DH Hell

[stopthegop]

Just wanted to give everyone a "heads up" regarding shipping to Amiga Center in France.  I sent some boards there using DHL.  I prepaid almost $70 for the shipping, but when it arrived in France DHL demanded (from Amiga Center) an additional 87 EUROS in "fees" before they would hand over the package!!!  Total and complete rip off if you ask me.  Even worse, it took them five delivery attempts to even find the address.  Almost two weeks in transit for what was "guaranteed" 2-3 business days.  

In stark contrast to the underhanded business practices of DHL is the most outstanding service from Amiga Center!  Seriously, Amiga Center just rules.  Price is more than fair and he brought back my CyberstormPPC from the dead in record time.  I can't praise Amiga Center enough.  By all means, send them your goods.  Just don't use DH Hell.    

[countzero]

maybe it was some kind of customs thing ? do DHL parcels get checked for customs ?

[stopthegop]

I'm not really sure what it was.  Supposedly it was because I had a declared value on it of $500.  But that still doesn't make any sense.  I've shipped hundreds of parcels and I always declare a value on it.  Otherwise how do collect on insurance if the package is damaged?  Besides, it was prepaid.  I've NEVER heard of charging a recipient just to get his mail.  

[Tahoe]

Yes, it must have been taxes.

Value you declare there is for tax purposes only, NOT for insured shipping. (if the package was lost/damaged you wouldn't have gotten 500 US$ simply because you declared it that value)

Amiga Center is in france; they have an import tax on goods; that comes pretty close to 87 euro's.

Shipping to europe always mark the package as gift (if possible) and declare it's value under 40 US$.

[AmiKit]

did you complain to DHL representative?

[x56h34]

Now you know to always send packages as low value / gift, when sending abroad.

I'd sugguest that you also ask the seller to declare the package as low value / gift, when ever you buy something from abroad, from now on. :-)

[stopthegop]

Thats probably indeed what it was.  However, I'm not letting DHL off the hook.  I repeat, this was PREPAID.  DHL prepared the paperwork and they quoted me a "total price" to ship the box.   This was after asking me if I wanted insurance.  Of course I said "yes" on the insurance to which she replied "Ok, for how much?"  In other words, whats the 'value'?  The minor detail of the recipient getting stuck with a cash surcharge of 25% of whatever amount I insured the box for...  that detail was never mentioned.   At best, this was bait and switch.  The bait is the $70 "all inclusive" rate they charged me, the switch was the $100 added on when it got there.  It wasn't my obligation to know the laws of France.  Thats why I hired DHL.  They should have know this and it should have been included in the rate they charged me from the begining.  Yes, now I "know better".  Apparently I know more now than DHL does: the international shipping "experts".

[x56h34]

The problem is that any package that gets imported into any country gets treated as a sale item. It doesn't matter if you use DHL, UPS, USPS, or other shippers, if you declare the actual value of the contents, and the actual value is over a certain taxable limit (depends of the country the item is beign sent to) then there will be taxes when the receiver in the other country receives the package.

[Gojirax]

DHL is the only company worse than UPS in my experience.

I shipped a pair of laptops to HP (In California) for RMA once using DHL. These were HP RMA boxes that were pre-labeled and everything.

They wound up getting shipped (And delivered!) to a bank in Tennesee... fortunately for me the bank manager fella called me up and said "I think these were supposed to go somewhere else."

I would drive a package myself over the desert before I allowed DHL to deliver for me.

[CLS2086]

Hi,
When you sent a packet to abroad, you must think about TAX..
VAT is commonly 20% of the declared or insured value, and you'll have to add a fee of $25 for the custom office...
A similar surprise happened to me with EMS, when I bought throught Ebay a $60 Fast Cflash 1 Gb card, I paid $15 for FAAASSST S&H&Insured, and a month later, I received a bill from the EMS Chronopost custom office, because it was declared as a $150 gift videogame, ... around $40

If you declare as Gift even with a "suspect" low value, they can open the packet and check its content, and ask for the bill of the part send to estimate the tax value... I have often this kind of problem with Switzerland (which is not a EEC member..), and time to time with US packet

For my PEG2, Genesi USA send it to me as a GIFT replacement board (PEG1 trade programm) by FEDEX. It was without problems.
I ask as much the sender to use USPS who satisfy me quite well even with a "fragile" exhault manifold for Vette/GMC, but not so much with not well packed videodisc.... :pissed:

[stopthegop]

Get this:   I call DHL to {bleep}.  This woman is telling me that the price I was originally quoted (and paid) was the price to get the box ONLY TO FRANCE, not to the address within France!  She says "everyone" knows this.  Maybe I'm just being obtuse here, but who sends stuff to a country instead of an address?  Besides the US government; they deliver "Food to Ethopia", "Bombs to Iraq", etc...  But everyone else on planet earth ships to a specific person or address!  So I guess when I asked for the "TOTAL" price to deliver a box to a PERSON (not just to the country he lives in), I was the first and only DHL customer in history not realize "total price" meant something other than "total price"?  

[sir_inferno]

write a letter of complaint...

make sure you put COMPLAINT in the top left hand corner in big bold letters (they will just ignore it otherwise)

make sure you get proof of postage so that if they ignore you can always report them to some higher body.

if the response is unsatisfactory again, report them to some higher source within the government (wouldn't know what in the US)

[ncafferkey]

Is there not some way to legitimately avoid paying tax, or get a refund, in the case where an item is being sent for repair, and is returned? Otherwise, sending items across borders for repair would appear impractical.

[pierre]

ONLY TO FRANCE, not to the address within France!
hahahaha WTF! I hope you got her name... call back talk to her boss, she won't be long at DHL..  that the most stupid thing I heard all day, and I hear stupid stuff all the time!
sorry and thanks for the info... you should have a refund comming....don't take this nonsense!