eBay label has the wrong tracking number

[imapaqrat]

First I'd like to say I've been selling for over 20 years on eBay. I have shipped 10s of thousands of items via eBay label, just so you know that I know what I'm doing.

I have attached copies of the order & the shipping label; with the customer information deleted.

On Monday the shipping label eBay printed has a completely different tracking then what is in eBay.

My postal carrier gave it back to me because the barcode and tracking number were invalid. He scan my packages during pick up. I told him I would check on the number.

It isn't even close to being the right tracking number. The name and address are both correct.

I am hoping this is some Monday the 13th Fluke. Anybody else ever have this happen?

I Hope You & Yours Are Staying Health!
Sincerely,
Bruce "ImaPaqRat" Fisher
Remember: People don't stop playing because they grow old; they grow old because they stop playing! So, NEVER STOP PLAYING!

[imapaqrat]

As of 6/27/2020 I have now had 4 eBay labels that have printed with gibberish and the completely wrong tracking number.  One of the labels even had a letter in the tracking number.

Am I the only one seeing this?

So far eBay's only answer has been to print a new label.  That is an expensive and time consuming work around eBay.

I hate how eBay customer support will not give any information about fixes that are being worked on.  For all I know nobody is even working on a fix.

[imapaqrat]

Here are the labels with the addresses blanked.

[coco9619]

---

@imapaqrat wrote:

So far eBay's only answer has been to print a new label. That is an expensive and time consuming work around eBay.

Here are the labels with the addresses blanked.

---

You do not need to print new labels; those labels will work just fine, and USPS won't have even an inkling of the gibberish as your labels head to Virginia and Oregon for delivery.

That's probably why eBay is ignoring it: Once it was reported to tech, they looked at the problem, and it's wrong but doesn't need to be fixed. Seriously, just mail them.

[picknparley]

What's with the misspelled word 'TCARKING' on the label? 

The First Class line also has characters out of order.

The text above the barcode is also botched. 

I can't believe this is a usable label. 

[imapaqrat]

It's not a usable label.  That is my concern.  I now have to audit every batch of labels I print to make sure eBay hasn't created what I call a Gibberish label.

What should take me 5 minutes, now can take up to an 30 minutes, depending on if the labels are correct.

[imapaqrat]

Sorry but I'm not OK with just ignoring an obvious bug in the eBay Label printing system and assuming the barcode is OK.

eBay needs to fix the problem.

4th screwy label attached and it takes 1st place in the Gibberish Award.

[dtexley3]

brian@ebay I just don't have the energy to comment on the state IT at eBay anymore.  I'm so glad my sales on other platforms continue to grow as eBay continues to flounder.

[imapaqrat]

It is becoming a very frequent bug. 

5th Label.  Yes the barcodes seem to be fine, but is the all we can expect?

[nocoolnamejane]

Looks more like a corrupted printer driver to me

[wastingtime101]

You've probably tried this already - but what happens when you go to a different browser and use the option to reprint the label? Does it come out the same way?

[kcastore]

Yes, I'm experiencing the same problem here. Funnily, this started only when I switch to bulk printing. Before, I print shipping labels one by one, and didn't notice if there were any problems. Maybe there were, maybe there weren't.

My symptoms are:

1. Everything shows on screen is fine, but the print-out results were wrong. Not all labels are wrong, some of them. I'd say 30%.

2. A few days ago, the names and addresses and even the text "USPS Tracking Number" would be printed gibberish.

3. But the above symptom disappeared a few days ago. What's happening now is the tracking number. The bar code seems to be fine, but the tracking numbers are like random numbers.

Again, everything showing on screen is fine. Only when printed out it got wrong.

[a_c_green]

---

@nocoolnamejane wrote:

Looks more like a corrupted printer driver to me

---

Right. 

Does the label look correct in the on-screen preview? If not, can you change to printing to PDF, and does that improve it?

If the label does look correct in preview but comes out wrong from the printer, does the selected printer named in the on-screen preview match the actual device generating the label?

If all else fails, I would delete the printer from the computer, reboot, and then do a fresh install of the printer and its drivers. Right now the document to be printed is generated assuming fonts or font resources that the printer does not have. For example, characters that are out of position on the page may be landing there either because the printer does not have the correct width information for the characters being printed, or because the document is calling for one font but the printer is substituting another. 

[imapaqrat]

I've been officially warned by eBay that I've violated some rule by including tracking numbers.  Not sure how a tracking number, without the address puts anybody at risk.

Screw it.  If eBay doesn't care that they are creating gibberish labels, why should I.

I'm done trying to help them.

[a_c_green]

---

@imapaqrat wrote:

I've been officially warned by eBay that I've violated some rule by including tracking numbers.  Not sure how a tracking number, without the address puts anybody at risk.

---

Technically, the tracking number can be used by ne'er-do-wells and ragamuffins to get the source or destination address from USPS by asking a USPS employee to retrieve the details from their intranet. After that, Something Bad is supposed to happen. 

All that aside, can you give us a little more insight on the questions that have been asked in several postings above? It looks like a printing issue relating to your hardware.

[bwbphoto]

I have 4 accounts and use 4 browsers. I am only seeing this with Firefox. VERY frustrating. I'm sure that a bunch of my undelivered packages were a result of this. One day it is 1 of 15. Another it was 12 in a row. Today it was all starting with 9100 instead of 9400 (the rest of the numbers were wrong also), so I saved as PDF and reprinted. Tracking correct, but over half were missing random numbers and letters in address and zip code. CRAZY.