I don’t know if this was a scam or someone trying to be funny
My mobile rang this morning and a voice said in English “Swiss Police Department”.
I cancelled the call and blocked the number.
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This is a well known scam and has been going on for years. It tends to start with an automated message and then transfers you to an operator speaking English or broken French or German. Best way to test it is by speaking Swiss German to them.
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Or just making up your own language …
Schprecken zee Elbonian?
Tu-parle le Elbonian,
Excuzey schrumphlater quraxty?
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Talking about scams. Got a SMS that a package could not be delivered etc etc. Please click the link.
Point is that I am expecting a package, that it did arrive at DHL that day so there must be someone at DHL who is the scammer.
Not necessarily, I’ve got one of those too and didn’t expect any package. (but I did receive packages via DHL in the past, like everyone else here) However, when I notice the online shop will use DHL for deliveries I simply don’t buy anything anymore as their services are not that good, but that is entirely a different subject.
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Not necessarily, it was probably just coincidence.
There are so many people ordering so many parcels every day that they are bound to get lucky sometimes and hit in someone who is expecting something.
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I disagree! Rather than not good, their service is crap.
Yesterday I got an email that I would get a delivery today. I was expecting it. BUT the delivery address was some industrial estate in Zurich!
WTF? So I tried contacting them, almost impossible. I finally found a phone number of their airfreight office at Geneva airport to learn that I should have read their FAQ’s because for international shipments (this one from Austria) they only put the address for their Swiss distribution centre! Not the actual destination.
I’ll repeat WTF?
You said it, I refrained. On EF I was attacked on many occasions basically because I am too critical and how do I dare. I learned to tame my opinions… 
In all fairness, we should read the small print. But it is basically false advertisement from their part too.
Not exactly ‘false advertising’ but when they want to tell you they are delivering a parcel, why tell you the address of your regional shipping centre rather than the address they are actually sending it to? I panicked and ran around in circles trying to solve a problem that didn’t actually exist.
Obviously more concerned with their internal procedures than what their customer’s customers are told.
I really wish major on-line sellers were obliged to give their customers a choice on how they receive their goods.
How do you call it then? You’re expecting a parcel has been delivered and it’s not there. It can be easily fixed had they upgraded their systems and not let customers deal with it. They also employ insufficient staff who sometimes (more often than not) don’t even bother to deliver at your address so you have to go to one of their service centres (I am not talking about international shipment, mind). There is serious competition that delivers as promised…why use them?
Well, they aren’t selling to us. They are selling to the shipper and who knows what they have said to them. At the moment we have little, if any, choice on who the shipper chooses to use for shipping.
At best we can submit a compaint to the shipper.
I do wish we had a choice.
Shippers use DHL as they are the cheapest. Go directly to DHL and they are rather expensive but go via a broker and they are always the cheapest.
I shipped something to someone in the UK. DHL ignored the import tariff code and paid HRMC the full amount (which they then bill you for before delivery).
They told me that I needed to claim the money back from HRMC myself.
I refused.
They told me it was my fault as I had entered the article description incorrectly and omitted some critical information.
I asked them to provide the relevant document which stated this - either their own or from HRMC.
I had someone on my side on the DHL helpline fighting my case and in the end their tax department admitted that they had got the code wrong but couldn’t be bothered to claim the money back from HRMC themselves so made up a story to get me to pay!
I didn’t and let them sort it out.
The Helpline lady was pretty p1ssed off that her colleagues had lied to her as well.
I don’t care whom they sold what. I prefer not to delve too much on what lies underneath their business model. If I can have a choice, I choose not to use DHL. Sometimes you have to say WTF?
So back to original topic, i also got a call this morning from the “swiss police department” about my “swiss identity card”, “suspicious activity”, and even an arrest warrant. 
Is there a service to report scam/spam related phone numbers? There has to be a centralised database or registry or something. And don’t you need a valid ID to get a phone number? This seems like it should be easy to squash. If “burners” don’t really exist anymore, scam phonecalls should be easy to eradicate in a reasonable amount of time - no?
I’ve generally had no serious issues with DHL, aside from noticing their sophisticated approach to levying various import fees on recipients. Whenever I receive a package from the US, they proactively contact me, requesting online payment for customs duties if the value exceeds the customs allowances. It’s a straightforward process.
When it comes to parcels from Iran, I try to steer clear of them. They consistently request ~Fr. 20.- customs processing fee, irrespective of the parcel’s value, even if it holds no value at all. In contrast, Swiss Post never requests customs payments, even when I receive multiple packages simultaneously. Despite including an invoice, they are unable to convert the invoice amount due to a lack of exchange rate information for Iranian currency from Swiss customs.
However, my most unusual experience with DHL was when I sent a parcel from Zurich to Tehran, and it took an unexpected route: Zurich to Leipzig, where it remained for 6 days before returning to Geneva. From there, it took another 3 days to reach Tehran. Had I been aware of this, I would have shipped it directly from Geneva, saving a week. Additionally, it’s worth noting that due to sanctions, UPS and Federal Express don’t serve Iran.
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You don’t need a valid ID to look at a phone book, or digital equivalent. Also they have machines that dial phone numbers sequentially looking for a response. If you pick up they connect you to a human who tries to scam you.
Reputable business will sell their lists of phone numbers as they are not protected by not including names, only numbers.
You used to need one to be able to get a SIM card and number for a mobile phone, I don’t know if that’s still the case.
It was introduced after 9/11.
Phone numbers are easily spoofed. What may seem like a Swiss Number could be actually coming from Bandar Seri Begawan or Timbuctoo …
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That’s why scammers almost always use the phone to scam rather than email/internet.
If you get a fake DHL email, you only need to glance at the header to see that it actually came from dixieoneripoff456.hotmail.com rather than DHL.com.
Phone companies make a lot of money from spoof calls but come up with a multitude of bogus reasons why they can’t block them at source,
I had the same experience, very well timed, but the delivery was via Swiss Post. I even clicked the link… but it opened in a browser, with obvious Chinese URL like https://www.post.cn/ch adding a ch at the end to hide the true domain 
Then I went downstairs and the package was there in my letter box.