Hi Steve

I have had a lot of problems with DHL in my work, so your predicament is fully understood and you have my sympathies. Unfortunately, as you say it does damage your reputation, but why should DHL care about that.
Its all very easy for customers to point the finger at the supplier, but very rarely do they get to see the major cock-ups that delivery companies impose on their clients. Having one or 2 deliveries from couriers can give the appearance that they are good, but when you start talking hundreds of deliveries, then you really do see the problems.
I don't envy you Steve, I hope you can sort the problems out with them, as trying to find another supplier will be difficult and unfortunately, most are tarred with the same brush.
Big round of applause Steve for letting your customer know the situation quickly. All credit to you.

What's happened is very strange, especially since they are a company actively seeking our EU Center business when it finally launches. The original situation that created a stressful and bewildering situation was preventable. I was set up for online billing nearly from the first day I had the account. I got some bills in the mail and paid them. Bills kept coming in the mail, but were very clearly set to be paid online automatically including the upcoming dates as I was notified via email to such. These bills never deducted from the account which I then notified DHL about.

I called and called and called. I emailed and emailed and emailed. Each time was told something else. They finally agreed that this was a DHL billing issue and resolved it. They billed close to $5000.00 in one day. Sent me an email with bills they could not charge online. My bookkeeper discovered they were the same bills that were just paid online. The very next day they suspended the account claiming the bills were unpaid. They finally sent us the right unpaid invoice and a check was immediately issued.

When I complained of this treatment to a manager, XS was essentially treated as if we were at fault. The account was still suspended and I was forced to use an online account without discounts directly billed to our corporate Amex. A shipment I was charging $40 was costing over $100. I have been assured these differences would be refunded once this was straightened out.

To my dismay I just found out their was yet another bill we were NOT notified of for a measly $190 that once again had our account suspended. As a business this was the breaking point for me. Not to mention I was told our daily pickup driver "forgot" to pick up that days packages. The next day when I called to remind him he was off and we were not scheduled. I had had enough and asked to terminate the account. I guess that got someones attention finally.

I've been told our account will be fully restored in a few days, however because of DHL's failure to XS and therefore our clients I do not feel comfortable offering it back to you. Once our account is fully restored, all overcharges are refunded and I can be assured we will not be forgotten I will reevaluate my stance.

I completely understand how this effects our international clients who might like their items more quickly and are willing to pay for this service. There is a huge discrepancy in what you have been paying and what I have been charged. At XS we go to extremes to make sure the experience is memorable in a great way. I never want to have to send out another email about packages that did not ship because we were forgotten. I understand mistakes happen but I built XS to be different. I built it on the values and services I expect when doing business. I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused and I can assure you we are working to resolve this.

My God Steve, that is one F****d up situation, no wonder you don't want to go back to them, I do hope you get some recompense from these idiots, you certainly deserve it. can you not get directly in touch with the CEO that tends to do the trick :-) (you can always get past the blockers) it's marvellous what happens when you can get to the CEO or even his/her PA, funny thing is that they do tend to leave their email floating around the place.

Based on their email profiling it is more than likely to be mike.parra@dhl.com your key execs are below, go get em!

Key Executives For DHL Express (USA), Inc.