Model Forum / General / Models / December 2008

Yep...DHL is part of the German Post Office.  The USA side of the Air
Freight operation is going to be contracted to UPS going forward.
Approximately 4-6000 folks in Wilmington Oh (just up the road from
work) are without work, or soon will be.

The state is trying to get DHL's use of UPS declared a
monopoly....which probably ain't gonna fly with FedEx still in
business.

You are relatively fortunate. A group of us use to order kits from Germany
during the time the dollar was so strong. Out of four shipments one arrived
unscathed, one arrived partially damaged, one never arrived and the fourth -
you won't believe! The fourth package of 25 kits arrived and one would never
recognize that it had once been a rectangular box. It arrived in the shape
of a corpse wrapped in wet cardboard and about six rolls of packaging tape.
I weighed the box. Based on the label's original shipping weight the
shipping box and 25 kits absorbed seven pounds of water (about 1 gallon)!
They kit boxes were all ruined.

I sent digital photos of the mess to the German vendor. The vendor and I
arrived at a reasonable reimbursement. All decals and most instructions were
ruined but the kits were okay. So I sold the kits as "bagged kits",
subtracted that amount from the original invoice and the vendor refunded me
the difference. DHL was nonchalant about the whole thing. They didn't give a
damn. I quit buying from the vendor because as a German vendor they had to
use DHL to ship to the U.S. We amicably agreed to no longer do business. I
hated it. The vendor was very nice about the whole episode.

On Dec 21, 12:59 am, "Daryl" <dwalter...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

So it's been 38 days and the kits ~finally~ came. It's a Christmas
miracle that the box that they were sent in survived the trip.
Picture a shirt box from Macy's (or Gimble's or Hengerer's or any
other clothing store) that have been taped closed on the four sides
(four small stubs). Added to that the box had a nice hole punched in
it about 1 1/2" across.
I did a parts check and everything is accounted for, thank God,  Even
the mailman said that he was surprised that it made it.
I won't be doing business with this guy any time soon, which is a
shame because he does nice work.

I bought a batch of his kits off of eBay a few weeks ago.
Having seen these posts, I was concerned about mine. However, they
arrived yesterday, packed in a sturdy cardboard box. The box even
appears to be relatively unscathed as well. It took less than a month
to arrive, even during the Christmas season. I agree, especially
overseas packages should be packaged well. I've gotten ridiculously
poorly packaged items, both domestic & foreign, that I'm amazed I got
them intact. Over the years, I got an Action Man (12" GI Joe from
England), simply stuck in a brown envelope, (shipped from the UK), a
Monogram Cessna 180 without a box wrapped in cellophane & stuck in a
brown envelope, with the windshield crushed & the seller asked "what
do you expect for xx dollars?) (I left them a negative) & even a big
Nylint steel Dump Truck shipped in a Priority bag/envelope! Of course,
every corner of the truck had found its way thru the bag!