DHL Reviews 

Poor services. Package has been on hold for over a week now. Contacted them a few times. Only get a response "We will look into this" I highly recommend never using DHL unless you want to pay extra fees. Having too pay a "Storage fee" when they wont even release my package...

I feel I have to add to the extremely poor reviews that DHL receive from customers. I purchase many items from UK and EU suppliers. My address in Auckland New Zealand is a Rural , RD , address and DHL continues to insist on doubling the delivery charges. HOWEVER, DHL never deliver to my address, parcels are just transferred to NZ Post on arrival in New Zealand so their delivery service becomes laughable at best. This company really needs to get its act together and provide a better customer delivery service.

This is by far one of the best courier companies.
They keep me updated about deliveres and are very accurate with timings.

I am extremely disappointed with my recent experience receiving an international package through DHL. Before I could even receive my shipment, I was required to pay additional taxes, which I understand is a standard procedure. However, what is completely unacceptable is that upon receiving my package, I discovered that it had been opened by customs.

There was no proper explanation or notification regarding why my package was opened, and the way it was resealed was careless and unprofessional. This raises serious concerns about privacy, security, and the integrity of my shipment. As a paying customer, I expect my packages to arrive in the same condition they were sent, without unnecessary tampering.

I urge DHL and customs authorities to take accountability for this and improve their handling procedures. Customers deserve transparency and respect when using international shipping services. DO NOT USE DHL IT’S A BIG SCAM!

Outlying the full procedure to someone upfront would be incredibly helpful! Would have been extremely beneficial to be provided with a list of items that may require inspection upon delivery to its destination, and additional costs incurred, as well as advising of tax costs. Rather than being drip-feed this information AFTER the items are in transit. Paid an exorbitant amount to have items shipped, to only then be bombarded with emails about inspections and then tax fees! Would not recommend!!

rubbish company has 5 branches and none of them want to help they all tell me to go to the other branch then that branch tells me to go back to the other one then i get put through and they hang up on me after waiting 30 mins

So bad I thought I was being scammed by someone posing as DHL but it was actually them!!! I had a package from Australia and DHL incorrectly submitted it to customs as over 1000nzd and when I queried this they then said I would have to pay $103 for Customs to review it THIS IS A BOLDFACED LIE, Customs NZ do not request any fee to review things!! The fee then went up to $140 in the space of 7 days! And they told me I would begin to pay a holding fee on top on this (all while the business is closed on the days between Christmas and new years when everyone is basically closed) The company I purchased from had 2 phone calls with them and several emails with confirming the commercial invoice and the correct conversion rates and felt the issue had been resolved. However the people in my email chain with DHL (about 7 seperate people) said they have yet to be contacted or receive any paperwork from the shipper WHICH IS ANOTHER BOLD FACED LIE all so they can accumulate this holding fee I guess? Reading all these reviews below it appears they are literally just money grabbing. I certainly will never buy anything that has to be shipped by them I would rather wait for a pigeon to deliver it

Incredibly disappointed with DHL.
Depsite having an account with them for my online shipping business, I found that when importing a parcel which was inspected by customs, they charged a "holding fee" - a fee exceeding $300, over the cost of the parcel which was a christmas gift
I had been asking the seller for updates, and they were contacting DHL On my behalf, and was at no time informed that the parcel was accumulating charges, I was simply told that there were routine checks and my parcel would be on the way.
This was not the case, and a call to my account manager had her inform me that they had made no attempt to contact me despite having all my contact details - as I have a business account with them.
Why would they, after all, every day they were holding it was even more money in the bank for them, as they wouldn't release without payment.
Very disappointed as this left me without time to organise an alternative gift and made said gift way more expensive than I had wanted. It has, however, resulted in me discovering fedex, who is significantly cheaper than DHL to ship internationally with, and they have never charged me "holding fees" despite the occasional parcel being inspected.
Would never, ever use DHL again after this experience.

Janelle (i think) from the Auckland office got my package rushed and went through a massive effort to ensure we had it before flying overseas for Christmas. The team went above and beyond and showed such an amazing face for DHL. Congratulations all. You made our christmas!

Failed to notify me that there was a second parcel left in their Express locker in Whangarei. I ended up emailing HMO Passport Office UK to find out where my passport was. Called DHL and after the second call was told, sorry, we never gave you a code for the second locker, had to drive back down to the Locker Express in rush hour. Then had to call DHL again to tell them I had arrived so security could open the locker for me. Now I'm getting texts to say there is an item I haven't collected which I have via Security. Obviously no communication within this Company.

We use DHL to send our ecommerce orders overseas and we find them very good most of the time. They are quite expensive, but the service is good.
However things are very different when you need to have a parcel your have sent via DHL returned to NZ.
We needed to have 2 ecommerce orders going to China returned from Hong Kong to N Z.
The parcels cost to send from N Z to China $37.45 for 2 kg weight and $54.06 for 3 kilos.
However the bill for the return is
$215.73 for parcel 1 and for parcel 2 which has suddenly increased in weight from 3 kg to 4.5 kg! and the price to return to us $635.73.
Because the parcels were with DHL we didn't have the choice of using another company.

I’ve used DHL many times before and had great experiences, but recently, their service quality has completely plummeted!

In my recent interaction with DHL:

Their prices were nearly three times higher than other providers, and I had to negotiate with my account manager just to get a fair rate.

It’s become a nightmare to get their boxes—either the depot is closed, they’re out of stock, or delivery takes an unreasonable amount of time.

The box quality is terrible, and closing the lids properly is a real struggle.

After shipping my parcel, their DG specialist stopped it for no valid reason, even though I’ve sent the exact same products through DHL multiple times without issue.

It took forever for DHL to provide any clarity on what documentation they needed, despite the fact that I had provided the same documents in previous shipments and they already had them on file, yet they still requested them again.

After I provided the requested document, they claimed it was outdated and demanded IATA's name be mentioned, which is completely unreasonable for a small business like mine. I can’t just force my suppliers to rewrite documents to fit DHL’s arbitrary requirements.

I requested a parcel cancellation and expressed my disappointment, CCing my account manager in the email. Not a single person bothered to respond or even attempt to address the issue.

The DHL driver returning my cancelled parcel called early in the morning, mumbling incoherently. After confirming I'd be home at 9 AM, he bizarrely asked if anyone at home spoke English, and then demanded confirmation of my address. I cut the call, suspecting it was a scam, only for him to show up later questioning why I hung up, claiming he had asked "normal" questions.

Where is DHL heading with such atrocious service?

If I could leave a lower rating I would. I had no choice but to use DHL for a delivery from the U.S, I figured since it's one of the biggest delivery companies in NZ I there'd be no hassle. I was dead wrong. The day my package was supposed to be delivered I received a notification and a tracking number. Normal stuff. Then the next notification I got was to tell me that someone knocked on my door and left because no one answer. I had to do this twice because they gave me wildly different time frames. I've used multiple delivery services and each one of them sets up automated notifications that tell me my parcel is on the way. But DHL couldn't even get that right. Then I had to call because they're God awful website wasn't allowing me to reschedule my delivery. Only to find out ON THE CALL that I wasn't allowed to reschedule because I need to sign for it. So I had to waste an hour of my day to pick it up from their depot. Do everything in your power to avoid DHL for the love of God.

For the love of God, do not use DHL if you can. Beyond useless, incompetent and bad! Can’t redirect my passport to another address, I can’t pick it up as their depot is over 50km away and now they inform me they don’t deliver Tuesdays after taking the morning off work to wait for it. Absolutely rubbish! DO NOT USE

Awesome service. Prompt, with excellent ongoing communication. 100% recommend

If the shipper does not include explicit mention of the shipping cost then DHL's policy is to "estimate" the cost (very highly) and then require you to pay GST on that estimated cost, even if the shipping cost was included in the declared price of the item. So now you are paying GST on the shipping twice.
You can dispute DHL's estimated shipping cost, but have to pay NZ Customs an extra $103.50 to do so, for a "Post Clearance Modification", all because DHL sent their estimated shipping cost to Customs without letting you know.
And don't bother disputing this with DHL, because it is just their "policy" to estimate shipping costs when not mentioned by the shipper, and it is just their "policy" to not tell you about that until after they send the estimate to Customs, by which time it is too late.

My package ordered from Australia had been delivered to the incorrect address. I have gotten in contact with the DHL customer service - although i was repeatedly only being told that the driver would be "attempting to recover the package" - although it is easy to assume that the people living in the home would have already taken the package inside. In emails with Customer service, they began to develop an attitude towards my persistence - acting as if I was also at fault for the package being lost? I have since been in contact with the company whose products I ordered from and they are being extremely helpful in resending the package.

I have read multiple reviews complaining of the same issue of incorrect delivery.

what a long winded over complex system, no wonder 80% of reviews are bad. i had no prompting to supply information until day 4 of holding(which i then get charged for) the email status alerts don't match what the call centre are saying, just a balls up! i have no faith in them whatsoever... shame to mar the awesome shipping time of 14 hours from scanned in japan to scanned in nz(followed by 6 days and still no parcel)

Was skeptical at first due to other reviews.

But I ordered an EGPU from HK to NZ and had absolutely no hiccups along the way.

It arrived in 4 to 5 days, even faster than the predicted delivery time.

Driver had no issues finding my address either which was in a relatively rural place.

All in all great experience for me.

Terrible service.