Hugely disappointed. Unacceptable service.

I am extremely unhappy with the service I (have not yet) received from DHL Express. I had a parcel sent to me from Cayman Islands to South-Africa. When tracking the parcel on the DHL website it noted that the estimated delivery was Friday, September 28, 2018. When I phoned DHL on Friday, Sep 28th I was informed that the parcel had already arrived at the DHL South Africa dispatch centre on September 22nd and that it couldn't be delivered to my address as it required customs clearance and they needed more information from me. No-one contacted me or the sender in Cayman Islands to inform me that more information was required. I immediately gave DHL the required information. I was then promised that the parcel would be delivered on Friday, October 5th. When the parcel wasn't delivered by Monday, October 8th, I phoned DHL again and was informed that delivery of the parcel has been outsourced to RAM. The DHL representative told me that I needed to contact RAM to follow up.

Hang on, why do I, the customer of DHL, need to follow up with a third party that DHL uses??

Regardless, I phoned RAM and the RAM representative said that the parcel was to be delivered today, October 9th. Suddenly, it is 4 days later than the original, and delayed, date of delivery. To make matters worse, when I asked the RAM representative to confirm the delivery address, the address was completely wrong. It wasn't even in the right province! I would have NEVER given this address to DHL. After giving the correct address to RAM, he then said that the parcel will now only be delivered on October 10th or 11th.

What???? Are you kidding me??? I was never the one giving the incorrect information, that was a miscommunication between DHL and RAM. Why am I then the victim here? Why did no-one from DHL contact me to inform me that I needed to provide additional information for customs clearance? Why do I need to be the point of communication between DHL and RAM when I chose to use DHL to deliver my parcel? Why do I need to sort out a wrong address that DHL gave RAM? Why, after now being delayed by almost 3 weeks, are DHL and RAM not doing everything they can to get the parcel delivered to me today?? I phoned this morning at 9am. Having lived in Pretoria for several years I know that it is a 4 hour drive, meaning that the driver can deliver the parcel and probably be back in Pretoria by close of business or just after.

The fact of the matter is that this parcel contains crucial contents that I need for work purposes. This has therefore caused a delay of at least 2 weeks to all my clients. Secondly, and more importantly, I was in hospital from Oct 2-5 to deliver my baby. This delay has caused me now having to sort out this mess and do my work while on maternity leave; work that could have easily been completed had the parcel been delivered on schedule. Now I'm dealing with this mess and trying to explain to my clients why work hasn't been done while I would much rather enjoy the special first moments with my newborn baby.

I am still without my parcel and the issue hasn't been resolved. I cannot express how incredibly disappointed I am in DHL Express. To put it mildly, this is completely and utterly unacceptable.