[quickfox11]

When we use courier services, parcel getting damaged, or stuff going missing, or receiving partial content is not something unusual or unheard of. However, we all resort to the usual methods of complaining, contacting customer service and writing on social media handles of the brand and try to find the best way to get our stuff back by figuring out what went wrong.

I had the same notion in my mind when I received my parcel from DTDC on 18th of May 2019. A little background to the story – I was at my in-law’s place in Ambala (which has a very popular and huge wholesale cloth market) in the first week of May. My wife had a lot of request from her office colleagues to get Punjabi suits and dress material which they do not get here in Pune. Since we travel hardly once or twice in a year to Ambala, and last time she had brought around 25-30 items for them, they were a lot more excited this time, looping in their friends from other departments as well (I know, women & shopping!!). So, they all suggested that we get them the cloths and courier them to Pune as it would be easier, plus we were travelling out of India from Ambala before returning to Pune so it actually made sense. Long story short, we bought stuff of around 1 lakh 25 thousand for everyone, including some for gifting to our family members.

Now you all can guess where is this story heading to. I packed 2 large boxes (with suits and my wife’s couple of designer wedding sarees which she picked from home) and 1 small box (which had some home appliance) and took them to DTDC. The guy hastily made a bill of 2000/- and gave a receipt for tracking. I told him it had brand new cloths but not for business. He said it’s alright, give me a declaration stating the same with an Id proof. I did it.

Boxes while sending



A week later, I decided to check the status of my parcel using the tracking code. Shockingly, I was showing that some 12 parcel boxes had been delivered to some address in Raipur. I asked one of my relatives in Ambala to follow up, and the courier guy gave him a new receipt with a new tracking number.
We were reaching Pune by 17th May evening but the courier had already been attempted for delivery on 15th according to the online tracking. I asked my BIL to connect with someone from DTDC Pune (although I had given his number on the package, no one contacted him before attempting the delivery) to let them know that we will able to collect it on 18th. He did but the delivery guy kept calling him every day that he is out for delivery, & when can he come despite telling him the same thing – please contact after 17th.

Anyways, I collected the parcel on 18th afternoon. The delivery guy asked me to come down to the building entrance (my wing) and take the parcel up to my floor by myself. I said please bring it to my house, there’s a lift. He tried arguing but then said ok.

He placed the boxes in my living room, took signatures and left. I left the boxes lying there as I had to leave for some urgent work. I returned quite late and decided to sort out the stuff the next day (Sunday) as we were joining back our offices and my wife had to give everyone their stuff. Also, because we had paid for everything from our pocket and would get our money from the respective owners of the stuff once they get them.
I opened the boxes at the same place where they were lying, without moving them anywhere. On one of the big boxes, there were extra tapes of different colour than I had originally packed. I did not pay much attention to it as I thought the boxes might have crumpled during transportation and they would have put added security. I couldn’t be more wrong!

Boxes after receiving





Quickly we realised things were not adding up. Our 23 items from the taped box, which had around 40, were missing!

Panic kicked in, we started searching for DTDC Customer Care number. Guess what, they do not have any centralised one. We spoke to the person who took the consignment and he told that DTDC is closed on Sunday and absolutely nothing can be done. We called up the DTDC delivery in charge, who was calling my BIL every day for delivery, and he hung up on me saying – ‘call me tomorrow once I am in office’ in the rudest tone possible! We emailed to their customer care email address and the email kept bouncing back, saying write only your consignment number in subject line, which I was doing again and again.
After spending the night in despair, we went to their head office, which is also their cargo hub, in Dighi, Pune. We had to wait for 45 mins before anyone could attend to us.
Afterwards, their operations manager and assistant customer service manager met us. We shared all the details along with photographs of the boxes over the email which I did in front of them and they told us to wait for some days.

Even after continuously following up with them for many days, they only kept saying that DTDC vigilance officer is looking into our case and he will share the findings when available. When asked for any formal complaint number, they refused to give it to us. They provided a landline number to enquire with their assistant customer service manager regarding the same but it was picked up only once which got abruptly disconnected, and then she stopped responding to that number afterwards.
Speaking to the vigilance officer, the only response we got was – investigation is going on. He asked for CCTV footage from my society which I readily provided. Next couple of days whenever I called, his response was - we are awaiting response from Chandigarh vigilance team. So I decided to probe and after a lot of phone calls to different people in Chandigarh region, we got the number of Gurgaon’s vigilance officer who was also looking into the matter.

Speaking to him was another shock and an insight into the company’s attitude towards their customers. He told me how did I dare to call him to ask for any update because he was on DTDC’s pay role and not mine and also told me that he is going to hang up on me and block my number. After several minutes of heated argument, and everyone in my office corridor staring at me due to my high-pitched voice, I decided to end the call without any information.

We realized that DTDC is not doing anything and they were just making us run behind them without giving concrete information. Suspecting that, we again visited their Dighi office on 29th May and met them, including their vigilance officer. When asked about my complained number, they conveniently denied that they did not receive any email from us. When showing them my sent email items on my mobile and verifying that the email address they asked us to send the complaint was correct, they mentioned that may be there is some technical issue and asked me to resend the email. When asked about not picking up the landline number, they again cited technical issues that even when their phones are engaged, customers can hear the phone ringing!!

When asked about the extra brown tape on the parcel box, which we thought was put by DTDC to protect our parcel in case of damage during transportation, we were told that DTDC never puts these tapes on the parcel and if any box gets damaged during the transportation, the customer is called in the office and asked to verify the contents. Also, the weight of the box is verified before and after the damage and any change in weight is recorded. On asking why it did not happen with our parcel, they were unable to provide any suitable answers.

When the vigilance officer, while giving a lot of gyaan that how he has solved so many such cases and how once he recovered a single pen drive among tons of cargo, could not explain that how 23 pieces of garments with packaging and tags just disappeared somewhere between Ambala and Pune, we understood it was all a well prepared - customer friendly – keep giving them something to hang on to – kinda templated speech. I asked him to give me a final status within two days and left from there.

2 days later he told me he got nothing! When I asked about his company policy in this case, he said I won’t get anything, there’s no point fighting because I had not done insurance. When I told him insurance is not compulsory as per DTDC’s terms and conditions and no insurance does not mean my stuff is less important and it’s not supposed to be delivered safely, he said that’s how it is. If I want DTDC to own this and accept their mistake, I am wasting my time!!

Angry and dejected, I decided to file an FIR. I went to Dighi police station who directed me to the police station in my area as the courier was received from there. After meeting the DCP and Senior Inspector, they took the complaint and the news was picked up by Pune Mirror, which I had requested not to publish without taking all the details from me along with visual proofs, but which they went ahead and published none the less. I want to fight with them as well but really not in a position mentally to start one more battle.
I had also written to DTDC Mumbai head Mr. Raja Chakroborthy, filed a complaint to PMO India and looped both of them in email conversations but nothing happened. What infuriates me the most is how can such loop holes be allowed for companies like DTDC who would just refuse to take accountability of something bad happening to their customers. Their Facebook page is filled with such complaints and they just stop replying after initial templated replies.

It’s really frustrating that companies like DTDC know that a common man cannot stand in front of them due to their fine printed “terms and conditions”, their army of fake “vigilance officers” who are actually their own employees and the fact that someone who has a job and family and a busy life will not be able to run behind them and police station and consumer courts just for a parcel of couple of thousand rupees and so much of harassment; thus they continue to let it happen in their system, probably benefiting from such thefts somehow. They have not kept any customer service number or system for complaint numbers probably to increase their success ratio during audits or ISO certification or something I am not sure of.

I am writing this to request everyone to be careful when dealing with DTDC. Also, if anyone has any similar experience or our experts in legal have some guidance, I would be extremely grateful.

Thank you for your patience!

[Samba]

I can feel the mental trauma you are going through. When someone cheats our hard earned money it hurts.

You can file a complaint over here - https://consumerhelpline.gov.in/

[sukiwa]

Shocked at the way this has evolved. Please explore filing FIR at Ambala as well, strongly suspect this originated at source itself.

I had been using DTDC services (being closest to home), would be wary of using their services henceforth.
I once had an issue for next-day delivery, even after paying extra it was delivered after 2 days. After complaining at local center and showing tactic of 'blackwasp' for having ample free time, I got back extra money I had paid.

[hgps]

Reminds me of my experience from 2015 when I lost Playstation 4 worth Rs.33,000/- to DTDC. Ebay india and DTDC both never bothered to do anything about it. So much for Ebay's guarantee claim. I tried going to consumer forum but since my Post graduation was about to start, my parents suggested against it and told me to move on and concentrate on my studies.

Feeling bad for you, don't let them slip away.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by quickfox11

He placed the boxes in my living room, took signatures and left.

That was a mistake buddy. You acknowledged that the parcel was received, but without verification.

By any chance - have you taken a video when receiving the parcel or opening the box?

[quickfox11]

Originally Posted by Samba

You can file a complaint over here - https://consumerhelpline.gov.in/

Did on day 1. Yet to hear anything.

Originally Posted by sukiwa

Shocked at the way this has evolved. Please explore filing FIR at Ambala as well, strongly suspect this originated at source itself.

Looking into that option as well Sir.

Originally Posted by hgps

Feeling bad for you, don't let them slip away.

Thanks. I am trying.

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

That was a mistake buddy. You acknowledged that the parcel was received, but without verification.

By any chance - have you taken a video when receiving the parcel or opening the box?

Agree Sir. I should have inspected the box and probably should have refused the delivery while looking at those tapes. But as I mentioned, I thought the tape was just for added security, and my thought process just did not go in the tangent of looking at the theft angle.

We have the CCTV footage of parcel getting delivered. Moreover, even if I had made the video of opening the box, will they agree that it has some items missing? Because it was not an online order from Amazon or Flipkart whole content history is present online. I had packed the box myself at home and not at the DTDC office.

[R2D2]

I am really sorry to read this post and for what is obviously a con game by this company.

I have used DTDC's services for several years shipping expensive and delicate articles all over the country. I am happy to say they have arrived on time and in perfect condition. So far so good..fingers crossed.

Since you have filed a police case I assume this will put pressure on the company to resolve this.

Couple of suggestions:

a) Always insure expensive items
b) I would recommend a large shipment being split into smaller packages and sent via different couriers so it reduces the chances of being misplaced, stolen or damaged.

[quickfox11]

Originally Posted by R2D2

I am really sorry to read this post and for what is obviously a con game by this company.

I have used DTDC's services for several years
.
.
So far so good..fingers crossed.
.
.
Couple of suggestions:
.
.

Truly, Sir. And yes, the onus rests on us for the safety coz they just cannot be trusted.

Even I had used courier services in past including DTDC, although never for anything very expensive or volumetric, but the reality hit me once the tides were turned and things went down.

I was angered by the fact that how casual their attitude was and how indifferent they were towards this whole matter. I had plans of sending some of the stuff to my parents in another city and now I shudder to imagine how they would have dealt with all this had it happened at their end!

[condor]

@quickfox, sorry to hear your ordeal about the package. However, unless you have declared the value, how would you prove to the cops that the package was of that value ? And if you had declared the value, then they would have asked you to insure it.

On a related note of sending items, I was lucky to get across a smaller value item through Fedex without documentation / declaring the value. But I wont try it again. I normally use India Post, though.

[quickfox11]

Originally Posted by condor

@quickfox, sorry to hear your ordeal about the package. However, unless you have declared the value, how would you prove to the cops that the package was of that value ? And if you had declared the value, then they would have asked you to insure it.

Thank you, Sir. I had told the courier guy about the content and the value but he did not ask for any declaration or insurance. He was only interested in the declaration that the stuff is not for business, not sure why. I have shared all the receipts of the purchase with the cops along with details of those received and missing. Almost 95% stuff was packed in individual transparent packets with their price tags intact.

As per DTDC, at every hub from where the parcels travel, its weight is measured and recorded so that it can be verified later in case of a mismatch/broken/torn boxes. Guess what, my parcel has no weight records in most of the hubs!

Requesting moderators to smudge/hide my address and mentioned contact no from the image of received boxes and delete this post. I cannot edit. Thanks!

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

These courier companies keep condoning, thus conniving with delivery and handling staff. Delivery staff are often underpaid, often below minimum wages too. I suggest that heavier or bulky packets are sent by parcel service - like VRL, ABT, Patel, etc.

[quickfox11]

A couple of women from our area connected with my wife after she posted our case in her local Whatsapp group. They had very similar experience with DTDC. They have their clothes and merchandise business and their stuff was also stolen in the similar manner.

One lady also told us about DTDC's so called "insurance claim policy". If you already received the parcel and claim that some of the items are missing, then you are not eligible for any insurance! Either your whole parcel should be stolen or severely damaged during transit for you to claim anything. She was also made to run behind DTDC so much that she eventually gave up.

Good thing is, after hearing about our efforts, she has offered to give her statement to the police about her incident to fix things for better!

[honeybee]

Why not file a consumer court case? It's clearly a deficiency in service from the courier service.

[Traveler]

Originally Posted by honeybee

Why not file a consumer court case? It's clearly a deficiency in service from the courier service.

I always wanted to know about this option of consumer courts. I have read many times that the consumer courts has awarded xxx amount as compensation to the party. Does anyone know if the money is actually paid and recieved by the customer. Haven't heard about people actually receiving the money, all I hear is the award and then the other party goes to a higher court for appeal.....

[adi.mariner]

@quickfox. I had read about your ordeal on Pune Mirror and hope that it gets resolved soon. I had used DTDC to send some documents to Mumbai via their Express service (Next Day Delivery) which reached the destination after 2 days and the charges were Rs. 170. Speed Post took the same number of days to deliver and the charges were only Rs.45. Have been using Speed Post for sending documents rather than some private companies.