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track your parcel not working

I've bought an item for the first time from the USA via GSP. I live in Belgium, Europe. The tracking link worked just fine up until the departure from the KY shipping center in Erlanger, but from there on it tells me that the shipment has been sent to Interpost for international delivery. It then provides some number starting with "# LPKEN..." which links to www.trackyourparcel.eu.

 

The site is a joke. Two fields, asking for an order reference and ZIP code. No additional instructions, no contact information...

I've tried just about every possible combination I could think of. The number from the link, with the hash symbol, without, only the numeric portion... The original tracking number for the US shipping. The eBay transaction number. The ZIP code for delivery, with and without a "BE" prefix for Belgium, with and without city name behind it (who knows, maybe they copied the line verbatim from eBay)...

 

The only thing this site ever spits back in my face is "combination not found".

The item was shipped for international delivery yesterday. Do I just need to wait it out and see if it comes up on that site, or is there some magic combination that I must input to get my parcel status? Or, does it simply not work?

I don't even know who is responsible for that site. Is it eBay? Pitney Bowes? Some carrier I don't know of? I have no idea who I may even contact for info.

 

The GSP draws enough criticism from sellers as it is, but as a buyer it seems you're left out in the cold even more. If this service is to be taken seriously by the people who will drive it (i.e. international buyers) you're gonna have to do better than this. If the listing says "international tracking included", then I expect international tracking. Not just for some part of the trajectory, or depending on the whims of some web service that for all I know may not even call anything on the back-end.

 

I realize there's two other discussions on these boards regarding Trackyourparcel.eu, but this needs to be brought to attention.

Message 1 of 69
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track your parcel not working

It will be Some carrier I don't know of

 

Do not miss your 45 day deadline for opening a dispute.

 

http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/item-not-received.html






Message 2 of 69
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track your parcel not working

It's still well before the estimated delivery window, so I'll be patient for now. I'd just like to know the progress and have some peace of mind regarding the whereabouts of my parcel. Thanks for answering the carrier question. No wonder they can't offer a decent tracking outside the US... Imagine getting every carrier to interface with an eBay/Pitney Bowes webservice. Or demanding that they offer one with a standard interface. Good luck on that. I work in EDI, I know what a friggin' nightmare it is.

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track your parcel not working

Next time it might be simpler to buy from a seller who does not use the GSP.  That way the seller gives the item directly to the shipper (USPS, UPS, FedEx) and normal tracking via the usual sites is possible.

 

First Class Mail International now offers tracking to your country and Priority/Express mail international have offered it for some years.



Newt
“Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country”. Ron Paul
Message 4 of 69
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track your parcel not working

Sorry you are having troubles, I think you are correct to monitor but give it a little time.  I am a US seller, and have shipped multiple items outside the US via GSP in the last month or so, my observation has been that all of the third party carrier/broker sites behave slightly differently, but all for me at least have seemed to work out in the end so far. 

 

For both Canada (which was the standard Canadian Post Office), and France and Germany (which was something called Artis-Web), the confirmation number showed up as valid immediately, but sat in a 'no known status' state for several days.  Once they had the packages, then all of the standard status changes started to appear until the eventual 'delivered'

 

For the UK, it was something called 13Ten Citipost - there, you would get an 'invalid reference number', but again, once they had the package, all of the expected information started to appear.

 

I have two in process with this trackmypackage.eu site -- Sweden and Italy -- and am seeing the same form that you see - I think this is their (rather non-intuitive) way of indicating the the tracking number provided via the link is not yet in thier system.  My strong suspicion is though, that once they or thier brokers are in possesion of the package, you will start to see some actual data, and hopefully, the package(s).

 

Best of luck to you!

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track your parcel not working

Another story from a Belgian buyer seems to corroborate this. Takes a while, but eventually the combination starts working. I think that up until that point you must simply consider the package to be in transit from the Kentucky warehouse to your country, or wherever its entry point in the EU is going to be (for the other buyer, it came via The Netherlands).

 

I'll wait a bit more, then. This part of the process definitely needs some more work and transparency to avoid buyer frustration. If I manage to get the package in good condition and no additional customs costs as promised, the GSP definitely holds potential for me. Seeing how its a fairly new program, it is to be expected that there'll be the necessary teething problems. Seems the remaining issue a lot of people have is that Pitney Bowes tends to open up packages and repackage the goods, meaning the seller can't control how well they protect them. That kind of needs some work as well. Or some restrictions on how big packaging may be.

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track your parcel not working


geert_hermans_belgium wrote:

 Seems the remaining issue a lot of people have is that Pitney Bowes tends to open up packages and repackage the goods, meaning the seller can't control how well they protect them. That kind of needs some work as well. Or some restrictions on how big packaging may be.


Or avoid Pitney Bowes altogether and just send the package directly to your buyer.



Newt
“Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country”. Ron Paul
Message 7 of 69
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track your parcel not working

Whelp, just now the site has finally returned a result. And the GSP sprung yet another surprise on me... Apparently they've shipped to some central hub in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, from where inland shipping is continued.

 

Now, I can only conclude that this means that they've cleared the package with DUTCH customs. Not Belgian, where I live. And since they might have different provisions regarding what you may or may not import, for all I know I could've been attempting to import something I may not import through there.

 

In this case it is to my advantage. Dutch VAT is lower than Belgian, and I think most of the rules are pretty much the same. But I bet this is not really convenient to some other countries. Also, I'm now actually paying VAT to something other than my own country.

 

I was wondering how they would actually manage all the different VAT rates and customs provisions for all the possible destination countries. Simple answer is, they don't. They've got a few EU hubs to ship to, from where distribution to various countries is handled.

 

Again, limited transparency up-front regarding the workings of the GSP. I need to discover new stuff about this program every step of the way. Importing from Japan has never been this opaque, even with the language barrier. I'm certainly not dissatisfied as long as my package will arrive in its original condition and I'm not whalloped with unexpected extra costs (as promised), but the whole process needs work. It's only going to continue to draw criticism in its current form.

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track your parcel not working

Did you have no alternative other than to use a GSP seller? No way would I ever buy from a GSP seller, on principle alone.  You can generally avoid this whole nonsense and save a lot of money by just avoiding GSP sellers.

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track your parcel not working

This was the cheapest I managed to find this item in complete and good condition. In Europe it tends to be a lot more expensive (both new and second-hand, if you can find it like that), even with shipping and customs duties/taxes included.

The seller I was getting it from used GSP, and that's what I went for because I actually didn't even know what this specific program was.

 

To be honest, I looked into forwarding services and various shipping services, and most would NOT end up being cheaper than the GSP. A lot of 'm work with this nonsense called "volume weight", which calculates the volume of the package, puts a price to it, and if it is more than the price by mass weight, goes for that. Well, for anything but small packages or heavy stuff, that volume weight is likely to far exceed the actual weight. And it adds up. For the thing I wanted to buy, it would easily end up costing about $80 USD. Customs not included.

 

I don't know about all the shipping options, but getting stuff from the US to here seems to be a lot more hassle and cost-heavy than from Japan (that I have extensive experience with).

The GSP does seem to offer greater convenience and a much better price (at least for shipping to the EU) than any alternative I've found. So I'm definitely not against the idea behind the program. But it has issues every step of the way that need to be ironed out.

I don't wish to avoid it, I'd just like to see it refined to the level of service I've seen by EMS and SAL from Japan. Never once had a bad experience or lack of info with that.

Message 10 of 69
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track your parcel not working

I seem to have the same problem here, my parcel has been in Int. shipping for a few days now and trackyourparcel is giving no response. I also have tried every combination possible.

 

Which combination did you eventually got to work?

 

ps: i'm from the netherlands, so it should take about the same time for me i guess. my parcel went on int. shipping on 5 sept.

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track your parcel not working

When you go to your list of purchases and click the tracking link for the item, you get the overlay with the status. It mentions that the parcel has been sent to some carrier (likely Interpost) for delivery to the final location, followed by some reference which links to trackyourparcel.

 

You'll need that reference (without the '#' symbol). It probably starts with LPKEN... Fill that into the field on trackyourparcel which asks for an order reference.

For your postal code, first try the full one (four numbers and two characters), and if that doesn't work try the numeric part only.

 

My parcel went out from the KY warehouse on September 4th, and only started showing up on trackyourparcel on the 9th. So if this is fairly consistent, you might start getting a result today. But it's possible you'll have to wait a bit longer. Eventually it starts working, it would seem. But up until that moment you don't really have anything to go on and you'll have to assume the package is in transit to the Amsterdam hub.

 

The status timestamp changed a couple of times yesterday for me. I'm guessing for various transfers from one place to the other. But other than that it doesn't give me any info, so I'm not certain if it has actually left Amsterdam or not, and if so where it is at this moment. Good thing I've chosen to have it delivered at my work address.

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track your parcel not working

Thanks for the Info, i will try again some time later today. for now i still get the not found message.

And it indeed starts with LPKEN.

 

i sure hope that my parcel will show up today, then it would be a consistent thing and we'll know that for next time.

 

but still it seems as a pretty weird system to me, cause if a parcel is shipped on the 5th, which in my mind means it got on the plane that day, then it would have arrived in Amsterdam the next day. since they work 24/7 it should appear sooner in the tracking again.

only logical explanation would be that the package is held by customs a few days, which would make the GSP kind of irrelevant, because it is meant to save you time and money. but if it still gets held by customs it is just a waste of money, as dutch customs is usually pretty fast and never held my parcels for more than a day.

 

but all we can do is wait and see, i'll let you know when my parcel pops up in the tracking. and hope yours will arrive soon 🙂

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track your parcel not working

My package arrived today. It was in good condition, and thankfully I had to pay no additional fees upon delivery, as promised. Whether Pitney Bowes repackaged it or not, I can't tell for sure, but the packaging does seem like something the seller re-used rather than some new repacking. I could check with the seller to confirm if anyone's interested in that.

 

Overall, this first experience with the GSP included some surprises regarding tracking and who did what, but I'm certainly not dissatisfied. The transparency of the tracking needs to be improved (three sites were involved in total; eBay, trackyourparcel and BPost), but other than that things went quite smoothly.

 

I'd consider using it again. Whether it's worth it probably depends quite a lot on the nature of the item and availability outside the US. But I think it deserves getting a chance to reach its full potential.

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track your parcel not working

My parcel will arrive today, so the delivery does seem to have some order to it.

which is nice, since we now know how it will work next time.

 

I assume my package will also arrive in good condition, if not, then ill let it know.

 

Small detail;

from AMS (dutch airport) my package is processed by:

ABC mail B.V.

Zuiderzeelaan 80

1382 JW Weesp

Netherlands

 

I don't know it it was the same for you? but i guess there the people who take care of GSP parcel after they arrive in europe.

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