At a glance
Live count of Deutsche Post / DHL Paket claims (Reklamationen) you have filed for damaged, lost, missing-content or service-failure consignments where DHL has not yet either paid out or formally rejected. Each unresolved claim is real working capital tied up: customer refunded or reshipped, product gone, recovery cash from DHL in flight. The German claims process is well-codified (DHL has published terms in German consumer law), but the ageing tail still matters: a claim under 14 days is normal, past 30 days is at risk of stalling, past 90 days is usually written off.
| What it counts | COUNT(claims WHERE status IN (eingereicht, in_pruefung, dokumente_ausstehend, eskaliert)) from the DHL claims API, normalised to English status values (submitted, under_investigation, awaiting_documentation, escalated). Status bezahlt (paid), abgelehnt (rejected), zurueckgezogen (withdrawn) excluded. |
| API endpoint | DHL Reklamationsstelle API (Geschäftskundenportal): GET /complaints/v1/cases returns caseId, shipmentNumber, complaintType, claimedAmount, status, submittedAt, lastUpdatedAt, caseHandler. |
| Claim types included | Beschädigung (damage), Verlust (loss, last scan more than 14 days old), Inhaltsmangel (missing content), Servicemangel (SLA-credit eligible miss on Vertragskunden contracts), Verspätung (late delivery, where merchant chose to file). |
| Auto-filing | Filed-claims only. DHL does not auto-file claims on the merchant’s behalf; submission via the Reklamationsstelle within DHL’s window (180 days from booking for damage / loss on Vertragskunden, 30 days on Online-Frankierung). Unfiled but eligible incidents are not on this card. |
| Service-tier scope | All Deutsche Post / DHL Paket services that accept claims. Letter products (Brief, Einschreiben) follow a separate Verlust-/Beschädigungsverfahren and are not on this card. |
| Returns / RTO | Outbound consignments only by default. Return-leg damage claims excluded; toggle integration filter to include if return-leg volume is material. |
| Currency | EUR. Cross-border DHL Paket International claims convert to EUR at day-of-filing FX. |
| Time window | RT (real-time count, refreshed on every claim status update webhook from DHL). |
| Alert trigger | >0 unresolved >7d. Triggers when any claim has been in submitted or under_investigation for more than 7 days without a status update. |
| Roles | owner, operations, finance |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Deutsche Post data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
The Düsseldorf-based DTC homeware merchant. Reading taken at 09:00 CET on 12 Mar 26.| Claim ageing bucket | Open count | Total claimed value (EUR) | Average per claim | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 7 days (newly filed) | 11 | 1,420 | 129 | Normal; DHL acknowledges within 5 working days |
| 8 to 14 days (in investigation) | 7 | 980 | 140 | Case handler assigned; awaiting recipient documentation |
| 15 to 30 days (awaiting docs) | 5 | 740 | 148 | Recipient has not returned damage-photo evidence |
| 31 to 60 days (escalated) | 4 | 2,840 | 710 | Two high-value Beschädigung claims, two Verlust |
| 61 to 90 days (at risk) | 1 | 320 | 320 | Single Verlust case, recipient witness statement pending |
| 90+ days (write-off risk) | 0 | 0 | - | None currently |
| Total open (this card) | 28 | EUR 6,300 | 225 |
>0 unresolved >7d is firing. Five things to notice:
- The 0 to 7 day bucket is healthy noise. 11 claims filed in the last week is normal for a 27,000-monthly-parcel operation. Do not chase these; standard DHL process works through them.
- The 31 to 60 day bucket is the recovery-cash dial. EUR 2,840 in escalated status. A weekly nudge per claim via the Reklamationsstelle keeps the case handler engaged. Past 60 days the recovery probability drops materially on Beschädigung claims.
- The 61 to 90 day bucket is “phone the case handler today” territory. A single 320 EUR Verlust claim past 60 days needs explicit follow-up. German consumer-law claim windows close at 180 days from booking; a 60-day-old claim has 120 days remaining but the case handler may not have all required documentation.
- No 90+ day claims is healthy. A merchant with consistent process discipline keeps the 90+ bucket at zero; it implies every escalated claim either pays or rejects within the operational window.
- The total open value is EUR 6,300 of working capital tied up. Manageable at this scale; at 10x scale it becomes a finance-managed line warranting a dedicated claims-recovery process.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
Open Claims is the recovery-cash dial. Pair with these to read the whole picture:| Card | Why pair it with Open Claims | What the combination tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Claim Value (open) | The currency value of the same population. | Count tells workload; value tells working-capital exposure. |
| Failed Deliveries | Source of new claims. | Most failed deliveries do not become claims (recipient collects from Postfiliale, accepts redelivery), but the unrecovered tail does. |
| Returned to Sender | Adjacent failure mode. | RTO + damaged-on-return generates claims; useful for separating “process failure on merchant side” from “carrier failure”. |
| Exception Rate | The leading indicator. | Damaged-in-transit and lost-in-transit exceptions feed next month’s claim count. |
| Avg Shipping Cost | Cost-side context. | Increasing claim cost per shipment changes the all-in cost-per-parcel calculation. |
Cross-connector: shopify.refund_rate | Downstream impact. | Refunds for shipping incidents drain margin until claim recovery cash arrives; gap is real cash-flow consideration. |
Cross-connector: gorgias.tickets_open | Tickets driving claim filing. | Most claims are filed in response to a customer ticket. |
Cross-connector: shipbob.sb_damaged_in_transit | Adjacent 3PL claim source when ShipBob handles warehouse and DHL handles last-mile. | Damage can occur in either leg; the two cards together help triage. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Deutsche Post’s own portal: DHL Geschäftskundenportal → Reklamationsstelle → Meine Vorgänge, default sort by status. The portal exposes the same population the card reads via the API; counts should reconcile to the unit. Each case has a detail page with full case-handler dialogue, supporting documentation, and current status. Why our number may legitimately differ from the DHL portal:| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Status mapping | Either | Portal uses German status labels (Eingereicht, In Prüfung, Dokumente ausstehend, Eskaliert); the card normalises to API status set. A case in “Dokumente ausstehend” is awaiting_documentation in the API; both are open in the card. |
| Recently-paid claims | Portal sometimes higher | DHL’s payment processing has a 1 to 3 day lag between case-handler marking bezahlt and cash hitting the merchant’s account. Card excludes paid claims as soon as API status updates; portal sometimes shows as “active” until cash settles. |
| Cross-border claims | Either | Claims on partner-carrier last-mile (DHL Parcel EU on cross-border) are filed against Deutsche Post for the German originating leg; the card reads from DHL Reklamationsstelle and includes them. |
| Currency / FX | Either | Cross-border claims may be filed in destination-country currency; card normalises to EUR using day-of-filing FX. Portal sometimes shows in original currency in list view, EUR in detail view. |
| Withdrawn claims | Portal sometimes higher | Claims filed and then withdrawn excluded from the card; portal may keep them visible in a “Verlauf” tab. |
| Card | Expected relationship | Causes of legitimate divergence |
|---|---|---|
gorgias.tickets_open | Claims usually have an originating customer ticket. | Not every ticket becomes a claim; not every claim has a ticket (merchant-initiated Verlust claims often start from carrier scan absence). |
shopify.refund_rate | Claims and refunds run on parallel timelines; refund typically 1 to 3 days, claim filing 5 to 30 days. | Refund volume covers many causes; shipping-claim refunds are a subset. |
shipbob.sb_damaged_in_transit | Adjacent 3PL claim source for warehouse leg. | Damage can occur in either leg; cross-compare for triage. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
How long does DHL usually take to resolve a claim? Median for Beschädigung (damage) is 14 to 21 working days; for Verlust (loss) 21 to 35 working days; for Servicemangel 7 to 12 working days on Vertragskunden contracts. Past these medians it is worth a polite case-handler nudge through Reklamationsstelle. My claim was rejected. Can I appeal? Yes. DHL’s claims process supports a single internal Widerspruch (appeal) within 30 days of rejection. Appeals require new evidence (photos, recipient witness statement, value invoices). If internal appeal also rejects, dispute can be escalated to the Schlichtungsstelle (Bundesnetzagentur arbitration) for B2C consignments, or to commercial-arbitration clauses in the Vertragskunden agreement for B2B. Why did my claim count drop overnight from 28 to 24? Most likely DHL paid out 4 claims and the API status moved fromunder_investigation to bezahlt. Cross-check with Claim Value (open); the open value should drop by approximately the paid amount.
Can I file claims via API?
Yes. The DHL Reklamationsstelle API supports POST /complaints/v1/cases for programmatic submission. Most operations teams build a daily script that pulls eligible incidents (lost-in-transit consignments past 14 days, damaged consignments with customer-confirmed damage) and auto-submits with attached evidence.
What if Beschädigung claims keep getting rejected for “inadequate packaging”?
Common rejection for fragile goods. DHL’s Beförderungsbedingungen require packaging to meet category-specific standards. If your packaging genuinely was inadequate, accept rejection and upgrade packaging. If you believe packaging was adequate, appeal with photos showing original packaging condition AND damage condition. Pair with a packaging audit if rejections concentrate on a specific product category.
Should I file claims for late-delivery service failures on standard DHL Paket?
Generally no. Standard Online-Frankierung Paket parcels are aim-only and do not carry automatic SLA-credit; claims for Verspätung on these are routinely rejected. Vertragskunden Paket Pro and Paket Premium carry contractual SLA credits worth pursuing. The card surfaces every filed claim; you decide which subset is worth filing.
The recipient threw the box away before we asked for damage photos. Is the claim dead?
Mostly yes. DHL’s Beschädigung process requires evidence of original packaging + damage; without packaging photos the burden of proof shifts heavily onto the merchant. Train CS to request damage photos in the first customer contact (before refund / reship); proactive evidence collection raises the claim recovery rate from around 40 percent to around 75 percent.
Does the count include Verlust claims I filed for parcels that were actually delivered?
The card cannot tell the difference; it counts what is filed. DHL case handlers will reject claims where tracking confirms delivery occurred (delivered scan timestamp, recipient signature, Packstation collection event). Speculative-claim filing inflates rejection rate, which becomes the integrity check; rejection rates above 30 percent suggest a process review at the merchant side.
Can I see a summary of which claim types pay vs reject most?
Yes via the drill-down. Beschädigung claims with packaging photos pay around 80 percent of the time; without photos around 35 percent. Verlust claims past 14 days from booking and where tracking shows no delivered scan pay around 70 percent. Servicemangel claims on Vertragskunden pay around 90 percent (contractual). Verspätung claims on Online-Frankierung pay below 10 percent.