That's a shame. Can't speak for everybody, but I had a pretty good experience with DHL domestic delivery.

For certain packages shipping from certain locations where it would normally take 3 days for delivery, I could sometimes expect it in 2 days with DHL. And I could consistently rely on the DHL deliveryman to come to my house before 5pm in my neighborhood. Oh well.

We've been using them since they were "Airborne," and really hate to see this happen.

That doesn't seem like such a bad thing. They were misleading with shipping dates and tended to be rude. But to cut 9500 jobs so easily just doesn't seem right.

Good riddions. I have NEVER had a Delivery with DHL or its former self Airborne go off without a hitch. every single time someone shipped me something with them something went honorably wrong.. On 3 separate occasions they returned my package saying my address dose not exist (even thought i was 5 min away from there depot. Last time they refused to leave my package no matter what i did they said i had to be home or come to depot and there depot now closed at 4:30 Pm and was now 2 hours from my home and office.

Good riddance, DHL. UPS, Fedex and USPS do a much better job.

Thank god, I've always hated airborne/DHL, I'd had the worst service from them. It will be interesting to see what happens, most of the computer companies I know use AirEx/DHL for their service shipping.

@azntg: I'm afraid that I have to say the exact opposite. I've lived in two different states since DHL came onto the market and in both locations they had the bizarre honor of being the shipping company that seemed like they just *didn't* want me to have my items.

Requiring a signature for items a retailer swore they didn't ship 'adult signature required,' packages that enter the DHL system only to get 'stuck' at one of their hubs, necessitating a phone call, delivery to the wrong address or leaving a box of expensive electronics on my doormat when the apartment offices were open and staffed all day; the mind boggles.

The only positive thing I can think of regarding DHL was the time one of their employees helped schlep a table my girlfriend had bought from the local facility to our apartment in his truck. That was exemplary service and, of course, I wrote a commendation to him. Granted, that may have had more to do with Texan hospitality than it did corporate culture. :)

In short, I hope that one specific guy has an easy time finding a new job, the rest of the company can rot.

Thanks God for less competition! Now we'll get to pay more for shipping! Actually, that was probably going to happen anyways, so /rant offmode.

(My experience with DHL as a mailroom clerk many years ago was mostly postive, they were our primary carrier, and did a decent job. That was before they bought Airborne, who was also a decent carrier, so maybe that changed.)

I've never shipped nor received via DHL, but when those yellow Sprinters first started appearing on the roads locally I was spending a lot of time driving for work, much of it in residential areas. DHL seemed to consistently have the worst drivers of any other delivery service, or really of any other local trucks I regularly passed. Always speeding, running red lights and general reckless driving. Tolerable in commercial districts but unforgivable on neighborhood side streets.

I've never cared much for DHL either...too many instances where they "attempted" delivery and found "nobody home" but I was here the entire time.

@SiddhimaAmythaon: Not only that, but my mother had to ship legal documents across the country, and DHL neglected to tell her that the destination she chose wasn't in their coverage area. So they weren't going to be able to deliver her documents, BUT they accepted them, processed the order, and took her money anyway! And when she tracked it, she realized it wasn't being delivered on the day they said it would be there, she called them up and gave them a piece of her mind and chewed them out for not training their employees to know what the proper coverage areas were.

My local (home) DHL guys were actually on par and occasionally better than my UPS/FedEx guys. The guys at my workplace sucked though. They'd stick "we missed you" stickers intended for outside surfaces to finished doors, ruining the paint, and we'd have lost packages and packages that claimed to be delivered when they weren't.

I was almost rear-ended on two separate occasions by a DHL delivery trucks speeding through my office parking lot.

Another time IBM sent DHL to pick up my broken laptop for service. The apartment buzzer was broken and I didn't know the DHL guy was there until he called on his cell. He was all annoyed with me for not answering the door when he had buzzed

Maybe they had great service, but if you weren't using them, look out!

Never had a problem with DHL or Airborne Express. I guess its just like FedEx of UPS, good in some places, horrible in others.

Never had a problem with DHL, always sad to see competition go poof.

I'm definitely of the "good riddance" crowd-- DHL was the worst company in my experience. Oftentimes when I was unlucky enough to have something shipped to me, they would manage to "lose" the package and instead of admitting that, they would claim no one was home to sign for something and that they left a note. (which someone WAS home and no note was left) I'd have to call over and over, sometimes for weeks, before I finally was able to get my delivery.

Maybe it was just my local office but that repeated experience was enough to cause me to actively avoid them.

Sorry for everyone who is losing their jobs, especially now, but I have to admit I don't shed a tear for the company itself.

DHL has been pretty terrible for our company's shipping.
*Shipping a laptop from Las Vegas to Portland OR, and DHL decides it needs to be routed through Ohio with a lengthy stay in their office there. Never mind it was 2-day.
*Many missed shipping deadlines, particularly on 2-day shipments.
*Incorrect/incomplete tracking info combined with useless Customer Service.

We have been begging our corporate offices to PLEASE let us use anything else, whether it is hiring "Bob" to drive it across country in his vintage El Camino or just using FedEx. Never had anything resembling the horrific service from DHL when working with Fedex and UPS.

DHL was slightly cheaper, but I guess you get what you pay for!

DHL deserves worse.

Their drivers cannot even be bothered to knock on my door (inside of a large condo building).

Several times now, I or somebody else at home, have heard a thumping or fumbling outside the door.

We open it, only to see our package sitting in front of the door, and the deliveryman walking down the hall, or waiting for the elevator.

Morons.

DHL monumentally destroyed a bunch of expensive computer equipment at work, the receiver sent me pictures. DHL's solution was to purposely lose the claim paperwork seven times and then eventually deny the claim. Then tried to take the company to collections for not paying the shipping bill after they destroyed all of this equipment and refused to take any responsibility.
DHL stinks, good riddance.

DHL gone? Hallelujah!
I had DHL drivers cancel pickups on me just because they didn't feel like coming out to my office. They didn't even have the courtesy to call before cancelling. Always good to see crappy companies go poof!

Whew. I glad I can still ship internationally with them. I still have several financial documents I need to send to Nigeria.

I had a neutral and very bad experience with them. Neutral was a painless pickup. The very bad was a fragile and expensive item was delivered to my house. UPS normally will just require me to pick it up, FedEx seems to enjoy leaving it with my neighbors. Both regularly leave notices on the door. DHL failed to leave notice, but the package was not on my doorstep and their website listed it as "delivered". I found it an hour later on my patio (which, the only way it was against my patio door from the sidewalk is if they tossed it.. a package marked in several places with the word FRAGILE)

@RobinB: Wasn't Airborne a Texas only overnight delivery firm before DHL bought them? Airborne was sweet when I lived in Dallas. For about half the price of FedEx I could overnight a package to Houston or Austin or Lubbock or etc.

I've had only positive experiences with DHL and will be sad to see them go

@quail: Sorry. I was Thinking of Lone Star, which got bought up my either Airborne or DHL I think.

GOOD RIDDANCE!!

DHL was the WORST!! At least UPS rang the doorbell before dumping my packages at the door but no matter how much, I begged, pleaded, and screamed, I could NEVER ever once get the STUPID DHL people to at least ring my doorbell before dumping the packages at my door.

GOOD RIDDANCE!!

Ahhh that felt good to have that little rant and get that off my chest. :-)

I have only ever had exceedingly positive experiences with DHL at rates significantly cheaper than any other company.

Then again, I PRIMARILY use them for International Shipping - which they beat FedEx, USPS, and UPS at hands-down. Always a great experience at about a third the price of any of the other options. Plus, they ship to more locations.

The only odd thing I ever discovered is that the Deutsche Post owns them in Germany, which made them fairly necessary.

@bohemian: That's nothing. I've heard of DHL "losing" a server between the mail room and the truck.

DHL was cheaper than UPS/Fedex when I had to ship 8 to 10 boxes of camping equipment from NJ to TN but they were totally wacky with the paperwork and actually getting the stuff delivered.

It pretty much seemed that if you could sneak a package onto their line then they would ship it as the paperwork didn't match up to what was actually tracked. One of the boxes delivered didn't even have paperwork and kept on showing that it was in transit.

Getting the stuff delivered was a P.I.T.A. as no one at the local place seemed to want to deliver it. Was supposed to deliver on a Tuesday but finally got to the location on Saturday after we called and called about it... The guy who finally delivered it was really nice and said that basically he was the clean up guy who got the percieved crappy jobs that no one else wanted... Good thing we were not on a time schedule to get the boxes...

Hmm. I guess that's why my corporate account got switched to FedEx.

Thanks, free market, for weeding out the crappy service. I've had nothing but trouble from DHL. They once delivered my late arriving bags from an airline that I won't name (rhymes with spewnited) 3 months late, and sopping wet.

I loved DHL before they started dropping off my packages at the post office for local delivery. That always added another 2 days to my shipping time.

Good riddance to DHL. I have never had good service with them. Their delivery people are rude, and packages always arrived late and/or damaged. Seriously, it was like Jim Carrey/Ace Ventura style.

Here's a little secret from someone who has shipped tens of thousands of packages. USPS is usually cheaper, just as fast, and as reliable as FedEx or UPS. Not always the case but we shifted our shipping from Ground FedEx to USPS about a year ago when FedEx charges/fuel surcharges/delivery surcharges/residential surcharges went through the roof. FedEx started the Ticketmaster game where they advertised one rate and by the time you put the order in the system, the rate had doubled due to all the surcharges and fees.

In my personal experience, most packages I get from UPS are severely damaged, but FedEx and DHL packages always came in perfect, crisp condition.

Sad to see them go.

@azntg: I too had good experiences with them. Fedex, no matter what situation it was, has been an awful experience. UPS has been half and half terrible/decent. Never had issues with DHL.

Dell used DHL for domestic home deliveries and I never had a single problem receiving any of my Dell orders. My orders always arrived ahead of scheduled delivery, and the mobile tracking service they offered via SMS was top notch and accurate to within 5 minutes (as far as final delivery goes).

Oh well.

@rachmaninov1:

That's common in condos, especially if it's a secured building. The only time ANY delivery service knocks in my building is if signature is required. Other than that I just have to listen for sounds outside my door.

@SiddhimaAmythaon: Sounds like all my experiences with Fedex.

Good riddance. I'll stick with UPS and plain old EMS for international shipping. When I would get stuff from Japan a lot of times it came DHL. They were by far the worst and destroyed several items from Amazon Japan. Thank Goodness Amazon replaced the order, no questions asked.

In my 35 year existence, I've never had a package delivered to me by DHL nor have I ever used them to send a package. I wouldn't even know where to go in my area to do it. They just don't seem as accessable as FedEx, UPS or the USPS.

The company that I work for dealt exclusively with DHL for anything we shipped that was 40lbs or under, unless a different carrier was specifically requested by the customer. That is, we did up until the end of October.

On Oct 21st, we had our account suspended by them due to a billing error on THEIR part, and we were told it would take 7-10 days to fix the error. Until then we were on a cash only basis.

We then received an e-mail from one of our suppliers on Wednesday of last week stating that DHL was no longer going to ship hazardous materials domestically for us (we manufacture and sell raw silicone products). We weren't terribly affected by that because we were still "suspended" and on a cash only basis and had since taken to using FedEx exclusively

Needless to say, those of us who work at the main office were NOT surprised to find out today that they have eliminated domestic shipping of ANY kind.

I had figured they would either be downsizing or outright folding by the end of this month.

The only thing that sucks about losing domestic shipping from DHL is that we can't ship products on the same day using FedEx or UPS ground unless we drive around seeking out a drop off location. But, then again, about half of the time our DHL guy who came to pick stuff up from us would miss pick ups that we had scheduled.

This also explains why I haven't seen our regular DHL guy around in the last week. I find it ironic that he asked me about a week and a half ago why we haven't been shipping anything with them. When I explained to him the issue I told him that I thought something funny was going on at DHL and he should prepare himself just in case

I'm somewhat surprise to hear so many people having positive experiences with DHL. My uncle's company stopped using them 2 summers ago after they messed up a very important delivery. This was not their first blunder either. Ever since then, its been USPS and UPS and no problems thus far.

@azntg: I think it's hit or miss for everybody with DHL. They ate up Airborne Express here in the States, which I think was kind of a... I dunno how to explain it, but a delivery franchise? It depended on your region how good Airborne Express handled your packages. I had terrible luck with Airborne Express.

The "hit-or-miss" goes for FedEx and UPS, too, I supposed. I've had nothing but great experiences with UPS, but FedEx has gotten on my nerves more often than not.

Put me down for good riddance. It's not just that *their* service was so abysmal, it's that they undercut the other carriers to the point that the others had to model their service strategy (speed, speed, speed: don't ring doorbells, leave packages outside in the rain, don't leave notes, lie about all of the above--basically do not make a delivery if it can't be done in under 30 seconds) just to stay in the game.

I used DHL once, and it was easily the most painful shipping experience I've ever had. They kept trying to deliver a package to Calgary that I was waiting for in Toronto. I think they tried 3 times total even though we were on the phone with dispatch talking to the driver. They would take it back to the depot only to go out the next day. The best part was I got the package and it said the full Toronto address (with province and postal code) they just didn't care to notice. Hey it was only off by 3500 kilometers!

This sucks for Wilmington, Ohio, (a town of 12,000) which is going to be decimated by the loss of DHL. I don't care how you feel about DHL and their shipping methods, but it's hard to not feel for 10,000 people losing their jobs, not to mention the effect this will have on supporting businesses.

Good riddance indeed. When I lived in NJ I was in between two of their delivery hubs. Half my packages would go to Old Bridge (I think?) and the other half to Manasquan. Manasquan was the most incompetent delivery place I have ever encountered. They would deliver things at 11PM, hold them for days because they "were not going to be in my area until then", etc.

Fast forward. I live in Atlanta. DHL is delivering me a package. The tracking says "delivered". I lived in an apt at the time so I called over to ensure it was delivered. "No" says the front desk dude. It was a fun two weeks getting that straightened out.

So booooo to DHL and booooo to Airborne.

@karmaghost: Around here, DHL is known to compete with McDonalds for drivers, while UPS and FedEx drivers consider it a career. In the last 5 years or so, we've switched UPS guys once and FedEx is still the same guy.

In the same time period, DHL has failed to find our office 10-15 times, failed to pick up a delivery dozens of times and ignored their local drop boxes regularly for days on end.

It was still nice to have a somewhat cheaper option once in a while, but I'm not too sad to see them gone. I've been having great luck (for much less) with US Priority lately.