DHL Thailand Sucks
Up until now, most of my postings about life here have required the user to be registered but I am leaving this one open with the hope that google finds it and I can spare some other people the trouble.
The long version of the story… Before I moved to Thailand, I was trying to get some specialty items to bring with me. The particular items, military type equipment, is in very short supply because of the two wars the US is currently fighting. I tried ordering them before I moved but they were all back ordered and I wasn’t able to get them. The companies finally got them back in stock and they were delivered to my mom’s house in Georgia.
She packaged everything up and sent it to me through DHL. The packaged arrived in Thailand without a hitch two days ago. Since then it has been sitting in Thai customs and DHL has been close to useless in getting it delivered to me. Numerous calls have been made to them but they continue to drag their feet. I have sent packages to Thailand before but never had anything near this level of frustration. The other packages were just sent through the normal United States Postal Service and were delivered here fine without a problem.
Standard Thai customs procedure is for the importer to make a list of goods in a package, present it to customs, pay any taxes due, have customs compare the list to the acutal items (if they care to) and then release the package. I understand this but do not understand having to go through this madness for a small package. Obviously DHL can not do this with every package sent into the country because it would be impossible for anything to ever be delivered in anything close to a reasonable time frame.
Today we finally got to talk to one lady at DHL who seamed to know what she was doing. She needed to have an inventory of what is in the package. We told her; a few cloth pouches, tweezers, and a specialized medical bandage. She noted the details and said she would get back to us. We are still waiting.
I read a story online before about a fire at a warehouse in Bangkok. The news crews were there and showed the man at the guardhouse in front of the warehouse diligently making copies of the Fire Fighter’s ID cards before he would let them in to fight the fire. Obviously that guard was not the only idiot in this country.