. I got the tracing number, called the toll free line, and waited to hear what excuse they had this time.

The guy that answered looked up the number and informed me that an attempt to deliver was made and that the package was now back in the warehouse. Weird, I didn't receive any notice that someone tried to deliver the box. I changed the address to another location where I would be available for a signature and I was told the package would probably be delivered by Tuesday of this week. As of yesterday - nothing. Another call.

This time it was a different story. It turns out that my package was going through an inspection because of breakage. "Really, I wasn't told that the first time I called." I was to be called back by someone in the 'tracing' department but I didn't receive that call until this morning, and it was a call I didn't want to take.

"All the bottles in the package are broken," the woman explained. "The package was damaged when it was being transported from one warehouse to another, so we can't deliver it now."

Okay, timeout. You mean to tell me that the package made it from BC to Toronto without getting damaged, an attempt to deliver was made, a change of address notification was placed on the package, and I it was supposed to be delivered by Tuesday? And now I'm being told everything is broken?

So what did she have to say about all this after I finished my rant about how shitty DHL is? "Well, it really all depends on the shipper, and how they packaged it. We aren't responsible." Wow.

Stay away from DHL.

Got a DHL horror story? Or another one with another shipping company? Share.

3 comments:

Alan said...

Always ask for the damaged bottles to be delivered. This can be a euphemism for "we realized this is beer and drank it ourselves!"

Jeremy said...

I once got a box delivered by Canada Post retaped and repacked, soaking wet reeking of beer. I have had no problems whatsoever so far with Canada Post within Canada.

Troy Burtch said...

Alan - I hear you loud and clear and totally think that's what happened in this case.

Jeremy - Canada Post has been terrific. I've had absolutely no problems with them.

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