Dropped off package at post office, tracking number not updating! Help please!

[toastygal]

I dropped off about 30 small mailers at my local post office on Wednesday, and now it is Friday and on every single tracking number I click, not a single one has been updated from "tracking number provided." I am getting very worried that they have been lost as they have not been scanned at all, can someone possibly inform me as to why this is happening?

[bonjourami]

If you didnt stand in line and get a receipt, I wouldnt worry about it yet. My post office is sloppy, and sometimes the scan doesnt happen until the pkgs go thru sorting,in a few days.

[ed8108]

Nothing that you can do at your end but to contact your local post office.

Hopefully they will all receive a physical scan very soon.

[kensgiftshop]

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@toastygal 

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If you didn't get them scanned when you dropped them off, there isn't much you can do right now.

Hopefully they'll get some scans soon, before buyers start filing an INR.

[wastingtime101]

Sometimes my post office is overwhelmed with quantity so in order to expedite they rush to get packages on trucks and out to the sorting centers without scanning them. Most will get a scan at the first sorting center, but those that don't (99% of them) will at the very least get scanned in by the time they get to the buyer's destination post office.

It can take 24 hours for the scans to populate on the USPS website. Sign up for tracking updates on one or two of them so you're alerted when they make it in the system. You can call your post office to find out if they're backed up and the packages are still sitting there, but after a couple of days days they're likely in the mail stream already so it's just a waiting game at this point.

You dropped off Wednesday so they likely went to the sorting center on Wednesday or Thursday. If it was Thursday you may see scans appear later tonight or tomorrow. It's too soon to worry about anything.

[eenus-56]

This is pretty common for me, too. The line at my PO in New York always extends out the door and sometimes part of the way down the block, so I never wait for a receipt. For the past month or two the items I drop off are getting scanned Accepted in my zip code an average of 24 to 72 hours later. A few times in the past month though my items didn't get scanned Accepted in my zip code until 5 whole days later. Once my items finally get acceptance scans though they do always make it to the distribution center within another 24 hours and are on their way to the recipients. So they don't actually get lost. But unfortunately buyers end up thinking I didn't ship the items at all and open INR cases anyway.

Unless you want to spend a long time waiting in line every time you go to the post office to get your packages or SCAN form scanned, there's nothing you can do. It's really frustrating for me, since I actually have two post offices in my zip code. But both of them have the exact same problem. Items don't leave the building until days after they're shipped. I almost never have this problem with Fedex, but for the cheap, lightweight items I sell USPS First Class is the only cost-effective way for me to ship them.

[lja440]

At our office we scan in everything but then we are a small office 7 routes covering 2 zip codes. Even here we would want a scan form for a load of packages like that. Heck even when I have a half dozen or so packages and am taking them to work with me I print myself a scan form.

[jt8x57]

I've been having the same problem lately where the post office isn't making the acceptance scan until days later.  This week, the packages I dropped off Tuesday didn't get scanned until Friday around midnight.  There was one priority mail international package in that mix that did get scanned early Wednesday morning and got sorted right away.  Regardless of when the acceptance scan is, my packages tracking always shows that it got sorted through the Chicago distribution network only hours after the acceptance scan.  I think they are doing some trick where the packages are tied to the trailer and it is scanned as accepted by the local post office when it is actually being unloaded at the distribution hub.

It's funny that I had packages that I dropped off on Wednesday that were already delivered by Friday.

[toastygal]

UPDATE: I called USPS and provided the tracking number of one of my packages, but they responded and said that they have no signs of it being dropped off anywhere or scanned yet. Should I be worried?

[yhlml]

Not that this will help, I just want to say that I always wait for a receipt. People leave their packages on the counter and anyone can pick them up and walk off with it. 

[eenus-56]

No, I wouldn't say there's anything to worry about. If your post office is anything like mine, then the items are probably either still inside your PO waiting to be loaded onto a truck or may have already made it into the mailstream without being scanned.

In my zip code items only get what I've seen referred to as "container scans" at the regional distribution center. This means the containers that hold the packages are scanned, but the individual mailpieces inside aren't scanned one by one. When the container is scanned the tracking gets updated for all the items inside of it. But if an item I ship fails to get an acceptance scan before it's loaded into a container, then the tracking system won't know it's there. So it never gets a "Processed through facility" scan when it goes through the distribution center. This kind of thing doesn't usually delay delivery, but it does always cause me a lot of worry until I eventually see the first scan, usually somewhere much closer to the buyer's address.

[lja440]

I will encourage everyone to print a scan form or wait at the window for a scan at this time. 

Seriously, we are just out and out swamped. Like I posted before I work in a small office (2 city routes and 5 rural routes). Yesterday Amazon alone brought us 4 pallets of packages each over 6 feet tall.  Amazingly I only had to leave 1 package that didn't fit in my Jeep. But though a lot of packages were around 1 cubic foot and padded envelopes I ran out of parcel markers (over 250) and had to write out a cheat sheet for the rest. I left a notice for one large very heavy package that Amazon delivered with metal parts sticking out a large rip in the box (about 12 inches), noting that there might be damage and they should pick it up and check it at the Post Office, as I was not sure it contained all the parts it should. 

Anyway I felt really bad as I could not use my usual color code system Helps me know what I am looking for on those days when I can't have any sort of order to my loading (what I refer to as Tetris days) and had to just use markers and try to remember. Its confusing I know I have a system that I use orange markers for small packages I keep in a tub (things that tend to hide), Pink for larger poly and other soft packages, green for boxes. I have blue for whichever I run out of normal colors. Yesterday I ran out of all colors and had a page and a half of packages written down with a brief note as to what they were. Today I'm ordering more parcel markers. Looks like I'm not the only one as some colors are out of stock.