Looking at DHL’s webpage, by their own description of their services, I should have had my camera in my hands Thursday the 22nd, Friday at latest.

So what I want to know is why did the tracking say for Saturday through Thursday that the camera was sitting in a sorting facility in Fresno, CA? Friday morning, the tracking finally changed to say it was in Wilmington, OH, another sorting facility. So… my camera went from Nevada to California where it sat for several days before overshooting me by over 400 miles and sitting in Ohio for a couple of days?

Today is Saturday the 24th. According to tracking info, my camera is still in Ohio.

My memory card, on the other hand, was not shipped until the 19th, Monday and it arrived Thursday the 22nd; the same as my 115.7 lbs of candle supplies that came from Pennsylvania, the memory card came from New York. They were both shipped via UPS. UPS has really good tracking, I always know when exactly I’m going to get my packages from them.

So this does not make sense to me why my camera is taking so long with DHL. I got the shipping that told me three to five business days. Well, that was Friday at the latest. I got that shipping instead of the tree shipping for a reason, I wanted the camera soooooooner. I’m quite disappointed as I was really wanting to have the camera before my special outing tomorrow (Sunday).

So I emailed Amazon and complained. I told them I understand that DHL’s stupidity is not their fault, but I paid for three to five day shipping. I didn’t say much, just expressed my unhappiness. Amazon did not reply, but when I went to check on the order this morning, they had issued me a refund for shipping charges. That’s great, but I’m still unhappy with DHL.

I have emailed DHL twice. Once was Monday or Tuesday. I was having problems with the tracking number I’d been issued and it kept returning errors. So I emailed for help. They still have not answered. Turns out, however, that I was trying to track it on their global site, dhl.com when I should have been using dhl-usa.com, because I found out yesterday that it works there. How nice of their global website to inform me that they had a USA website and that I should be looking there. I don’t even remember how I found it. So then yesterday when I emailed Amazon, I emailed DHL’s USA offices complaining about shipping times and asking why my package was still in Ohio. No response.

Well, they’ve lost all my respect. Of course it’s not like I used them a lot anyway. I think I’ve only gotten another shipment or two, I know my iPod came that way. Well, either way, I will not be using their services in the future. And should my camera not arrive on Monday… they’ll be getting a phone call from me. Of course, you all will know as soon as I get the camera… :)

ADDENDUM: I had completely forgotten about this, but DHL is also the carrier that lost (thankfully temporarily) loads of personal information of customers of our mortgage company: spoken-for.org/archives/2005/12/21/1342/.

Dear Residential Mortgage Customer:

Please Read This Important Notice

We are writing to let you know that a computer tape containing information about you and your mortgage account with ____[us]_____ has been lost while being transported by DHL courier service to a credit reporting company. We deeply regret that this situation occurred and are keenly aware of how important your personal information is to you. We have no reason at this time to believe that this information has been misused. Even so, we want to inform you of the situation, provide background about what happened, suggest some steps you can take and assistance we can provide to protect yourself from identity theft now ad in the future.

What Happened?
The tape, which included the names, account information, payment history and Social Security numbers of our residential mortgage customers, was shipped via DHL from our data center… to the credit reporting company, Experian. The tape was lost after DHL picked it up from the data center. We and other lenders routinely provide this information to credit reporting companies to ensure your credit record is up-to-date.

As we learned about this situation, we immediately began an investigation, and asked DHL to search for the tape and to investigate the loss. We also alerted federal law enforcement. We are carefully reviewing this incident and will take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that it does not happen again.

…..

I understand, as much as the next guy, that mistakes happen. Crap happens. But sheesh. I’m amazed at the irresponsibility of these ‘big’ companies…

Niiiiiiiiice.