eBay

rock*kitten · ‎12-16-2017

I've read a number of times on this board about signing up for text message tracking and how that sometimes gets packages moving that are otherwise stuck. Is it possible to do this with international packages as well, more specifically, from China? All of my tracking numbers begin with GXA and thus far, the USPS tracking site isn't recognizing them. Maybe there's a different website or form I'm just not seeing?

Thanks!

miraculousnoir · ‎12-17-2017

I also never mentioned that I signed up for alerts on a package that was stuck in ISC Los Angeles a few years ago, and it stayed in ISC LA for two more WHOLE weeks. Then one random evening, I finally got an email in my inbox saying it had AT LAST left customs. It was in the US and just sat there for no reason whatsoever.

Me calling the ISC facility (and shocked someone ACTUALLY answered) is a stronger case of me actually getting the package to move its butt, but it still sat there for another week I think. XD

If one really wanted to test this theory, I would suggest not signing up for any alerts on a stuck package and just wait it out, however long it takes...but so far I'm not really seeing anyone say that they've tested both ways and found a consistent pattern with signing up for alerts = "unsticking" a package...so, yeah.

ijazzu · ‎12-17-2017

The old system I've tested it three different ways. I sent out 3 items one no text alerts, one with text alerts, one text alerts and added the HELP text. The package I used the HELP text delivered my 1st class package in 2 days from Cali to Baltimore. Another time (as I mentioned before) with my priority stuck after a week called ask-usps and was told a supervisor would call me within 48 hours. I text HELP in the text alerts and in 24 hours the package started scanning. A day later the supervisor called me to tell me it was lost and to file a claim. I would have thought calling and having a supervisor trying to track it would have been the cause of it starting to scan again but she didn't even know it had.

Just getting the alerts isn't enough, sending the "HELP" is what did it for me every time. (at least with the old system) I just started again with the new system and they give you a Keyword list, when I tried the HELP it just came back with invalid tracking number. To bad they had to mess with it, hopefully in time it will work better.?

a_c_green · ‎12-17-2017

@muttlymob wrote:
Somewhere deep within the pile, a package begins stirring. Slowly at first, it begins to get itself unstuck, pushing itself this way and that, with more and more urgency, until finally it gets itself completely unstuck, and begins pushing its way upward and out of the pack.

bwaahahahahaa!

Just imagine what would happen if all the packages in the pile were "unstuck" at the same time!

You know those videos of building implosions....?

Consider also that the vast majority of supposedly "stuck" packages never get requests for tracking notifications. Therefore, by that logic, there must be some rapidly-increasing pile of packages that never get "un-stuck." Where do they keep them all? What happens to them in the end? I'm picturing something resembling the Island of Lost Toys...

It's actually kind of interesting, in a human-psychology way, to see how cause and effect get linked when the reality is that they have no connection. I write this kind of code myself, working with database tracking, spawned event notifications and such, and it's a great example of (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. "I requested email notifications, and the next day my package got unstuck!"

The fact that the package in question is simply one of many in a pile of thousands in a given sorting office that are slowly working their way through a system that will eventually get around to scanning every one anyway is not a solution that we want to hear. We want to think that an Internet request to find and push through package #12345678901234 will do... well, something. It will give a USPS worker the time and ability to rummage through trucks or storage rooms full of brown cardboard boxes to find that one specific package #12345678901234, and send it on its way ahead of all the others, because by golly someone out there wants an email about it.

berserkerplanet · ‎12-18-2017

Unfortunately, in many cases, the sticky side of tape is sufficiently advanced technology and indistinguishable from magic 😞

a_c_green · ‎12-18-2017

@berserkerplanet wrote:
Unfortunately, in many cases, the sticky side of tape is sufficiently advanced technology and indistinguishable from magic 😞

"Duct tape is like The Force: it has a Light Side and a Dark Side, and it holds the Universe together."

rock*kitten · ‎12-21-2017

Thank you for all of the replies!

I was able to track my packages as they made their way from China to the US, it was once they hit Los Angeles that they disappeared. 8 packages, 24 different items, all sitting at the bottom of a pile somewhere, half of which have been missing for a month. I've had zero luck getting a human being on the phone at USPS. I've filed "missing mail" with USPS, but get a response that I have insufficient data since I don't know the seller's address, etc.

I really hate USPS.