Our elder son had to leave for France for his Business Studies on New Year eve. I and wife were to leave for Tokyo on 13 January on a two year assignment.
Our son had to keep a check on his check-in baggage and had to leave behind very important stuff. We decided to send them through courier. We knew about DHL and Fedex. But we thought of checking with the DTDC in our vicinity in Dombivali (East). The guy said they have not shipped packages but sent documents before. He was pretty confident in delivering to the address in Nice in 4-5 days.
We relied on his words and booked the package at a cost of around Rs.8000 on 8 January. The tracking facility was useful in finding the progress. It appeared that due to insufficient information the package was unable to leave Indian shores until 12 January. Once it reached Customs in Marseilles in France on 15 January we thought it was a question of few days. We were already in Tokyo by then. But status was not changing thereon. Out of concern I pleaded with my contacts in France for help. A contact number and mail id of the DHL official in Marseilles could be arranged. An immediate mail was sent on 28 January to this official called Ms. Sxxxxa asking about the problem. She replied on 29 January asking for passport and residence proof of Shreyansh. This was sent on 31 January. On tracking status it was found that the consignment has been returned to origin station. This shocking development was brought to the notice of the DHL in France and also to the DTDC. They had no answer.
The official in charge of international movements in DTDC Ms. Sxxxxxa Yxxxxxv was kind enough to listen and also agreed to help in sending it back to France. But it appears that nothing was in her control. The DHL bulldozed and got the package delivered back to our Dombivali address and even charged us Rs.7600 for Customs clearance etc.
In the end we ended up paying close to Rs.16000 just for a round trip of the package. The plea given is that the DHL officials were not getting response on the contact number of our son in France. It was later discovered that the correct contact number was distorted during internal communication.
This is a real account of our ordeal. DTDC have proved to be extremely unprofessional and incompetent.
?Package booked from Mumbai on 08 January for delivery in France is returned to Mumbai after one month on 12 February.
Sandip Mazumder
Edogawa, Tokyo 132-0034
Email: sxxxxxxxxxr@gmail.com
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