DHL - your parcel is at Customs

[coetzeeh]

Hoping for some advice on resolving this please.

I bought a few used chrome car parts from an overseas seller.
Parcel dispatched by DHL and according to the online tracker tool it was held in Germany initially by local Customs for 2 weeks.
A month+ ago the parcel arrived in UK, and has been with Customs at Heathrow since - according to DHL.

Neither myself or the sender have had any further contact from DHL or Customs of any sort other a request to pay the import duty which I did back on October, shortly after dispatch.

DHL tells me they are unable to query the status of the parcel with Customs, not nor do they know the cause of the hold up - suggesting I need to wait until resolved.

What are my options - is there an option to escalate this somehow?
Parcel Value is approx. £500

Many thanks.

[Silverage]

You may have to punt it back to the seller to sort out. Assuming he arranged for the delivery, then he has the contract with DHL.

[Simpo Two]

Or from your end, start to consider it 'undelivered' and ask for your money back, eg from a CC company if you used one.

[coetzeeh]

Thanks. The seller has been very helpful and talking to DHL his side however is given the same story by DHL.

It was a private seller so not recourse via CC.

I will keep badgering DHL till they lose the will to live.

[CarPrintGuy]

How did you get on? I had a similar issue with TNT/FedEx to the USA but while it said it was 'held in customs' in reality it was just in transit from Philly to Texas and made it there safely.

[coetzeeh]

After being given the run around for weeks and one party pointing towards the other I eventually emailed the DHL CEO direct - and he replied within an hour with a promise to investigate.

My parcel was delivered a few days later.