Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Let me just say how much I now HATE DHL. They route the bass wrong to my house so it has to sit over the weekend when it should have arrived Friday, they promise to hold it at the local depot so I can pick it up today but somehow it ends up on the delivery truck anyway. They tell me it won't be delivered until after a certain time so I arrive home before then and there is already an "attempted delivery" notice on my door. The driver even lies about the time on the attempted delivery slip (why?!?!?). After a phone call they promise to deliver it to me at the end of the driver's route today. And again a no show. After plenty of phone shananigans I was allowed to pick it up at their depot this afternoon. Finally it is out of their inept hands. Sorry about the rant but DHL, IMO, is ****!

They claim it would not have been left outside in a truck overnight anywhere along the route but it isn't like they haven't lied to me a few times already so it will have to sit in it's case until at least 6PM tomorrow (Tuesday). Drats!

I'm at a "moonlighting" police job now and am taking a break between rounds and this is all I have to look at......



Sorry for the ****** cell phone pic and the disturbing looking office/shanty. It has to be at least 80 degrees in here which beats the 4 degrees it is outside.

I hate this part.

Hang in there, Brian. It'll be worth the wait.

Many days the local delivery drivers aren't done until 7 or 8 at night. If it spent any of it's trip in a Semi trailer, I guarantee it was outside all night long (former Dick Simon Trucking employee speaking).

I think a Wednesday opening may serve you better.

jmo.

I say open it now, if it doesn't look ready, you can put it back for a couple of days...

Brian, aren't you supposed to leave it in the box?

Not sure about the box. I had to lug it to my shanty since I didn't want to leave it in my car and the case was easier to transport with the rest of my equipment.

I always leave them in the case for a day when it's cold and I never had a problem. I believe as long as there isn't a sudden temperature shock it should be fine and I don't see the thin cardboard providing too much insulation. I just want it to warm up slowly. Besides I wanted to see how cold the metal was on the case....chilly but not frosty. Some time late tomorrow afternoon I'll crack the case open a little to let air circulate in and I'll open it fully in the late evening.

The label on Rics shipping boxes advise 24 hours and I imagine that they are "worst case scenario".

DHL!!!

Don't get me started...

Oh, you did. Well. For a number of years, I've been ordering stuff from a vendor who switched to DHL/Airborne for their shipping. When I order, I've got the usual options of overnight, 2-day, five day, etc., each with its attendant surcharges. When I need something the next day from halfway across the country, I don't mind paying the extra charge. It's the usual, "is it important enough?" debate.

I've had exactly 11 deliveries in the last year via DHL. Not ONE has been on time. Once I paid overnight and it arrived NINE days later. I stopped requesting fast service, opting for standard, no-extra-charge; everytime the package was from a day to a week late. Drivers lying? Oh, yes. "My" driver insisted that my building was closed (open until 10 everyday), "couldn't find address" (it's a huge factory-type building right on a very busy corner), and there have been lots of other excuses.

The other shoe dropped when I purchased (did not "Win") an item on Ebay--a Brian Setzer Hot Rod Gretsch, from a guitar shop in the Midwest. To my dismay, instead of shipping it FedEx (who have been decent the last 3 months or so), the seller sent it via DHL. I only found out the day he shipped, when he sent me tracking info. It was due in a week.

I got it eleven days later, and the last 3 1/2 days it was lost somewhere between Denver and here. It finally arrived. I felt exhausted. A letter to the President of DHL resulted.

On December 27, I ordered a studio lighting setup from Chicago (strobes, umbrellas, soft boxes, gels, barn doors, tripods, the whole nine yards). Yup, you guessed it, they sent it DHL. It was due to arrive on January 4. I got caught up in NAMM preparations and forgot. A couple of days before NAMM, I did remember, and logged on to DHL's tracking site, to find out it had arrived in SF on January 2nd and was "at sort facility". For 13 days? I called them and politely went up the chain until I got somebody to talk very firmly to, and I had them do a package check at the facility. The next day they called twice with the same info--it was lost.

I got back from NAMM and it was in my office.

I have now told my vendors to send everything FedEx. I also have an Ebay signature now that says, "don't even THINK of sending my item via DHL/Airborne".

Zero for 13. That's what I call jacked up.

I have had great service from both FedEx and UPS. There have been glitches, which is to be expected on occasion, but a simple phone call has ALWAYS solved the problem. There will always be mistakes since humans are involved but things can still be made right and that is where DHL failed miserably (IMO).

I'll pass on any DHL related transaction in the future.

Congrats Brian! At least the silver case looks nice!

Don't get me started on DHL, either. Our company had a HUGE issue with them. For guitars, it's Fedex or I don't buy.

I eventually like to see the guitars I buy, you know.

Even here in the UK DHL have a bad name.

I had a Mesa Boogie Road Ready 4x10 shipped to me through DHL. If you know Mesa's Track lock caster system, they are very heavy duty. Not for DHL, one caster was completely gone, and another one's base was bent into a smiley face. How they did it, I don't know. But I've never had a problem with anyone else, and that was my first time getting something through DHL.

They literally drop the stuff.

I had a Mil-Spec armoured roadcase shipped via DHL that contained a lot of very expensive Optical switching equipment, when it arrived the inside looked like a bomb had gone off and the equipment was ruined. The whole floating 19" rack had been sheared off it's shock mounts, and some of the equipment had sheared of the 19" rack mount then went on to slam into the equipment below.

In addition the two of the main caters were also ruined having smashed through the floor of the case which was two 1/4 layers of ABS with a sheet metal sandwich

Since the case was a very expensive custom built item I called the comapny who made it to come out and inspect the damage so I could submit a insurance claim, when the inspector arrived and saw the damage he estimated that the whole Roadcase had been dropped from an approximate height of 25-30 feet onto concrete.

He figured it had been dropped, or pushed out the hold of the cargo plane that flew the stuff in.

And, despite several of my complaints having been escalated to an "executive office notification", and my own letter to the president, I have not heard back on anything.

They did offer to reimburse me for a couple of the most egregious delays, but to do all that paperwork for a small refund, is, as they know, impractical.