[Resolved]  Dhl Couriers — Mis management and overcharging

Address:

Maharashtra

26th April, 2011.

Respected Sir,

This is to invite your attention to an experience which needs to be urgently looked into and intervened by you. I had bought an advanced bicycle in 2008 from Schauff Gmbh of Germany for a price of 1373 euros. It served me quite well till recently when some technical problems developed. I tried to have the bike repaired locally but mechanics here are ill trained to handle such a sophisticated hardware. Therefore I decided to send it back to Germany for proper repairs and service.

DHL couriers agreed to transport the bike to Germany. There operations in Kolhapur are handled by Blue Dart, and their local representative-one Mr Ram Jadhav-inspected the goods. He also carried out a proper assessment and informed me that they were willing to carry out the shipping for a price of Rs 16000/- with Rs. 500 extra for packing the goods properly. I agreed to their offer, issued them a cheque for the requisite amount and turned the bike over to them for needful. The problems began after this. After picking up the consignment of 13th April it was sent their clearing facility at Mumbai. The bike remained there for several days thereafter. My persistent enquiries would yield flimsy excuses, since all customs related documents were furnished by me promptly whenever they asked for them. My case was then turned over to one Ms Lalita Singh who is based in their Poona office but handles all these operations. She assured me on 21st April that all was well, properly attended to and my bike should leave for Germany on 22nd April, 2011. So after and prolonged delay the bike did actually leave their Mumbai “facility”. I was relieved at last but this proved short lived. Within hours of checking its progress on the web on 22nd April 2011, Ms. Lalita called up and sprang a nasty surprise on me. She suddenly declared that the bike was not correctly weighed and its “volumetric weight”, according to a formula devised by their company turns out to be 20 times what it was found at their Kolhapur office! This necessarily entailed-so she announced-an escalation in the freight charges. She threw upon me a demand of a whopping Rs. 1,59,000/- I naturally protested saying that the sum now quoted is ten times of what I was initially told. And it was obviously unacceptable. At this point she started to argue with me on telephone. She argued that this is the company policy and I shall have to bear the additional charge quoted by her. I naturally asked her why did she not check up with me before sending the bike on its onward transit. She would have none of this and in stead wanted to point out that she could not be available to the all customers all the time. Surely a tenfold escalation in charges requires confirmation by the consignor! She then threatened me that the bike would be held up at their warehouse in Germany unless these charges are paid in full.

You will appreciate that they had all of seven days in which to check and confirm whether the consignment was correctly weighted at Kolhapur. And I was calling their local manager twice a day to enquire about the tardy progress. They could have easily told me that the freight quoted to me earlier was being revised by such a huge scale! I humbly submit that no company policy allows its officers to keep customers totally in dark till the last minute and suddenly spring such a nasty surprise on them AFTER a fit accompli-the bicycle had left India-clearly crossing a point of no return. In fact the amount quoted by them is twice the original price of the bicycle. What is more a personal visit to Germany and carrying the bike in personal luggage would have worked out cheaper! My pleading with Ms Lalita fell on deaf ears. I do not know whom to turn to,but have been advised by Indo German Chamber of commerce -I had contacted them in this connection-to contact you.

May I humbly to request you to take up this matter with the appropriate authorities and redress what is clearly gross injustice and mismanagement meted out to me by DHL couriers?

Thanking you in anticipation,

Yours truly,


Dr Gurudas R Harshe,
"Shree", Plot No 43, Unit No 2, Ambai Defence Colony,
Sagarmal, Kolhapur 416008. Phone : [protected]
E mail : [protected]@gmail.com