When moving to Germany, I found Dolphin International Shipping on the internet for transport of my household goods. Service was fast and friendly until all payments were made and freight was picked up.
When the scheduled delivery date got close I called Dolphin. First thing odd was that all standard phonelines were disconnected, only the 866-number listed above is still working. I was informed that my shipment did not make the ship due to port congestion but would come whith the next ship. A new time schedule was forwarded to me.
When that ship was supposed to have left New York, I called again and was informed my freight had left New York on the ship named to me. Towards the scheduled arrival, I called again. This time I was told my freight had not been shipped after all (again due to port congestion), and a new schedule was forwarded to me.
To top it off, the people answering the phone informed me that A) they are just the sales office and have no or limited access to my file. B) The people responsible (the dispatch, Marty and Kathryn) have moved to Chicago and have not yet installed phonelines. C) From this point until today neither Marty nor Kathryn have responded to messages left for them via phone and email! D) Nobody from Dolphin has ever initiated contact to me when delays occured, despite written assurance that they would do so.
In the mean time, the named ship (according to the company running it) was never scheduled to leave NewYork on the date given. I called and mailed Dolphin and asked for an explanation for these discrepancies.in response I was informed that the ship was delayed again since the carrier supposed 'had trouble getting the vessels out on time due to port congestion'. And, 'at this point this is out of our hands'. The carrier informs me that there never was 'port congestion' and all ships had left ew York on time.
This point I started tracing my shipment, beginning with the company picking it up in Illinois. They were very helpful and informed me that the shipment had been turned over to a storage house in Chicago, and that the storage house in turn was supposed to turn it over to DCL. They also provided me a booking number for DCL.
I called DCL and was informed that they have never received the shipment. I called the storage house and was informed that they have the shipment and that it is ready to go, but they have not heard from Dolphin what and when they were to do with it!
In conclusion, shipment has been in a storage house for 1 1/2 months without any effort from Dolphin to get it to Germany!
At the moment, I am still trying to contact Dolphin (on a daily basis for the last 2 weeks), I still can only talk to people from the sales department that presume to be uninformed, and there have still no efforts been made to ship my freigth! Yesterday, DCL has canceled the booking for my shipment due to inactivity of the account. Dolphin claims they have canceled the shipment and booked with another line. I have yet to receive any information about their further plans.
I am giving Dolphin 24 hours to rectify this problem as of now, and will keep this forum informed about the progress.
Anna
Hamburg
Germany
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