﻿In an attempt to test Apple's new AirTags, earlier this year, I shipped several of them
to various parts of the world. One of those locations was North Korea, a location DHL
claim they deliver to. Well neither of my two parcels bound for North Korea ever made it.
The first parcel DHL claimed to have lost, which, thanks to the AirTag I could see was just sitting
in their logistics centre. The second AirTag, DHL sent to South Korea instead of North Korea.
Since then, DHL has continued lying, lost more of my parcels, and now I'm more convinced than ever,
that DHL deceives their customers for financial gain, which, if true,
is fraud. And to prove just how incompetent DHL really is, I sent a third Airtag to North Korea.
This journey all began in May of this year where I sent an AirTag to the German Embassy in Pyongyang,
North Korea. My parcel left from Dusseldorf, made it to Frankfurt Airport, but got stuck
there for a month with no updates from DHL. After requesting an investigation on DHL's
website, they informed me this would take 4-6 weeks to complete, prompting me to send a second
AirTag parcel to North Korea. This time, addressed to a Government-run Film Commission in Pyongyang.
Several weeks later, DHL concluded my first parcel as being lost,
and offered a refund after claiming their "extensive investigation" turned up no results.
Unfortunately for DHL, I could track my parcel thanks to the AirTag,
and could see it was sitting in their logistics centre, so I wasn't buying it.
I refused the refund, and asked that DHL elaborate on their investigation.
The very next day, DHL magically found the package, updated the shipping status,
and the parcel continued its journey, making its way to Beijing in China. Seems suspicious right?
Meanwhile, the 2nd AirTag package had travelled to Leipzig Airport. About a week later, the AirTag
sent a ping over a wind-farm, which we were later able to match against the flight path of a cargo
plane heading for South Korea. At that point we realised DHL sent my AirTag to the wrong Korea.
DHL eventually realise their mistake and had the package sent to Beijing in China. Unfortunately,
not long after that, the parcels status was updated as undeliverable.
Desperate for answers, I decided to contact DHL in North Korea. I asked them a simple question.
Are you accepting parcels into the country? To my surprise they were the most helpful department
in all of DHL. And they got back to me the very next day,
confirming my suspicions that North Korea was not accepting parcels due to Covid 19.
At this point, I considered this project concluded and created what I thought would
be the final video of this AirTag series. The response was absolutely incredible!
There was however, some skepticism regarding my claim that DHL sending my parcel to South
Korea was an mistake. Some comments suggested that South Korea was likely a transit stop,
while others suggested the parcel would be driven across the border. You mean this border?
I don't think so... Although that would be rather comical. Hah-hey DHL, just passing through! Well,
now that I have that parcel back in my possession, I can confirm what happened.
And this sticker, says it all! "Missent to Korea". I have to admit there was a part
of me that thought I was wrong, and perhaps there was a logical reason for DHL sending
the parcel to South Korea. But as you can see, it was just completely mediocre mistake by DHL.
Perhaps I'd be more understanding if the address on my parcel was hand-written? But
I ordered the shipping label online, so DHL had the destination country on their system
and it was clearly labeled on the parcel, so there really isn't any excuses.
Now you may have also noticed this sticker which confirms why my parcels never made it into North
Korea: "The mail could not be delivered due to the blocked postal route". So that aligns
with what DHL in North Korea told me. But I was still left with a couple of questions.
Why was only one of my parcels returned to me, and the other one left in Beijing?
And why on earth is DHL still claiming they can deliver to North Korea, when clearly they cannot.
To get some answers, the first thing I did was request an investigation
into the parcel which was sitting in Beijing.
The second thing I did, was call DHL directly, to question them about my returned parcel. I have to
admit, I was lucky enough to speak with quite a friendly bloke from DHL. I explained the situation
to him, gave him my tracking number, and told him about the stickers I found on the parcel.
But as nice as he was, he was absolutely adamant that shipping to North Korea was
still possible. He said his system showed no interruption to their service to North Korea,
whatsoever. I then brought up the fact that his colleagues in North Korea
even confirmed themselves that they aren't accepting mail due to Covid 19.
Even then, he assured me that if tried sending another parcel to North Korea, it should arrive
without any problems. That's when I broke the news to him that I had in fact not only sent one parcel
to North Korea, but two. There was a long pause on the phone, then he then said in a suspicious tone,
"May I have the number of the second parcel?". So I gave him the number and he pulled up the
details. He then said, "Ahh yes I see it's in Beijing", and I was like yeah, but it's been
there a looong time. He said "hmmm ja, this is true". I was like "ja". At this point he finally
started to believe me, and agreed that there was potentially something going wrong. Before we ended
the call he agreed to pass this information onto his colleagues for further investigation.
I never heard from him again, and DHL to this day, still claim they deliver to North Korea.
Several days after this phone call, however, things got very interesting. I received an
email from DHL. It was a reply in regards the investigation I submitted for the parcel
still stuck in Beijing. It read: "Unfortunately your above mentioned shipment did not arrive
at the recipient abroad. Despite intensive research, we could not find your shipment".
I couldn't believe it! If you have seen my previous video, you'll know this is the exact same
carbon-copy email I received the last time this happened. But this time around I knew for a fact,
this was an outright lie. If DHL really did an investigation and had no idea where my parcel was,
then how come the bloke I spoke to earlier able to locate my
parcel soon as I gave him my tracking number? Doesn't make sense does it?
This really confirmed my suspicions that these alleged investigations are an complete lie
and that this whole system is clearly automated. DHL have clearly figured out
it's cheaper to just pay you out than have an actual human look into your lost package. Now,
perhaps the majority of people are ok with this, but just imagine your grandma sent a
family heirloom to a close relative and then DHL just loses the parcel. The monetary value
of that item is likely worth nothing, but the sentimental value for you, is priceless.
Now the first time this happened to me, I rejected the refund and DHL found the parcel the very next
day. But this time, I wanted to find out what happens if I play along. So I filled
out the details, gave the value of my goods and submitted the form. Just two days later,
DHL sent me and email confirming a full refund had been processed into my account. Easy-peazy!
The big question now was, what was DHL gonna do with my parcel still in Beijing. So I waited.
1 month went by, then another month, and another month... And the parcel hadn't moved whatsoever.
So it would seem DHL have simply left my package in the hands of their logistics partner.
Now I didn't plan on digging any deeper into this, but I kept asking myself:
If a parcel is "lost" in one of DHL's facilities, and the owner of that parcel gets refunded,
what happens to that parcel? Do DHL send it back to the customer? Does ti go to charity?
Or do DHL just dump it? So I thought, perhaps if I send a third AirTag to the exact same address,
maybe it would trigger the same chain of events as last time, and get
"lost" in DHL's facility. It was a stretch, I know... But I figured hey, it was worth a shot!
So I went onto DHL's website,
ordered a shipping label addressed to the German Embassy in North Korea.
I dusted off one of my spare AirTags, wrapped it up, put it in a packet and sent it on its way!
And would you believe it, my plan worked! Only not quite the way I had hoped. The parcel took
its usual journey from Dusseldorf to Langenfelt. Spent the night there, then headed to DHL's
facility in Frankfurt Airport. After staying there for about 4 days, the parcel left and
headed north. It arrived in Leipzig Airport. A few days later I got a ping from the tarmac,
so I knew my parcel was ready to fly. And the only flight I could find which made sense,
was this one... Leipzig to Seoul, in South Korea. I mean c'mon DHL. SERIOUSLY! This is North Korea,
and this is South Korea. There's a pretty big difference between the two.
Well unlike the first time this happened, instead of sending the parcel to Beijing,
the parcel has gone right back to Germany... and to a city named Niederaula...
which is bang smack in the center of Germany. Strange!
Now the parcel is currently sitting in a DHL facility
and has been sitting there a while now. And DHL has not updated the parcel
as being undeliverable. So perhaps my plan has worked after all! I submitted an investigation
request a few days ago, so it's going to be very interesting to see what happens.
I'll be sharing the results of that on my twitter and instagram if you're curious to find out!
I know that suggesting that DHL could be committing fraud is rather bold claim.
But it's the only thing that makes sense to me. And DHL's silence really hasn't helped their case.
The only time DHL have reached out to me was in a reply to this tweet. They
invited me to email them, so of course I did, and even sent them a link to my
last video. But all I got in response was what felt like automated email replies.
But do you know who hasn't remain quiet? DHL's customers. After posting my last video,
I have been bombarded with DM's, comments and even emails from unhappy DHL customers.
Most of them, thanking me for calling out DHL and sharing their own personal horror stories.
What shocked me the most was that some of these were from small business owners.
So it certainly feels like I'm not the only one questioning DHL's practices.
Now DHL if you're watching, it's never to late too late to deliver your side of the story!
Just ahhh... don't delivery it to South Korea!
Before I go! I want to thank you all for the amazing response to my Park Office video.
As interesting as the AirTags are, it's great to see you also enjoy my other videos as well.
Thanks for watching, see ya in the next one!