DHL unable to shop

Hi Devan Prior to shipment, I had a 1 hour conversation with DHL SA that this package was personal effects. Your SA office specifically instructed me to fill in 4 different documents including a commercial invoice and requested I forward the documentation to your offices at DHL SA, along with passport copies of entry and exit dates as proof that I had left the personal effects in Germany. Your say quite eloquently in retrospect - that your DHL offices instructions to me were wrong on three counts: a. a different form should have been used b. different wording should have been used (not “previously purchased by myself” – as I indicated on the form, but “personal effects”). c. the information should have been sent to DHL Germany not DHL SA (as if DHL SA could not forward the information to DHL Gemany) The issues remain: a. DHL SA failed to specify prior to the shipment, what the correct procedure should have been. b. DHLS SA – judging by the numerous conversations with your agents – actually doesn’t know what the correct procedure is. The call centre agent who gave me the wrong instructions a fortnight ago called me this morning finally explaining what the correct procedure should have been. Never did he acknowledge that he had actually given me wrong instructions to begin with. The real critical issue facing you as an organisation, and which is why your ratings are so low, is not that you made a mistake, but that you, the customer services executive, and the dozen staff working below you, simply refuse to acknowledge that you failed in your responsibility to communicate the correct procedure and process to your customer BEFORE the shipment. (By the way, the fact that you issued two waybill numbers also suggests that DHL's processes are coming unstuck). Since I ship / collect / dozens of important documents internationally every year through DHL, and because this is not the first time that DHL SA messes up the process, I refuse to deal with an organisation that is both *********** and self-righteous and unwilling to learn. You persistently fail to take responsibility for your oversight, but merely quote custom and excise duty regulations with great authority, now, over a fortnight after you failed to get the process right. I feel you and your staff would be better of filing documents in a state run governmental department or even the Department of Home Affairs (which in itself is very unfair, as Dept of Home Affairs is 10x more efficient and reliable than DHL is).

One more point. Not providing the right information to begin with and only telling me now what the correct shipment process SHOULD HAVE BEEN after initially misleading me and my having to waste nearly 2 working days trying to locate the shipment, is AN INSULT!