Mismanagement of customer deliveries and no accountability for ****** goods by Aramex South Africa

The lack of service, accountability and follow through from Aramex South Africa is beyond shocking. To my misfortune my first experiences with international courier services has been with this company whereby both couriers has been mismanaged with no accountability, communication or apology.

Incident 1: Provider in India couriered items purchased on the 13th of Jan via Aramex on around the 15th of Jan. I only received a call from the Invoicing department of Aramex South Africa to confirm my email address for invoicing on the 29th of Jan (more than two weeks later). However, I only received the invoice on the 31st of Jan despite me querying why no invoice was attached to the email on the same day I received their first email (the 29th of Jan ) whereby it was referring to an “attached invoice for payment “ without the actual attachment being included. This resulted in a delay of a further two days. The shocking part of this incident was the fact that I received a call from a person in Cape Town on the 30th of Jan stating that they have my package. This was a day before I received the invoice for customs duty to be paid with the email stating that payment is required in order for my items to be cleared and released for delivery. The person who wrongly received my stuff sent me messages with pictures of the box clearly showing my details on it (name,contact number and Johannesburg delivery address) as well as pictures of my items which she had opened. One has to ask how this package was released from customs for delivery when invoicing and payment for custom duty and clearance was still pending? I had to call Aramex and asked that the person in Cape Town do the same as she was also now wondering about the package she should’ve received. Aramex was, as expected, unaware of this mess up and the agent agreed to get a manager to contact me about my complaint and how they would rectify this. No one, to this day, called me as was requested and agreed to and instead I received a call to verify my address for delivery on the 6th of February (a further week later) stating that they would deliver the next day. I again expressed my dissatisfaction with their non response and asked the agent to again get someone to contact me. To this day no one has done so nor apologized for the incident. The items were delivered on the 7th together with another box meant for someone else. I then had to call Aramex about this and get them to fetch it to be delivered to the rightful owner. If I had just remained silent and kept the items they would be non the wiser! Pathetic to say the least.

Incident 2: during the same trip to India a number of other items were purchased which included items for various people totaling 140kgs in weight. This was shipped by me via Parcel Chief India on the 24th of January the day we left Mumbai, India. I only received confirmation of my items being shipped via Aramex Mumbai to Aramex South Africa on 5th Feb 2020 (more than a week later). Shipment arrived at Aramex South Africa on the 9th of Feb 2020 according the the tracking report link. I only received a call from Aramex South Africa on the 12th of Feb 2020 almost a week later to state that my items have arrived and in order to get it cleared for delivery they need to yet again confirm my email address for invoicing. This time they sent me the two invoices for customs duty and tax the very same day. Strangely though the next day I received a message stating that I should contact this person in customs urgently ( no contact number but just an email address) claiming they could not get a hold of me. I checked my call and email records and noticed that no email or call was made to me as was claimed. I then called the call centre to query what this was about and was then told that my packages were held back for inspection. I was then expected to send an email to the employee in customs in order for them to tell me what was going on and what was required. Apparently their systems don’t talk to each other so even though invoicing has my contact email, customs did not. Weirdly though he had my mobile number to send be that vague message. Nevertheless I emailed customs and was then asked for bank statements, invoices and visa docs. After querying this and stating that I could only provide what I had which I sent through on Fri, 14 Feb, I was told on Monday 17 Feb that all of the documentation I had sent was submitted and that the clearing process would take +\- 5 working days. I was further told that I would receive communication from this very person as soon as they get more information on progress. According to the tracking report link my items were cleared just after 11am on Wednesday 19th Feb 2020 however no one contacted me in this regard as committed. It was then supposedly transported from customs to the delivery section of Aramex that same evening. A hijacking incident alleges occurs whereby my items were allegedly ******( something I was only informed of after I had to call in to ascertain the progress of my stuff which was on Friday 21 Feb). A case was opened by Aramex South Africa the same night. Again no one contacted me in this regard and weirdly enough the tracking report link suddenly does not have any of this updated on it. Thursday 20th Feb goes by with still no communication whatsoever from Aramex South Africa. Friday morning being the so called 5th business day, I still wake up to no email nor call. I then decide to contact Aramex South Africa to check the status of my courier seeing that I am now close to month end, have committed to a few providers with regards to the launching of my business and had family and friends awaiting items they requested for. To my utter shock and devastation, I was read out the notes on their system by the agent as if it is some by the way matter. The agent was cold, evasive and absolutely unsympathetic. She could not answer any of my questions and kept putting me on hold. We then asked to speak to the person we had been liasing with in customs and told he was busy on a call. They committed to get him to call us which did not happen. We then called again only to be told the same thing. After demanding to speak to the manager we were put through the customer centre manager who also could not give us an explanation as to why we were not informed and seemed shocked that no one did. Still with no information on what is now to be done, what they intend doing to sort this out etc. neither any information on who we should be in contact with. Despite being told that a supposed task team was set up to handle this, we still was told that he had to check who is the right person to talk to. We were also told that we should then contact this person IF WE WANT TO CLAIM. I mean if this is not absolutely shocking and pathetic, we further get told that he is not certain of what that process would be or who can give us this information as yet and would first need to check on this. After demanding an email with his seniors in copy and details on what is going on, why we were not told and how they intend to sort this out yet again, we instead receive an email with a whole lot of his alleged seniors in copy stating nothing different to what he stated telephonically other than providing us with a SAPS case number however with no detail on the station at which the case was opened etc. We then responded to this email last night (21 Feb the same day of us receiving their email) to reiterate what we had requested earlier on numerous calls to them as well as our expectations due to them not addressing this as was requested on their email. To this very second I did not receive a single response from any of the so called seniors of Aramex South Africa on copy of the email. This morning (22 Feb) I contacted the contact centre after constantly getting the voicemail of the Customer Centre Manager’s mobile to find out the reasons for their non response to our email the night before and details of the case number of which they failed to provide. The agent kept asking me why I needed this and stated that the system shows that they have contacted the courier company at origin and are attempting to get replacement invoices from the providers. It further stated that they were getting the customer (being myself) to obtain replacement invoices. If everything else that have since occurred with the dismal company was not shocking enough, this took it to another level. Clearly oblivious to what I already was told by her colleagues this agent clearly just read the updates from the system which she stated was updated on the 20th and afternoon of the 21st respectively. How is it that this is their update on their system all the while not communicating anything to me (the customer whose items were ****** ) and after sending me an email stating that IF I WISH TO CLAIM I must contact them???? How is it that their updates on their system tells a different story, as if they are working with me on getting this sorted? Now one has to wonder what is really going on? What are they trying to cover up and for whom? Upon contacting legal services I further learn that another customer affected by the same incident, however only expecting one item, compared to my 140kgs worth hundreds of thousands of rands was in fact formally informed of the incident the very next day following the incident and further informed of the steps Aramex is taking to sort this out and ensure no loss on the part of the customer. This raises even more questions as to what is going on. This also proves that this is not a case of Aramex not being experienced in this kind of situation nor the fact that they do not know what processes to follow to rectify it as they clearly doing it with some customers. Why the inconsistency and ignoring of a customer with a much bigger loss and impact is highly concerning and quite frankly very suspicious. To whomever is reading this, please ensure you check which courier company /carrier is involved in your packages and if it is Aramex DONOT AGREE TO IT. Learn from my experiences and that of many other before me. Do not fall prey to this because clearly customers are just a means to an end to them. They take care of their own interests first.

To Aramex South Africa, I have now given you guys more than enough opportunity to sort your mess out and am no longer prepared to sit around and wait for you to sort this out which is something you are clearly not interested in doing. I reserve my rights and will not be your statistic!!!