Why do some seller's parcels get tracking number but never make it to post office?

[Swami]

I have had a few out of hundreds of orders where someone with a high rating and hundreds of sales makes a tracking label I receive and I am supposed to get it is 2-5 days shipped domestically, but the parcel is not received by the post office according to tracking and I never get the parcel. I complain to the guy and he makes another tracking label saying he doesn't know what happened, it's never happened before, but same thing happens. So then I ask for a full refund and get it, including the shipping, tax, etc.

 

Has anyone ever figured out why these Twilight Zone occurrences happen?

[atari181]

Seller may have changed his/her mind or didn't get the price they wanted.  That way they can blame it on the shipping service and not get neg feedback.

[+arcadeshopper]

I've had a couple lately that never were scanned in their entire trip until they reached my town I think it's just postal workers are overworked or under working

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[+stupus]

My guess like atari181 is its a seller who doesnt want to follow thru with the transaction or get dinged by ebay.

How could he even ship it twice anyway unless its a generic item?

[Swami]

12 minutes ago, stupus said:

My guess like atari181 is its a seller who doesnt want to follow thru with the transaction or get dinged by ebay.

How could he even ship it twice anyway unless its a generic item?

It's a PS2 slim with modbo 5.0 installed. I believe he mods PS1 and PS2 regularly. It was a BIN purchase, no auction. It was a little odd because he also said he was taking a break from it now and had 152 sales with no problems. He had another similar modded PS2 for sale and took it down and I assumed it was the one he was shipping as a replacement, but who knows.

 

I admit it could be the postal service slowly falling apart or he's selling them before he makes them and then never gets around to making them, which is why I dislike they can say it's shipping before the item even goes in a shipping package.

[+cvga]

The short answer is that the sellers are purchasing postage directly from eBay so the tracking number gets assigned automatically. However, they still have to make sure it gets to the post office.

[eightbit]

That is exactly what happens. The package doesn't start "moving" until it is scanned in my a postal worker. These sellers typically make a label to appease the ebay system (so they do not continue to get notification that they need to ship), make the label, and then sit on their asses for a week until they finally muster up the strength to get the damn package to the post office. That infuriates me. When I make a label the package either gets dropped off that day or the day after....or if it is on a weekend it gets dropped off on the next business day. They can even have USPS come and get it if they can't roll off the couch and get there. I understand people are busy, but if you can take the payment immediately then you should return the favor and ship immediately. That's my take.

 

Or, it could also be the old "interest free loan" scam. How it works:

 

Someone sells something, you pay, they buy a label. But they never ship it because they really don't have the product at all. They use the money for their needs. Then you complain, they act like they don't know what happened and they void the label and buy another one (because they don't have the funds yet to refund you...not payday yet) and they still never ship. You complain again, and now they finally have the funds to refund you so they do. What they just did is they were able to borrow money from you for a week or two to get by, and then pay it back interest free. I have seen that happen many times over the years.

Edited September 11, 2020 by eightbit

[Tanooki]

I recently had that happen, the earlier part of the post up there, lazy a-hole factor of making tracking.  I got annoyed not seeing movement after like 5 days, figured it just was a mis-scan since the post office is behaving like the virus makes mail logically move slower(it shouldn't.)  The dude of course makes the claim that it was shipped...funny, the next day suddenly it's scanned for acceptance then moving.  It's like the douchebag figured I'd not look again and just accept it.  You have to be pretty damn stupid not to realize the post office writes days, times, and process attached to each scan.  He lied, and that sealed that on the spot.

 

My rule has since day one been to ship that day or the next when I get paid on an item, but since I have my kid who has some issues, even I can't promise it anymore so the last few years I've extended it to a 2 day window on ebay to cover my ass but most times I still can get it going as I wished.  It's not that hard, and I'm not even lazy enough to have the USPS pick it up from me.

 

Here for fun is some proof of the stupidity of those types.  I ordered Nintendo Power #12 to fill a hole of my early issues late last month.  Read the details as they show up pasted from ebay.  I paid for it on Aug 28th.  I questioned them about it on the 3rd I believe, maybe the 2nd.  There was no excuse for that.

 

    Aug 28, 2020
    4:03pm

    Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item
    CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95610

    Aug 28, 2020
    7:09pm

    PRE-SHIPMENT INFO SENT USPS AWAITS ITEM
    CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95610

    Sep 4, 2020
    3:14am

    Accepted at USPS Origin Facility
    CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95610

    Sep 4, 2020
    3:14am

    ORIGIN ACCEPTANCE
    CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95610

[Swami]

On 9/11/2020 at 9:45 PM, Tanooki said:

I recently had that happen, the earlier part of the post up there, lazy a-hole factor of making tracking.  I got annoyed not seeing movement after like 5 days, figured it just was a mis-scan since the post office is behaving like the virus makes mail logically move slower(it shouldn't.)  The dude of course makes the claim that it was shipped...funny, the next day suddenly it's scanned for acceptance then moving.  It's like the douchebag figured I'd not look again and just accept it.  You have to be pretty damn stupid not to realize the post office writes days, times, and process attached to each scan.  He lied, and that sealed that on the spot.

 

My rule has since day one been to ship that day or the next when I get paid on an item, but since I have my kid who has some issues, even I can't promise it anymore so the last few years I've extended it to a 2 day window on ebay to cover my ass but most times I still can get it going as I wished.  It's not that hard, and I'm not even lazy enough to have the USPS pick it up from me.

 

Here for fun is some proof of the stupidity of those types.  I ordered Nintendo Power #12 to fill a hole of my early issues late last month.  Read the details as they show up pasted from ebay.  I paid for it on Aug 28th.  I questioned them about it on the 3rd I believe, maybe the 2nd.  There was no excuse for that.

 

    Aug 28, 2020
    4:03pm

    Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item
    CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95610

    Aug 28, 2020
    7:09pm

    PRE-SHIPMENT INFO SENT USPS AWAITS ITEM
    CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95610

    Sep 4, 2020
    3:14am

    Accepted at USPS Origin Facility
    CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95610

    Sep 4, 2020
    3:14am

    ORIGIN ACCEPTANCE
    CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA 95610

I don't mind waiting a few days for something to ship as long as they tell me what's going on. Maybe they live in an apartment building and don't want to leave it in the lobby and can't miss work to take it to the post office until Saturday. But this whole "I don't know what happened" thing is infuriating. Especially when they say they'll send another one and same thing happens. Some kind of scam is up then. Otherwise, after five days I e-mail them and say, what's going on and hopefully they respond with actually shipping it.

[Tanooki]

22 hours ago, Swami said:

I don't mind waiting a few days for something to ship as long as they tell me what's going on. Maybe they live in an apartment building and don't want to leave it in the lobby and can't miss work to take it to the post office until Saturday. But this whole "I don't know what happened" thing is infuriating. Especially when they say they'll send another one and same thing happens. Some kind of scam is up then. Otherwise, after five days I e-mail them and say, what's going on and hopefully they respond with actually shipping it.

Infuriating and insulting.  The person in that case I showed waited an entire week until it suddenly was accepted and moving at the post office.   Not buying the truck guy forgot to offload it in all that time or it sat on some shelf.

[retroeight]

I had a situation like this as a seller. I printed labels for 10 or so items. Dropped them off at the post office the same day. A week later I was getting emails from my buyers asking where their package was. The tracking just said label printed. Nothing else. Finally one came through. The tracking went like this. #1 label printed #2 Processed through... (location near customer) #3 out for delivery Everything in between was absent. These 10 items on average took about 2 weeks to deliver. Ebay originally penalized me for late shipping. then they revised it w/o me doing anything. It is a known issue with the post office.

 

It NEEDS to be scanned at original drop off location. Otherwise all the in between actions never get recorded.

 

lloyd

[retroeight]

On 9/10/2020 at 10:13 PM, cvga said:

The short answer is that the sellers are purchasing postage directly from eBay so the tracking number gets assigned automatically. However, they still have to make sure it gets to the post office.

Sometimes even after it gets to the post office the tracking doesn't start. These idiots at the post office many times don't scan the item when they get it. It messes up everything.

 

lloyd

[+OLD CS1]

On 9/10/2020 at 8:11 PM, arcadeshopper said:

I've had a couple lately that never were scanned in their entire trip until they reached my town I think it's just postal workers are overworked or under working

This has happened to me several times over.  The package does not turn up in the system until it is delivered, then suddenly its entire tracking history is there.

[D.Yancey]

1. The post office never scanned the parcel into their system when it was received (this happens frequently) and it subsequently got lost. 

2. The seller never presented the parcel for shipment (if they do this they can get a refund for the label when it wasn't used). It could be an honest mistake or on purpose, who knows. If he sells a lot of stuff, he may not even know himself.

3. Sometimes a parcel will show up delivered with only the delivery scan and no other scan along the way. This used to happen a lot when they only offered "delivery confirmation". But now they actually call it "tracking", so it's supposed to scan at all locations.

Edited October 2, 2020 by D.Yancey

[Swami]

In the end, like the last couple sellers this happened with, after a month and them swearing they had sent it out twice and had no idea what had happened, but don’t do it personally, I got a full refund and ordered from someone else that went smoothly.  Weird thing about this was the seller stopped selling after this encounter saying he’d had like 115 sales with no problems before. It generally works out, but still puzzles me. Are they doing this to everyone? Why do they have a 100% rating from 115 customers, with actual written positive feedback? 

[Swami]

So, scammers taking over someone else's account. That's why they say they are done with eBay after this issue "they can't figure out." Just happened to me again with a smart phone and at least 8 other people. Guy had 100% for 500 sales and went to 92.6 in the last two weeks.