Unexpected pre-delivery phone call

[Neil_Brown]

I've ordered a PinePhone Pro, to be delivered to the United Kingdom.

This morning, I got an unexpected call from someone claiming to work for DHL, explaining that VAT / duties were due.

They knew my name, the email address I had used with PINE64's store, and my phone number.

They followed up with an email, linking to the DHL.co.uk website (which I verified). The email headers looked fine.

The waybill number shows on the DHL parcel tracking site, delivering to approximately the right area.

For whatever reason, I could not see any content on the DHL payment website unless I enabled "performance" cookies. Poor config, since at least something was clearly necessary to display the page.

It all appears to add up, other than the fact I have not had a shipping notification about the phone, and I paid the £70ish charge seemingly required of me.

Just in case others have the same experience.

[alanwake82]

No I had good experience with DHL delivery

[dukla2000]

I've ordered a PinePhone Pro, to be delivered to the United Kingdom.

...

Interesting.

My order only went in after you posted this so at a rough guess my call could still be coming. Conceivably DHL trying to act professional after a previous PinePhone shipping blunder :-)

[retrogren]

I too got a call from DHL on Monday 17th Jan that sounded like a scam call, except they knew my name!   The voicemail was so garbled that I could barely make out any details.   I think the amount requested was £75- or so.
I didn't receive any follow up emails or letters from DHL though?

Since I hadn't received any further order/shipping emails from the Pine Store, I sent an email off to "sales@pine64.org" querying it, and got the following response:-
"We will update DHL tracking number around Jan 24 for you to trace the PinePhone Pro. Please hold to pay import duties/taxes until received tracking number from Pine Store Limited."

A quick scan through the Discord General channel showed a similar question from another UK buyer who also got a phone call from DHL, and the reply from one of the admin guys seemed to indicate that the PinePhone Pros were actually still in the warehouse, and DHL had started scanning the items in preparation for shipping.

I haven't made any payments to DHL yet 


Also, last night I received a shipping email for the PinePhone accessories I ordered from the store at the same time, but in a separate order (due to the battery shipping situation).  Looks like it has been shipped overnight with 17track (?), but following the link in the email shows no more details yet.

[Merc]

I live in Canada and I've never received a phone call from DHL, I always get an e-mail that takes me to their website to pay the duty/import fees. I think I much prefer that than have someone calling my house asking for money haha.

[iopser]

Hi

In Spain, i received an email too pay 140 € taxes.

cu