@gurlcat wrote:
@valueaddedresource Curious what your thoughts are on this, since you have a pulse on numerous online seller platforms, all of which must be experiencing it. What I'm especially curious about is WHY the USPS started adding the "to agent for final delivery' wording in their delivery scans. I can only guess it was a CYA decision, to thwart their own problems with people claiming they didn't get things they ordered. But with Ebay being so slow to keep up with this change, there are sellers losing sales revenues to buyers who very quickly figured out this was an INR refund opportunity.
And here's another question (which I don't expect you know the answer to, but maybe you know people to ask) -did the USPS not only adopt the added wording but also change the "signal" (whatever kind of data transmission) that goes to whatever Ebay software recognizes stages of shipping? What I mean is, USPS already had variously-worded delivery statuses ("in/at mailbox" "left with individual" "front door/porch" etc) and Ebay has always translated them as 'Delivered' period, for as long as I know anyway. So what is it about this new one that makes it not trigger 'Delivered' translation, and why on Earth can't they program the software to do so??? I mean you can see how many times we've @'d mods about it.
One more thing you probably don't know but I'll ask anyway -why doesn't the USPS tracking state the ADDRESS delivered to? If they at least did that, contacting CS to save ourselves from fraudulent INR's would be a lot easier than trying to explain what FF's are and how this is how the USPS is now blah blah blah. Rather, we could just say "See, it says delivered to the same address that the buyer provided."
Thanks for the tag @gurlcat - you're right, some of that I don't know the answer to, but I'll reach out to some contacts and see if I can find any more info.
I don't know why USPS changed this particular status message/update on tracking, but I believe you are correct as far is it changing the "signal" to eBay.
Don't have insight into the exact specifics of how it's programmed but it's likely eBay "maps" USPS status message to their own internal status settings with some kind of logic that basically says "if status from USPS is x, show status y on eBay."
If that is the case, then when there is a status message from USPS that doesn't have a corresponding eBay status assigned, the logic fails and it doesn't get updated to "delivered" on eBay.
I would think it shouldn't be difficult to simply add "delivered to agent for final delivery" to the list and map it as "delivered" like the other status messages, but there may be complications in play we aren't aware of - especially when eBay is weighing out whether that means the buyer actually received the item and what eBay's potential liability might be for INR claims as a result.
As far as I'm concerned it should be a pretty clear cut case, just like your examples of "in/at mailbox" "left with individual" "front door/porch" etc.
devon@ebay is there an updated timeframe on a fix for this issue?
As far as why they don't reveal the full address when you track a package, it's for privacy (and liability) reasons. Bad actors can purchase tracking data in bulk on the dark web (I suspect how some of the "same zip code" fraud operates) or use technology to cycle through many permutations of potential tracking numbers to see if they are "real".
If the carriers exposed full addresses to any random person who just happens to plug a real tracking number in to their site, that would open up all kinds of potential for bad things to happen and for the carriers to be found liable if it does.
