Hi,

I recently ordered an ipad from Amazon from a Germany seller.

I returned the ipad and shipped it to Germany from Singapore.

I got the status that the item couldn’t be delivered, and the parcel was routed to Deutsche Post. so I sucked it up and I’ll deal with the ipad myself.

However, i found out when I got my parcel today that the ipad box had been opened, and the ipad was missing. In the box I got a note from Deutsche Post.

God, I’m at a loss at what to do. Anyone could give advice / have such similar experience with Deutsche post?

by kingxoreo

33 comments

  2. What do you think should be done? Who do you think is at fault here?

  4. Well you did something against their TOS and multiple safety rules (maybe even laws) and they act according to their TOS.

    What do you expect.

  5. Advice is to next time read the rules before you send something. You’re not gonna get ipad or money back.

    >ITEMS YOU CANNOT SEND: Electronic devices containing lithium batteries
    (such as mobile phones or digital cameras)
    >Lithium batteries / cells – alone and
    in or with electronic devices
    (such as mobile phones or digital cameras);

    https://www.dhl.de/dam/jcr:8eb65601-2b95-440b-92ef-7a216588fa72/dhl-gefahrgutversand-international-infoblatt-en-052023.pdf

  6. ~~Did you put [one of these stickers on the package](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/716vbM2oE+L.jpg)?~~

    ~~If you didn’t, then~~ you violated an international convention and the carrier had to dispose of the dangerous cargo — namely, the iPad with the lithium battery.

    This may seem harsh, but entire airplanes have been brought down and lives lost because a lithium fire started in a cargo hold not rated to cope with lithium fires. The airline industry takes zero chances with this kind of thing.

    EDIT: Got confused as to who was sending what to whom.

    EDIT 2: Apparently, I was thinking of regulations for domestic shipping. Internationally private people are completely prohibited from sending packages contain lithium batterys.

  7. From the [Deutsche Post website](https://www.deutschepost.com/dam/jcr:b5e8e58d-27b8-4d76-8e56-cd06463dca38/dp-how-to-start-shipping-with-us-122023.pdf): Dangerous and prohibited goods, i.e. lithium batteries as well as goods that do not comply with the import restrictions of the destination country, are prohibited to send.

    ~~Probably should have used DHL or UPS and declared the package had a battery instead of sending it via normal post.~~ As above, as an international shipment, you can’t.

  8. We got the parcel always back from Deutsche Post. We sended a few times a torch to USA. They will come back to the Sender. But we have a company. Not Sure how its working with private persons.

  9. This is standard in Germany. Sorry, your iPad is gone.

  10. All legit. If you want to learn more contact DP with the reference.
    It looks like it was already done in Singapore. So nothing to blame on Germany.

  11. I think the rest of the comments here cover exactly who’s at fault here. I hope you learn from this and actually research what your responsibilities are next time. DP did the right thing here, and there’s actually nothing you can do.

  12. Advice? Read the terms next time..you can’t send anything with batteries. Not even small in ears. I know it’s ridiculous. Especially since you can order them just fine online.

  15. Wow, so much compassion in the comments! “Read the the terms and conditions!”

    Yes, that is really shitty and yes, this a serious financial loss. I’m sorry, I’d be really depressed if that happend to me 😫

  16. I sold a phone on ebay and shipped it to UK – using ebay DE built in shipment options, paid the extra insurance as it was sold for €1200.

    Phone arrived at Parcelforce UK and then had a shipment delayed status. then nothing happened.
    Eventually myself and buyer had enough and made a complaint at Parcelforce, eventually they admitted they couldn’t find it and then stopped answering and told me I need to ask DHL to raise an investigation with them as they were the sending partner.

    DHL then told me of this “no sending devices with lithium batteries internationally” rule and basically I lost the phone and had to refund the buyer €1200.

    I tried to go through ebay and get something back as it is baffled me why they offer a service with DHL that is not allowed and it did not occur to me there would be a service offered that breaks the rules.

    ebay told me they would not help, Paypal told me because it had a tracking number they would not help with seller protection – if I had sent it without tracking they would have covered it.

    Since then I now restrict selling my devices to Germany only despite previously having sold many old phones and computers and shipped via DHL with zero issues, this experience was a shock and wake-up call.

    So sorry OP but you are out of luck and need to take the hit and chalk off as experience.

  18. Damn, that is a really shitty situation.

    I don’t really know what you could do. Did you contact the seller yet?

  19. I mean… everyone knows you can’t transport lithium batteries by plane, that’s why you’re not allowed to put them into your checked luggage and are pulled out if you do..?

  20. You say you got your empty package back, so if your package wasn’t ever sent in a plane there was no reason to remove your ipad before delivering your package back to you without the ipad. If the ipad was already in Germany which shouldn’t have been possible according to the others here and DHL / Deutsche Post wanted to send it back to you because they weren’t able to deliver it, then it would have been sent by a company and in the interest of a company on the second flight, namely DHL / Deutsche Post which should know how to send it back.

    With whom did you sent it originally? DHL?

    Edit:

    Like OP mentioned meanwhile above he did send the ipad with SingPost correctly declared to Germany and SingPost was able to bring the ipad to Germany without problems. As far as we know it could even have been on a ship. And then the seller rejected the package and Deutsche Post was not able to declare/mark it correctly for sending it back to SingPost.

    So the leading posters who hadn’t anything better to do then to claim why OP is wrong, were in reality themselves in the wrong like so often.

  22. Just to clarify –

    I shipped the item from Singapore to Germany using our local shipping company, SingPost.

    When the parcel reached Germany, I got a notification saying the item wasn’t able to be delivered to the seller and that Deutsche Post will return the item back to me.

    So Deutsche Post flew my parcel back to Singapore – where I opened it without the item.

    I guess the question is – why was I able to send the item to Germany, but not the other way round?

    Deutsche post only took my item after my carrier, SingPost, failed to deliver the iPad to the Amazon seller

  23. You should file a complaint with SingPost.

    You didn’t intentionally smuggle your package onto the DHL plane.
    You just sent an iPad. If it was declared, SingPost would not have been allowed to send it by plane.

  24. Send me a DM. As per my other comments I work as a freight forwarder who works with DHL. I don’t know if I can help get it back but I might be able to point you in the correct direction

  25. As the letter states, this is not DHL’s fault, they only adhered to international regulations.

  26. This has got to be a troll. From the mess in his room, the crumpled paper, the fact that we was naked by the looks of it when he took this picture.

  27. OP, I am sorry for these coments, I am a new immigrant in Germany ,Germans are like this always, they believe it’s always wrong to go against the rules even if they are simple (crossing a red light walking when no cars in sights for example) or even if you never knew about them and they feel like citizens should always be punished by higher authorities, for some reason they are reaaaaalllly submissive, that’s why you never see any political protests in Germany, the people here are scared to even go against the gov/mainstream opinion. I believe what happened was too harsh since it didn’t even leave your country, they could’ve just emailed you to pick it up from the warehouse in your country. And I am sure there are land shipping services for electronics, I am sorry.

  28. You’re getting a lot of smug advice here, but if I understand correctly, Amazon sold this to you including shipment to Singapore and they chose an unsuitable carrier? German law is actually very favourable to the customer in this case, but normally Amazon are quite generous with courtesy refunds before it ever comes to that anyway.

  30. Just realized; above might only apply for business customers with a contract for shipping goods such as electronics

  31. Take it up with amazon. You paid for an iPad which you still have not recieved. An empty box upon delevery, regardless as to why, is does not fulfil the purchase you made.

  33. A friend was traveling to Thailand and a Power Bank in the handback Starts a fire on the plane. Half flight without electrcity. Luckly Nothing else happend during the flight

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