eBay standard envelope shipping not arriving

[wonder]

Forgive me if this has been addressed, but it has been very disturbing to see purchases not arrive to me at all on an ever increasing basis.

Oh, according to ESE tracking they have been delivered, but not to my home. For a long time this was explained to me that the limited tracking was from regional mail center to regional mail center. But I have been questioning more and more whether postal employees are actually using this limited tracking to enjoy a side hustle generating source of income.  Why do my purchases arrive at a regional area mail center and then vanish off the radar, undelivered to their final destination. Is it just my area that is experiencing this? Man I'm tired of it but there is no way to stop this if people want to be unscrupulous. What can be done?

[12345jamesstamps]

Must be your area...your address or your mailbox or something.

I have sent items out not even using ESE and haven't lost anything in years from the USPS.

I have had no problems mailing anything to the state of Washington.

[buyselljack2016]

ESE is just a metered letter for a "low-cost" item. What do you think is "unscrupulous"?

Do you think someone is risking their job snagging items valued at less than $20? 

[bdmh-enterprises]

I also have a 99+% delivery rate with ESE and after 25+ years of mailing cards I can safely say it's incredibly rare for USPS to lose letter mail.

I would suggest going to USPS com and signing up for "Informed Delivery". This will provide you with daily emails that have photos of all the letter mail you should be receiving that day including ESEs. If something shown in the email doesn't arrive, you can go to the web site and there's a box to check for each item to mark it as 'Not Received'. This supposedly alerts the local PO to look for it.

[fm2000]

The people you are buying from may be using top loaders, which can cause problems. If they are disappearing at the sort centers, they may jamming the sort equipment or causing other problems, and that may be a reason why.

If you don't get your items, simply fill out an INR and you will be refunded. If it doesn't arrive, it is the seller's responsibility and you will be made whole by eBay.

[quicksilverdiecast]

I have also noticed an increase in USPS losing ESE shipping I have 3 right now and is becoming a problem...and here is the best part..a buyer files a claim and follows its normal course and is refunded as should be, now it is insured for a 20 spot so now the case is closed and refunded as it is determined as "lost" which means the seller should be able to file with ebay for the insured loss...and collect...ahhh not so....ebay makes you wait 30days BEFORE you can file a claim!!!...which makes no sense...are they waiting to see if it does get delivered...while they have already made the seller refund and paid out...well what if it does get delivered..does ebay monitor that and refunds the seller back as it was delivered!  2 chances there...I sat back and watched when they rolled this out as I knew it was bound to have issues which it did, and figured I would try it and has been working fairly good till the last couple weeks., it seems to change on what they consider 20.00 including shipping or not including shipping ....if more start popping up., will dump ESE.

[worldcoinauctions]

I've had to refund a couple buyers for this same situation, but shortly it will be 30 days from the sale and I will ask ebay to refund me on their ESE guarantee.

[wonder]

Yesterday I received an email that informed me that I had received two packages yesterday. So I go get the mail and there is only one package there. It had been shipped via USPS Ground Advantage. The other package had been shipped via ESE and was NOT there. Ebay says it was delivered via their tracking but I never got it. 

So this morning I called USPS Customer Service and explained the situation. The agent I talked to had no clue what an ESE was and when I gave her the tracking number she had no record of it. Case closed. Nothing she could do for me.

Now, someone asked me below whether I thought someone would risk their job for a card valued under $20? Yes, it wouldn't surprise me. And they probably wouldn't stop at just one card. There is a pandemic of dishonesty in our society and morality is in short supply, in case you haven't noticed.

My brother used to work as a janitor in the post office for many years before he retired. You wouldn't believe the things he saw going on there with regards to the our sacred mail. So if you think our postal workers are cut above you better think again. They are as human as the rest of us.

About six months ago I received a USPS Ground Advantage padded envelope package that looked like some machine had gotten to it and had ripped it wide open. The contents were gone. It should have had a $70 card I had purchased in it but it was not there. So I took the opened package up to my local post office and had a very respectful conversation with the station chief. She agreed a machine had gotten to it. My final question to her was "what happens to the contents of packages that were ripped open?" She said they were supposed to be saved somewhere. So I gave her a very clear picture of the contents and asked her to enquire about it. She kindly said she would and would get back to me if she heard anything. You think I heard anything at all? No way. So the question remains. WHAT HAPPENED TO IT? I don't think it vanished into thin air, and I don't think it got destroyed. 

[wonder]

If there is no way of catching them, yes! Read my lengthy reply above. This garbage is happening all over the country.

[wonder]

Thanks. Will do.

[wonder]

Thanks. I always get a refund, but I would rather have the card. That's why it is so frustrating.

[12345jamesstamps]

A lot of my items have no tracking and are in a standard envelope...so I am guessing most employees think there is nothing valuable in them...shipping labels tend I would think someone would think something of valuable is in envelopes...big label...metered mail...looks like a check maybe to some.

Just a thought. Could be why I haven't had anything lost in years.

I use certified , priority  mail or registered mail with tracking sometimes.

I never had used a shipping label from eBay.

[bdmh-enterprises · Accepted solution]

"So this morning I called USPS Customer Service and explained the situation. The agent I talked to had no clue what an ESE was and when I gave her the tracking number she had no record of it."

This is because the term ESE and the ESUS tracking # are exclusive to eBay. ESE is letter mail and uses data from the Intelligent Mail Barcode found under the address of all letter mail. Internally this data is used by the USPS for sorting and things like Informed Delivery. But large companies (like eBay and banks for example) use their own IMBs and the data provided to them by USPS sorting machines can be used to provide ESE "tracking" or know that your credit card was delivered. This data is effectively only accessible by the end user, eBay in this case.

I know this won't help you get your cards but hopefully will give you a better understanding of how the system works.

Are you able to catch you carrier and ask them in person about the missing items?

I'm curious if you're in a rural/less populated area? I've often wondered if there's a correlation between available tech and/or distance from sort center and early "delivered" scans.

[buyselljack2016]

I've had about a dozen of these come in. They, as has been posted show "delivered" when they process at the regional facility. Some of mine had that status days before they got to my rural mailbox.

These envelopes have very minimal employee contact. They would be handled by machinery. The mail that I get would be presorted in "delivery point sequence" and once processed at the regional facility, would be untouched until the carrier delivers it to my mailbox.  

[wonder]

I live in a city with a population of 100,000.