Since the 1st of January, DPD Ireland has been struggling to meet Brexit requirements needed to properly import parcels from the UK. The result of this has been thousands of Irish customers purchases have been delayed, lost, returned. Each and every time, DPD tries to shift blame elsewhere but it lies only with them. issues are ongoing as of right now and their service should be suspended until it is 100% functional and the large amount of held parcels are delivered to their owners.

Examples of past situations and the current situation.

DPD claimed long before Brexit it was ready for the changes.

- Quote Des Travers DPD Ceo in 2019 "When did you begin preparing for Brexit and what contingency plans have you put in place so far?" We started our preparations in 2017 but really, in earnest, from mid-2018. We are now quite far along the road towards establishing our own customs-clearance team, our own external temporary storage facility here in Athlone.We are working very closely with both Irish customs and HM Revenue and Customs to develop solutions to ensure that our customers’ parcel traffic can still move with relative ease between the two countries.

"When do you expect to be Brexit-ready?"We will have a Brexit-ready shipping solution for our customers who are sending parcels to the UK (or the EU, if based in Northern Ireland) within the next few weeks. We will also have a platform ready to support the collection of duty and taxes from consignees in respect of shipments coming into Ireland from the UK. The business is hugely focused on ensuring that we have a robust mechanism in place for dealing with any Brexit outcome.


- Fast forward to January 2021, soon after Brexit, DPD suspends service, blaming retailers. At the same time Anpost makes a statement "“An Post has put in place a digital solution for all its UK retailers which simplifies the process and enables seamless despatch and immediate delivery,” the statement said. "

This was the first sign that DPD was not ready for Brexit.

Soon after, many DPD customers who have purchased from Curry's claim that despite Curry's registered in Ireland and charge Irish vat, DPD was charging them VAT on their purchases from www.currys.ie "Since Brexit – , several Irish customers have had emails from courier firm DPD telling them to pay import fees before an order from Currys can be delivered.
It looks like some Irish orders from Currys might have been sent from the UK with incorrectly filled out customs forms – either that or DPD processed them incorrectly."
Yes it was DPDs fault as proven by future issues.

-Overclockers.co.uk have had a long history of using DPD for their deliveries to Ireland, going back many many years. Despite DPD resuming service, they were aware of DPDs issues and did not resume deliveries to Ireland despite being registered for Vat in Ireland. The average order value is very high so they could not risk issues with its customers parcels. Recently, they have started using DHL for deliveries to Ireland.

Current situation-
There is a recurring fault with DPDs system in their UK Hub. Many parcels, despite being provided with the required customs declarations, have failed to be correctly processed by DPD and are transported to Athlone without the parcels information being submitted to Revenue. This is affecting parcels from many different sources who have been Brexit ready since 1st Jan. Examples include Clarks, Amazon.co.uk, Parcel2go, along with many smaller retailers. The result is large numbers of peoples parcels are wrongly being held in the Athlone depot, returned to sender, or lost. When you contact DPD regarding this, they immediately shift blame onto the seller but the blame is only with them and there is concrete evidence of this. DPD are surely aware by now as they must be receiving a high number of complaints, but they continue to operate knowing full well they are putting peoples purchases at risk  with their broken system. It gets even worse. Despite many parcels being transported cross border without being declared to revenue by DPD, approximately half of these parcels are delivered, whilst half are held, returned to sender or lost. This is causing monetary losses for many Irish customers, UK businesses and Irish Revenue.