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Originally Posted by ithacaartist
Also, has anyone used DHL for shipping/receiving anything?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ithacaartist
The reason I asked wad that the man in Germany who is shipping me some parts offered it as an option. Since I've no experience with DHL, I Googled "DHL reviews" and was impressed by their terrible reviews. Check it out, if you're short on amusement sometime.
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Yes, about a year or so ago I ordered a WW II rifle part from Latvia (it was advertised/auctioned on GB) and they shipped it by DHL. I tracked it across Northern Europe to Germany and then on to NYC and then Chicago. It stopped there for about three weeks, and I finally got through to the DHL rep who told me that it was last scanned individually in Germany, and from then on only the container was scanned. So I had been following the container, not the parcel. The parcel never showed up. I notified the seller, who contacted DHL and that was when I found out about the container scanning. So, my parcel disappeared in Germany before being containerized.
The seller shipped another part after getting verification from DHL that it was lost, so I was only disadvantaged by a month or so of waiting. But I would never consciously select DHL for my shipping. In my case, the seller used DHL and I had no vote in the shipper selection.
Some years ago, I ordered a used/stripped M16 rifle barrel from Northridge out in California; the box arrived with a neat ~1" hole in the end and no barrel. That was by UPS; again a wait for verification and another shipment. The second time, there was a similar hole but someone in transit had taped it up [sloppily] with clear tape. But I got that barrel.
In both cases, before the sellers shipped a replacement, I had requested the shipping reps to query the stops of the shipment en route to me to see if it had fallen out and been retrieved but not identified. In both case I was told it was not possible.
Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer chances...