What's up with all the sellers claiming "shipped" but tracking says "awaiting item"?

[t-man-x]

This is one of the things that royally irritates me about eBay. Sellers are printing up a label and sending emails out claiming items are shipped but the tracking clearly shows that's as far as they went: they printed a label. 

I've had sellers tell me something was shipped and send a tracking number and it never arrived. It wasn't shipped, period. It would've been scanned as accepted if it was. I've emailed sellers before after checking back daily for 5 days and noticing they never actually shipped the item, they reply back that it was shipped on such and such, and the tracking magically updates to "accepted at post office" 3 hours after I send the email. 

I'm at the point I'm getting burned on this with at least one item I buy per week. I'm usually ordering stuff that is labeled "Fast and Free Shipping!" and the sellers don't even bother sending the item to the post office until the next week. 

[myboardid]

Clearly you believe that the sellers are the only ones who are causing the issues, but I sincerely doubt that. 

Sellers have a handling time and if they pass that time eBay gives them a defect for each package that doesn't get shipped on time.  eBay checks when the label was scanned at the Post office, and when it was delivered.  If there is a discrepancy, they ask the buyer when they got it. 

Sellers can only have a few defects, how many depends on their volume, without being banned permanently from selling. 

I ship daily, either the same day item is purchased or the next business day if it is too late to get to the post office.  I do NOT use ebay shipping, I use another postage service.  I only send the shipping notice with the tracking number to my buyers after the items are mailed.  I also use a "scan sheet",  which means the post office only has to scan the bar code on the sheet and all the items are updated.  However, I STILL get items that never show the scan, sometimes never at all, even after the package is delivered. 

Buyers are also not required to use tracking.  They don't have to provide tracking info to you.  What you should be waatching is the ESTIMATED delivery date.  If your package hasn't arrived by one business day after that, then you can start investigating.  If your boxes are coming within that ime frame, then you really have no complaint. 

And that isn't even always the seller's fault.  I shipped a first class package January 27th, it was in the PO's hands within an hour of the time it was purchased.  It did not arrive until Feb 9th.  Buyer dinged me for slow shipping. 

[myboardid]

Correction!

Buyers Sellers are also not required to use tracking

[myangelandmyprincess]

---

@bliffin*house wrote:

Some sellers batch process their invoices and labels prior to packing. It may be a few days before that item actually makes it to the post office. When we create listings, we must enter in our processing time (eg same day, 1 day, 2 days, etc). eBay uses that time frame, along with approximately how long it should take to get to you, when it gives you an approximate delivery date. 

However, you are right. If it states "fast n free", we are required to ship the item by end of next business day after receiving payment. If the seller did not do that, you do have the option of giving a low rating on shipping speed. If their rating drops enough, they could loose some seller benefits.

On the flip side, as a seller that is totally **bleep** about shipping same day or next business day and one who stands and watches my post mistress scan every single package, I have had packages NOT show as being scanned for days and suddenly arrives at its destination before anything shows in tracking... Could be a possible glitch with USPS?

---

The bolded part is incorrect.  The seller can have more than a one day handling time and it show fast and free.  It just has to have an estimated delivery time of four business days or less   

[twnpopcards]

---

@t-man-x wrote:

Yeah, I guess if you're not bothered by buying stuff and waiting two weeks you'd be fine with whenever they wanted to send the item. I personally don't buy many things like that. 

Fact is that sellers only get away with that because they continually convince buyers that it's "glitches" that are causing the problem, but 19 times out of 20 they simply haven't mailed the item out of laziness. 

---

@t-man-x

I offer 1 day handling on all of my items and have managed to keep my record perfect by using a scan sheet that the mail carrier scans when he picks up my packages.  However,  when my regular carrier is not here the subs or whoever picks my items up do not scan when they are supposed to and if not for the relationship I have developed with my local PO I would have many late shipments for those times, but they do what needs to be done to get my scans in, even if they have to come and get a second copy of my scan sheet for the scans.  

There are constantly posts on here about post offices that refuse to scan packages and others that drop their items in the blue bins and the scans don't occur for 2-5 days later and they are getting late shipment defects for this.  It is a problem that Ebay has created with the required scans and they have now left it up to each individual seller to have to deal with, which is unfortunate considering the clout they supposedly have.

But as for glitches, they do occur quite often with both USPS and if you are looking at the tracking in Ebay, many times they are 2-3 days behind on what shows on USPS.com as their system has not updated the tracking information for whatever reason.  I also know that many times Ebay has a glitch that states things are fast and free even when they have a longer handling time or are actually charging shipping but as with most glitches that are not costing Ebay anything, they never seem to get fixed correctly.

I know there are some sellers who do not ship as quickly as they are supposed to and this new shipping metric is catching up to them as they lose their TRS standings and if their % is to high Ebay can even force them to change their handling times and/or shipping methods.  But the majority of sellers do ship when they are supposed to and the lack of scans by USPS and/or updates with EBay are causing many sellers to look bad.  I have had many packages that after acceptance and sort station scans then disappear for 5-7 days and then suddenly appear as delivered with no other scans due to USPS employees not doing their jobs.  Its frustrating but something that the sellers really have no control over.

David

Twnpopcards

[t-man-x]

Oh bull. Sellers on eBay have been pushing myths about the USPS for years to excuse the fact they're lazy about shipping. Gets old. Mail a package to a buddy 300 miles away it's there in 48 hours. Order off eBay 300 miles away, "Oh gosh I mailed it last week the post office is so bad these days!".

Once again I'm past the estimated delivery date with a seller and the package hasn't even been taken to the post office. This happens ALL THE TIME. And everybody's afraid to leave negative reviews because they're at 100% positive and don't want a seller screwing that up.

[fern*wood]

Buyers can't receive anything but positive feedback.

[Anonymous]

---

t-man-x wrote: I'm at the point I'm getting burned on this with at least one item I buy per week. I'm usually ordering stuff that is labeled "Fast and Free Shipping!" and the sellers don't even bother sending the item to the post office until the next week. 

---

It appears that one of your recent sellers received other buyer feedback comments about "slow shipping".

If purchasing time-sensitive items on eBay, I find it usually helps to review a seller's feedback received from buyers.  If unsure about their true shipping/handling time, try emailing them to determine 1) how quickly they respond; and 2) what they say about their shipping/handling time.

[couldabeenworse]

Once again I'm past the estimated delivery date with a seller and the package hasn't even been taken to the post office. This happens ALL THE TIME.

Some sellers have done that for years.  I recall a vaccum cleaner seller on the boards a while back complaining that UPS stopped allowing him to use labels he printed two weeks earlier because it was making UPS look bad.

On the other hand, there are many glitches in the tracking system.  I printed a label at 10am on friday, mailed 10 minutes later; checked tracking at noon and saw a message similar to your OP, but it stated that I created the label at 8PM - 8 hours in the future - and had not dropped it at the post office yet.  Worse yet, it showed Express 2 Day instead of 1 Day, which would have cost me the guarantee and delayed delivery by 3 calendar days.

A few hours later, tracking was all corrected, but had eBay sent the buyer all the original details, buyer might have jumped to a lot of incorrect conclusions.

So, if late shipping is an issue, I would be careful to check tracking for the Acceptance Scan before leaving appropriate feedback.

[ledz777]

I'm dealing with this right now, my seller says they shipped it last week. Today 7 days later it says it left their place yesterday.  The tracking tells the truth.  I'm a seller myself, when somebody buys something from me on a weekday, I get it to the PO as soon as I package it and put a lable on it. I have one post office with 2 employees where I live. Within a short time I drive over, send it,  and get my buyer a tracking number. I enter the tracking number and it shows where it is, blah blah blah. It usually gets there in three days.  Not to many of my buyers give me good feedback for this fast service. These sellers that say they sent it, then you see the PO never got the item 5 days later is not okay. I bought something last Wednesday, they printed the lable Friday, yet never took it to the PO, said it was sent. Monday says item still not at PO, holiday so it was closed. Today is the following Wednesday and it says, item was recieved at their hometown yesterday and is now being sent.  Give me a break, you mean they can get away with saying they sent an item last week and decide to take it over 7 days later, to me that is lazy and I am exposing them in my neutral feedback. There's no reason for this, and I keep reading on here how these people are saying that its the post office fault. I don't think so, there are tracking companies online that give you full detail of the history of the package and it says that the seller sent it out yesterday 7 days after my purchase. Sellers delievery time states 3 days on his auction and they are not keeping their promise.  Sorry I don't buy this and I would never do it to any of my buyers, you pay for something you should at least get it within 3-5 days. If you had this happen would you give postive feedback, or would you complain about slow shipping? 

[oaklandmaryland]

Ebay erroneously blames sellers for all shipping problems even not their fault so they can weed out sellers or begin to charge them higher fees.
Scanning is sometimes not done until item is delivered - I have had this happen often for parcel select and media packages.
Some items are must lost at the post office - this happened to me 2 months ago when I physically met with the postmaster 2x and she finally found the box sitting in the post office unscanned.
The mailman does not always scan items when he picks them up. My mailman used to tell me that he was too busy and that was the job of the clerk at the post office.
Often scanning is very late at the post office because it is not recorded until the scanner is actually docked
The items can be scanned wrong by clicking on the wrong button - In one day I had 23 items scanned as delivered to sender. This actually cost me several hundred dollars as Ebay returned their money even though most of them gave me feedback. Is this correct?
------------
Yes there are times that the seller does not mail the item until late or never at all. This is wrong but not always intentional. One time I scanned an item and it got shoved under a rug in my trunk and I never found it for 3 weeks. I immediately informed the buyer and sent him the original item and a free item as well. Not all sellers are scammers just like not all buyers are scammers. The few bad ones make this look bad for all.

[t-man-x]

Well my original point is that there are a ton of sellers who do stuff like: Wait several days, then print a label. Mark as shipped. Wait several days, then finally ship it. If they don't manage to lose it in that time. 

I've had several sellers mark something as shipped and the tracking says the Post Office is waiting on the item, then when I ask if it's going to ship soon they say they claim they shipped it several days ago and then a few hours later it magically says "accepted at Post Office". 

I've had several other times where the item indefinitely shows "Post Office awaiting item" and then the seller claims it was lost in the mail but they'll "send me a new one free of charge". 

Yet there are also a ton of sellers that when you buy from them 19 times out of 20 the tracking says "accepted at Post Office" within 24 hours. 

Here's the truth from my over 20 years dealing with the Postal Service for eBay and Amazon: if somebody claims to ship within 24 hours and several days later the item doesn't say "accepted at Post Office", 99 times out of 100 the seller simply didn't ship it in the manner they indicated they would. 

A recent item I ordered was on December 28th. Says "Fast'N'Free" shipping. Here it is 1/3/2018 and it hasn't been accepted at the Post Office yet. Got the "shipped" notification yesterday. So going on the 7th day and nobody's even bothered to stick it in a mail box. 

[inhawaii]

Then there's the age-old question .... why do sellers list something that isn't in their hand and ready to ship out immediately?  

[firstcoastcards]

What it means is the lazy postal worker that your seller handed the package to is to lazy to scan an acceptance on the package. It happens all the time...It sometimes happens later in the day and sometimes not at all....Ebay still doesn't seem to understane this concept....

[myangelandmyprincess]

---

@t-man-x wrote:

Well my original point is that there are a ton of sellers who do stuff like: Wait several days, then print a label. Mark as shipped. Wait several days, then finally ship it. If they don't manage to lose it in that time. 

I've had several sellers mark something as shipped and the tracking says the Post Office is waiting on the item, then when I ask if it's going to ship soon they say they claim they shipped it several days ago and then a few hours later it magically says "accepted at Post Office". 

I've had several other times where the item indefinitely shows "Post Office awaiting item" and then the seller claims it was lost in the mail but they'll "send me a new one free of charge". 

Yet there are also a ton of sellers that when you buy from them 19 times out of 20 the tracking says "accepted at Post Office" within 24 hours. 

Here's the truth from my over 20 years dealing with the Postal Service for eBay and Amazon: if somebody claims to ship within 24 hours and several days later the item doesn't say "accepted at Post Office", 99 times out of 100 the seller simply didn't ship it in the manner they indicated they would. 

A recent item I ordered was on December 28th. Says "Fast'N'Free" shipping. Here it is 1/3/2018 and it hasn't been accepted at the Post Office yet. Got the "shipped" notification yesterday. So going on the 7th day and nobody's even bothered to stick it in a mail box. 

---

It's going on the third business day   And where is it shipping from?  There has been lots of winter weather preventing travel 

[myangelandmyprincess]

By the way they don't mark it as shipped.   When they print a label eBay automatically marks it as shipped and sends a message saying it was shipped