DHL hidden fees are a ripoff

[mcirsta]

I was glad when I got the news that my Hexiwear early bird devel kit was shipping but then came the bad news, it was being shipped with DHL from a non-EU state to Romania ( an EU state ) . I got an email from DHL saying that for customs I have 2 options:

1. Pay them 25 euro to handle the customs ( seriously , 25 euro just for them to handle the customs ? + the customs charges of course )
2. Get an EORI number and pay them myself but here's the thing to get an EORI number and pay yourself + the money tranfer + stuff you need more than 3 days and after 3 days the "nice" folks at DHL will charge you 6 euro / day for storage so you might end up paying a lot still while also going through a complicated procedure.

Thanks a lot DHL and folks at MicroElectronika please don't use them for the EU, there must be better shipping options, hell I would have liked to have it shipped via regular post.

While DHL seems like a good deal at 14 $ I think it was in the end I would have ended up paying almost 40 euro for this shipment. I just refused to accept the package and pay anything. Even if it now goes back I'm not paying these thieves at DHL. I can understand certain comission being charged for this but 25 Euro is just ridiculous.
For 40 Euro I would have gone and picked up the package myself as it's only 150 km from Timisoara , Romania to Belgrade.

[srdjan.misic]

Hello mcirsta,

Sorry to hear about your troubles. It's especially troublesome considering that there is only about 200km (and an EU border) between us We haven't foreseen the additional charges that DHL would impose. We understand that customs is a problem because of non-EU to EU transport, but the fees they charge on top made a lot of people unhappy. We are researching options to circumvent these charges for the next round of shipment. Tell me, have you ordered MikroE tools before? If yes, was it also shipped with DHL? And do you have some experience with other shipping providers, beside DHL or regular post?