eBay Standard Envelope - item falsely marked as delivered at random time.

[things-n-oddities]

I buy sports cards on eBay and sometimes they get shipped via eBay Standard Envelope service. They provide a tracking # which can only be tracked through eBay. Today I get an email from eBay stating my item has been delivered at 10:30AM. Right away I thought that can't be right, my mail gets delivered after 2PM. I went to check the mailbox and of course it was empty. Outgoing mail hasn't been picked up either, so clearly the mail man has not been here. Luckily the card did show up 4 hours later when the mail man delivered mail.

So does eBay just falsely mark the package as delivered because it was expected to be delivered on this day? That's pretty ridiculous.

[ms.rodriguez*]

The mail carrier scanned the package delivered and loaded it into his truck/bag. He then went about his route and put the envelop in your mailbox 4 hours later.   Ebay goes by what they get back from the postal system.   It's very possible that the mailman had to scan the envelop delivered because the post office does NOT have enough of those scan gizmos for each carrier!   My brother is a carrier in Florida and told me  about this.   So I am guessing that carrier scanned all of his packages at that time.    I would speak with the POST Master at your post office and ask why this is happening.   They are NOT supposed to do that.   He/she could have done that too to save time and scan all packages at the same time.    BE thankful that you got it.

[itscalledapostingid]

Most USPS delivery scans on ESE are just an ESTIMATE that's generated based on scans at sort facilities. It could be marked as delivered a few days before you actually get it. So you will have to wait and see what happens.

[things-n-oddities]

I thought about the mail man scanning the package early, but i have never had this happen with regular USPS packages. They always get scanned at time of delivery. It's certainly possible though, for whatever reason.

[no-plain-white-envelopes]

First you need to understand how standard envelope work. Next if you do not like that mode of delivery than ask the buyer if you can upgrade to USPS FC with tracking in a bubble mailer at around $3.99 to $4.49. 

Now understanding how SE works. These tracking numbers are ran by Pitney Bowes with the machines at sorting facilities and thats where they get mostly scanned. This could also be done almost 3 days before you get the item.

Another thing you could do is check with your neighbors and see if the USPS delivered it to them by mistake. 

[shipscript]

@things-n-oddities 

Letter carriers and local postal staff can not scan the proprietary eBay Standard Envelope barcode. That code is only scanned at USPS sorting hubs by special equipment. Actual delivery would be later than the last hub scan, as the envelopes would still need to reach your local letter carrier route after the final scan.