eBay

zamo-zuan · ‎05-10-2019

As of yesterday we noticed some strange issues with USPS tracking.

Here's an example of what is displaying on our shipping software when we created our label at 11:02AM PST:

But when we check the USPS website, it's giving this information:

Now as you can see the label was actually created 7 hours before it's appearing in tracking!

We also provided USPS with a SCAN form that they scanned at our location when they picked up at approximately 4PM. Usually we have an accepted scan at this time, but it looks like on this tracking number it didn't get the acceptance scan until arriving at the distribution center?

Then today I was trying to follow up to see if this issue is persisting. Here's the results:

EBay's tracking system uses the numbers USPS provides, and I called in to confirm, the numbers in the tracking above are the ones showing up on eBay! So the times USPS are sending with tracking are not accurate.

This has me very concerned, as I don't want to risk being marked late if shipped at 5PM since the time seemed off by 7 hours.

As at this time of writing it's been nearly 2 and a half hours and the label created earlier is still not in their system. Since it says "Label Created", USPS clearly received the data for the label, but it seems it has not processed on their end.

I tried calling eBay regarding this and they said since it's a 3rd party they can't offer any protection at this time, and it seems no other users have reported this yet.

I would recommend anyone out there check their shipping labels/tracking for orders yesterday and today! Please let me know if anyone else has similar issues!

a_c_green · ‎05-10-2019

I think you may have multiple points of confusion creeping in here. To begin with, the May 9 record at 6:02 is shown as Greenwich Mean Time with no time zone offset. (You're apparently 7 hours behind it: Mountain time?) They do not apply the local time zone offset to that record until the package goes through an in-network scan that will tell them which time zone it's in.

The Accepted at USPS Regional Facility message suggests that they do not consider a SCAN sheet scan to be an Acceptance of that specific package. If they did, then that later Accepted message would not have been logged, but that is apparently the first direct in-network scan of the package, so that gets labeled as its Acceptance.

The later issues may revolve around a similar detail, although I'm not sure I have a clear enough picture to say more.

zamo-zuan · ‎05-10-2019

@a_c_green wrote:
I thnk you may have multiple points of confusion creeping in here. To begin with, the May 9 record at 6:02 is shown as Greenwich Mean Time with no time zone offset. (You're apparently 7 hours behind it: Mountain time?) They do not apply the local time zone offset to that record until the package goes through an in-network scan that will tell them which time zone it's in.

The later issues may revolve around a similar detail, although I'm not sure I have a clear enough picture to say more.

That's the problem. 6:02 may be GMT time, but USPS tracking is telling us that is PST time that it was created. We noticed this yesterday afternoon, when it was not even 6:02 PST yet.

EBay is then receiving the information that we created the label at 6:02 PST time, which is not accurate.

I confirmed this on the phone with an eBay rep, who said it came up as 18:02 PST.

We're not able to fix time zone issues on our side.

a_c_green · ‎05-10-2019

@zamo-zuan wrote:
That's the problem. 6:02 may be GMT time, but USPS tracking is telling us that is PST time that it was created. We noticed this yesterday afternoon, when it was not even 6:02 PST yet.

EBay is then receiving the information that we created the label at 6:02 PST time, which is not accurate.

Well, it is accurate as long as the time zone (GMT) is included, but apparently it is not.

@zamo-zuan wrote:
I confirmed this on the phone with an eBay rep, who said it came up as 18:02 PST.

It may come up as 18:02 (which is correct), but I don't think it's PST; I think the eBay rep is either misunderstanding the time zone, or his software is. If you printed that label at 11:02 MST, then you know that 18:02 must be Greenwich Mean Time.

Records such as a label printing that are created outside of the USPS network may get submitted with no time zone offset, or else the USPS is failing to display it, choosing the GMT version instead. From here it's hard to say which would be the case.

zamo-zuan · ‎05-10-2019

@a_c_green wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
That's the problem. 6:02 may be GMT time, but USPS tracking is telling us that is PST time that it was created. We noticed this yesterday afternoon, when it was not even 6:02 PST yet.

EBay is then receiving the information that we created the label at 6:02 PST time, which is not accurate.
Well, it is accurate as long as the time zone (GMT) is included, but apparently it is not.

@zamo-zuan wrote:
I confirmed this on the phone with an eBay rep, who said it came up as 18:02 PST.
It may come up as 18:02 (which is correct), but I don't think it's PST; I think the eBay rep is either misunderstanding the time zone, or his software is. If you printed that label at 11:02 MST, then you know that 18:02 must be Greenwich Mean Time.

Records such as a label printing that are created outside of the USPS network may get submitted with no time zone offset, or else the USPS is failing to display it, choosing the GMT version instead. From here it's hard to say which would be the case.

I'm more leaning towards it's USPS's software that is. As even on the eBay tracking information, all of their times are matching up to the USPS information.

At 6:02 pm, according to USPS's tracking page, we created the label. We had that label in our hand yesterday afternoon when we first noticed this problem, and nobody was in the office anymore at 6:02PM.

Regardless of eBay's interpretation, how could eBay effect USPS's tracking page to say the wrong time? How could we have a label in our hand hours before the time USPS is saying it was created...?

a_c_green · ‎05-10-2019

@zamo-zuan wrote:
At 6:02 pm, according to USPS's tracking page, we created the label.

Well, at 6:02 pm Greenwich Mean Time, you did.

@zamo-zuan wrote:
Regardless of eBay's interpretation, how could eBay effect USPS's tracking page to say the wrong time?

By retrieving the time from the USPS network but failing to obtain the time zone offset that should go with it. In your example, they obtained the 18:02 value, but apparently either

failed to retrieve the time zone offset of -700, which would have produced your local Mountain Time equivalent (and, by knocking off another -100, come up with the correct Pacific time of 10:02), or
found that there was no time zone offset, but did not handle it as 18:02 GMT by default, which again would have been correctly shown as 11:02 MST or 10:02 PST if they had.

@zamo-zuan wrote:
How could we have a label in our hand hours before the time USPS is saying it was created...?

By recognizing that if the time shown has not even occurred in your locality yet, then it must be a Greenwich Mean Time value that hasn't been corrected for your local time zone offset. If you're in Mountain Time, you deduct 7 hours from the Greenwich Mean Time, and that gives you your local equivalent.

At this point I don't know whether to blame eBay or the USPS, but I would note here that if you send the USPS a technical question about their website, they'll actually relay it to the proper people, and send you an answer back fairly promptly (usually within 2-3 business days, in my experience). Unfortunately eBay does not have the same level of transparency.

zamo-zuan · ‎05-10-2019

@a_c_green wrote:
By recognizing that if the time shown has not even occurred in your locality yet, then it must be a Greenwich Mean Time value that hasn't been corrected for your local time zone offset. If you're in Mountain Time, you deduct 7 hours from the Greenwich Mean Time, and that gives you your local equivalent.

At this point I don't know whether to blame eBay or the USPS, but I would note here that if you send the USPS a technical question about their website, they'll actually relay it to the proper people, and send you an answer back fairly promptly (usually within 2-3 business days, in my experience). Unfortunately eBay does not have the same level of transparency.

Yup, it's the time zone offset is definitely lost somewhere. But eBay is receiving the data from USPS, so in this case it seems the USPS data is incorrect.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has had these same results? I would find it very strange if we're the only one!