Item stuck in transit

[pomool1]

Not sure if I'm making a storm in a teacup here, but I'm worried about an item that was shipped to me last week. It was moving along smoothly with good tracking updates until it hit Folcroft PA.  The item has come to a grinding halt with no updates for 4 days now. Another item from a different seller bought a day before has already arrived in my country (New Zealand). Is it normal for delays like this to happen? Apparently ebay items with the ESUS tracking numbers are not physically scanned by usps, just by sorting machines. In fact if I enter the tracking number into the usps tracking page it says it's an invalid tracking number! It's not though, because I can see ebay updates until it hit Folcroft. I'm worried because clearly theres no point calling usps if they don't recognize the ebay tracking numbers. If they can't see it how can they investigate it. 

[pomool1]

Two different people. One thing I've quickly learned is that shipping is very inconsistent. One item I ordered arrived within 10 days. The item I started this thread over has been sitting in Folcroft for 10 days! It has however moved from the usps warehouse to an asendia warehouse, so at that rate I expect the package early next year. 

So if these items turn up after the last estimated delivery date, and if a refund had been issued, how would you then get the money back to the seller? I wouldn't want the seller to lose out. He's been great and it's no fault of his that international shipping is extremely slow. 

[wastingtime101]

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@pomool1 wrote:

So if these items turn up after the last estimated delivery date, and if a refund had been issued, how would you then get the money back to the seller? I wouldn't want the seller to lose out. He's been great and it's no fault of his that international shipping is extremely slow. 

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Thanks for being the type of buyer that wants to do the right thing.

Basically, you're seeing active tracking movement. So I'd mark down that 30 day deadline from estimated delivery on your calendar and as long as you have some space, hold off on filing a claim.

As Tuna mentioned above, Folcroft is an EISD hub so the fact that the package is there and showing movement between facilities, it's not lost and still on the way.

That said, if you're right on top of the deadline to file a claim through eBay, remember that your payment processor may give you more time to file a claim. If you used PayPal you have 180 days and the timeframe for banks/credit/debit cards varies.

If you end up filing a claim and getting a refund, then the item is delivered at a later date @pomool1 just message the seller to work out repayment. Two of the most common options include:

- Get their email and send PayPal funds. (Or Venmo, Zelle, etc.)

- Seller can put up a new listing on eBay for the item with "local pickup only" so shipping is removed from the equation and you can repurchase, then the seller can mark as picked up to close out the transaction. They'd probably want to increase the item price on relisting to cover their original out of pocket shipping costs since there will be no separate shipping charge on a local pickup transaction.

[pomool1]

Thanks. That's good advice about how to repay a seller in the event of extremely late delivery. I'll be sure to follow it up if that happened. 

[elihech-0]

One time I ordered a copy of "Sing A Song with Tigger" on VHS here, and the location of the item was in New Jersey. It was stuck in transit at the post office, even after a week passed. I cancelled the order for that, so I bought another copy, also from New Jersey. While that arrived pretty much on time, the other one I cancelled took around a month or so to arrive anyway.