mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
@roccotacodad54 wrote:"But why? And how do you know the seller even used a Scan sheet? Many sellers don't use them. I know I don't."
It's just the only reason I could think of where "Accepted" and "Arrived" would show on tracking 11 days apart at the point of origion with the same tracking number. It only started showing movement after the second scan.
Oh well a moot point now that it is moving and past the Northern hub where most packages from East of here enter the state.. A head scratcher for me though.
I've seen it many times on a shipment that went astray, and as I said before, I don't use scan sheets. Sometimes USPS sends things the scenic route. Your seller likely didn't do a darn thing wrong.
Do you know the timing of both. Which happened first? Or is this yet another assumption in order to make this appear to be a seller issue and not USPS? IMHO the buyer filed the INR, the seller may have filed a Trace or otherwise contacted USPS to see what the heck was going on. The assumptions of the OP simply are not something that can even happen.
I've had packages sit in the same place per tracking for a couple of weeks and then suddenly start moving. There is a lot of energy going into trying to find the seller at fault with zero evidence that they did something wrong. I do find that quite odd.
As for the package being damaged, unless the tracking is telling the OP that the package has been damaged, this is yet another assumption on their part.
Since the seller used a Kiosk to create labels, I don't think a Scan Sheet would be involved at all.
Sounds like it was all USPS delays.
I still cannot think of any reason the seller's local post office would wait 11 days to start moving the package and why it just so happened to be the same day you filed INR.
And I know you are not determined to "blame the seller" -I don't think any of us are itching to hate the person or whatever; if they did mess up it surely wasn't intentional. But I'll say it one more time: a good seller would have written something to you in response to the INR, even if only "I don't know what happened; I did ship the item on the 10th but it looks like they finally scanned it again today. Sorry about the delay." The fact that you can only guess is my beef with them. And if they were really good, they would have noticed the problem themselves, days before that.
But any time in the future when you make a post that is about shipping/tracking .... would you PLEASE just post a screenshot instead of going on memory? It took me about 2 minutes to go find an order and grab this one, whereas we have been thinking your initial scan said "Accepted" since last night. A self service kiosk is a whole other thing. And I don't know what you mean by "etc etc etc."
This is what an item shipped with a scan form looks like. By the way, note how "USPS Origin facility" and "USPS Regional origin facility" are two different locations (different zip codes).
Just so we are clear. This didn't strike a nerve with me. I just don't like buyers or sellers making assumptions about each other. It leads to unnecessary misunderstandings and potential hard feelings.
We have lots of misbehaving sellers and buyers on the site. Many stories have been shared in the community. It can be very frustrating for members. The only thing for me here on this thread was the assumptions made that had no reason to make those assumptions. That really is the only point I was trying to make and it clearly came across badly, which wasn't my intention.
I'm sorry that I made you feel the way you do about the thread. Again, not my intention.
@roccotacodad54 wrote:"But why? And how do you know the seller even used a Scan sheet? Many sellers don't use them. I know I don't."
It's just the only reason I could think of where "Accepted" and "Arrived" would show on tracking 11 days apart at the point of origion with the same tracking number. It only started showing movement after the second scan.
Oh well a moot point now that it is moving and past the Northern hub where most packages from East of here enter the state.. A head scratcher for me though.
When it comes to scan intelligence, USPS is not the model to look at. At my job, we ship 50+ packages a day via USPS. Most days - no problems. But every so often, and more often than we'd like, we get screwed up or missed scans. Like the day everything was scanned as delivered, to our address, as the packages were loaded into the truck. Or the time I packaged and sent 20-some orders of the exact same thing, all packaged exactly alike. Some got scanned, most did not. The scanned ones arrived on time. The others did not. We got lucky and our customers we willing to wait a bit. We then agreed to refund everyone if they would agree to either return the refund or return the order once it did arrive. Everyone felt that was fair and all but one buyer returned the refund (repaid via PayPal invoice thru eBay Messages).
I've been tracking shipments we do for other sellers (we act as the drop-ship firm) - same issues. And generally there are days, if not weeks, between the Acceptance scan (USPS physically had the order to scan the label) and then next scan, which is generally at the destination primary USPS sort facility, on it's way to the local PO for actual delivery. So over a span of 5-6 to as much as 20-30 days, the package apparently walked itself from one facility to another. NO SCANS indicating that they ever left town (normal is a scan in/scan out of each USPS facility)... they just suddenly appeared somewhere else.
USPS has rolled out a LOT of changes. New services, new equipment, new employees. One postmaster I talked with summed it up quite well: Too few employees, too many newbies. Mistakes get made and can sometimes take a bit to sort out.
That Acceptance scan you saw on the tracking -- that is a physical scan of the label on the package. It means USPS physically had your package. Some of the in/out scans at various facilities are not actually related to someone physically putting your package into a semi-trailer. More likely the package is in a cage along with dozens or hundreds of other packages, and the cage is scanned and all the packages get a tracking update.
Plus you cannot 'reuse' a shipping label. If USPS has scanned it Accepted, it will never be accepted at another facility on another package. Once Accepted, it will never be Accepted again. It would be returned to the From address or held at the PO for pickup - it does not move forward to the recipient.
My experience says this was nothing more than a unfortunately too common USPS mis-handling that created a very large gap between scans. I had an INR just this morning that did the same thing - the buyer opened the INR yesterday as it had been 3 weeks since Acceptance. By the time I got in this morning and processed the INR, the package was Out For Delivery and then Delivered later in the afternoon. The UPS just messed up and it fixed itself before I needed to do anything. I -did- respond to the INR - don't want to get a soft ding for not responding to a Case. But it was only to confirm the tracking number and then to confirm the package was Out For Delivery. Before I left work, eBay had confirmed delivery and if the buyer doesn't file any other complaint withing 24 hrs, the Case will be closed with no other action needed by the buyer or the seller.
Do anything long enough and it's amazing all the oddball things that will happen that other, more experienced workers will tell you happen now and then and it's no big deal. Annoying -- yes, very much so. But generally not fatal. Just annoying.
I'm sure I haven't yet 'seen it all'... I've only been selling online since the early 90's, before "The Internet" when all we had were BBS systems, dial up modems, and checks for payment. No consumer digital cameras yet either. I can't wait to see what kind of 'fun' we have the rest of the year, or next year, or next decade. Yee Haw Y'All!!
-Bob.
