I guess when it comes to monopolies most people think of either cable, phone or regular mail. Well, In this story it is either the Deutsche Post or it is the Deutsche Post + DHL. I ordered two different items, one from Ebay and one from Amazon. Some weeks later I found a small card in my postbox I was curious what exactly this parcel or letter might be.
I was out of town for a few days and when I got back I saw a slip of paper telling me that there was a package waiting for me at the post office. The document that the post left implied this was a book and that was a bit surprising but I headed off to the post office that afternoon.
I was feeling really lucky, nobody was standing in line and this should take just a few minutes before I can enjoy some nifty book or electronic gadget. Well, the person was actually quite helpful in all aspects except for giving me my package. It turns out that once they left the receipt saying it was too large for my mail box they promptly lost the package.
Who could have foreseen that the Deutsche Post, a little German monopoly, could manage to lose one little letter/package. Well, I guess I wasn’t all that surprised when the person from the post office gave me a small piece of paper the size of a business card with the letters DHL on it and their service number.
Wow, the opportunity to call and complain to someone who isn’t really interested in my issue and do it all in a foreign language. Well, just like most human beings, I also sometimes think of reasons to procrastinate on topics but this one was a no brainer. I would simply ask my wife to break out her German and give this fine organization a call and ask about the package. Well, she did call and was given a different number (from their package desk) which was different than the telephone number that we were given for missing letters. I guess once you get to the size of DHL you want to split up the department of missing stuff.
I wrote down the date and time of our conversation so I would have this for my records only to realize three days later that, gasp, I had not been called back by the DHL about my missing package. I figured, what better way to start of a Monday for me and for DHL than give them a call about lunch time. I did call and explained the history of this call to what seemed like a very friendly person who after about five minutes suggested she would transfer my call to the appropriate person.
Well this second gal was also a pretty good listener and as I didn’t have the form in front of me she pointed out that without being able to recite the “magic” number from this form that she would not be able to help me any further. I must be getting old. Instead of asking how I can “klagen”, which is to complain or sue depending how you translate it, I let it go. As I happened to be out of town I once again asked my wife to give these fine people a call.
Well, she called, and the conversation did go quite similarly but as she could confirm that no magic number was on the card, that did narrow down their search. It turns out that the person on the telephone did not know the current status of the letter but he could see that a letter has been sent to us with the response from the post office.
Wow, the quite small package came from China only to be lost within less than a mile from my house. This is considering that this particular package was outside of my house, well briefly.
What does this letter say?
You have made the effort to describe your experience with our service. For that we say thank you.
We are sorry that you have tried in vain to pick up a consignment at your local post office.
We cannot determine what happens to your package. For letters in contrast to packages – the individual processing steps are not documented.
We have forwarded your document to the appropriate department on site. Thus we want to ensure that you continue to receive your post also from the local post office branch that is on your delivery notification.
If you have questions about the Deutsche Post DHL, then please contact us.
My favorite part is the weaselly way that the post office tries to distinguish that normal post is treated differently from packages, despite the fact that this “letter” was brought to my door before being brought back to the post office to be lost.
I guess it is still too early to put full trust in the German Post or the DHL.