guaranteed delivery dates still being changed

[suzukitinkerer]

I buy a lot of things on ebay, and some have guaranteed delivery dates.  On several orders I have made, the guaranteed delivery date has been changed to a later date. on the day that it was it supposed to be delivered. The guaranteed delivery date is a laugh.  Why bother to give a guaranteed date if it means nothing?  I had a guaranteed delivery for today, and today it was changed to guaranteed two days later. So much for a guaranteed delivery date.

[greenhousefoliage]

It is not the sellers that are changing the delivery dates, it is the post office (and other shipping services).

A guaranteed delivery date is largely dependent on the shipping service the seller uses. After the seller gets the package sent on time, it is entirely up to the shipping service after that.

I don't know how Fed Ex and UPS has been doing lately but USPS is delivering almost everything late these days, especially to the southeast and Gulf Coast. I use USPS Priority Mail service, which is supposed to be a 'guaranteed'  2 or 3 day shipping time that has been taking 5 days or more lately. Commonly the tracking will give a 'guaranteed' delivery date and then on that date change the delivery date to a day or two later. Sometimes they just keep moving the goalposts.

[dbfolks166mt]

     I have made several comments about "guaranteed delivery" or even "estimated delivery" dates that eBay displays to the buyer. You are correct this is a joke since eBay has absolutely no control over the shipping process. If you are shipping USPS they will tell you the same thing, there is NO guaranteed delivery all the times are estimates with one exception and that is Priority Mail Express. If the item is shipped in this manner USPS honors the guaranteed delivery. If they fail to deliver on time they will refund 100% of the shipping cost. Be forewarned the cost to ship an item Priority Mail Express is exorbitant. 

     The combination of the eBay posted delivery dates and the shipping delays are presenting a number of problems for sellers and have opened up a new area for scammers. Scammers are watching the delivery dates and if the item does not arrive 1 day after the delivery date they are opening INR cases even though the items is still showing as in transit. Keeping with their policy eBay has been automatically refunding the buyer. At some point the item arrives and the buyer has his/her money back, the seller is out the cost of the item and the possibility of recovering from the loss is slim. 

[lja440]

There are some cold hard facts about delivery times.

#1  All of the carriers are running short staffed.

With Covid not only have we lost a high number of workers, the volume of packages has nearly tripled due to people ordering on-line instead of going to the store.  If you would have told me 5 years ago that half of my Jeep would be filled with cases of Cat Litter, Dog Food, TP and Monster energy drinks I would have looked at you like you were crazy. 

When Covid hit we had just FINALLY got a second sub in our 7 route office. Unfortunately 2 weeks in she found out she was pregnant, 2 weeks later Covid started and a week or two later the call for high risk people to stay home put her on the list to be taken out of the office along with several carriers with health issues or advanced age. We also lost a few when they contracted the virus. And since there could be no training they could not be replaced. 

#2  Compound this with at least for USPS the election mail which ALWAYS takes priority over EVERYTHING ELSE. 

#3  In addition DeJoy donated 2.5 million dollars to tRump and bought himself the Postmaster General position and started undermining the sorting centers by destroying multi million dollar equipment and laying off those that worked the machines (a good portion of who are veterans). By the way DeJoy holds between 35 and 70 million dollars of stock in USPS's competition (UPS) and has absolutly no Post Office experience.