"Importance of tracking numbers." Topic

I am going to leave the name of company out of this – as it wasn't their fault.

In Mid-April I made a small order (about 55pounds) from a company in England. I live in Calif USA. I have ordered directly from them without problem before.

It seemed to be taking too long to arrive. I originally just attributed this to fun with Covid and just tried to be patient. After awhile, I decided it was past time and took a closer look at my Paypal invoice.
I found a Royal Mail tracking number I hadn't noticed before. I ran it and found that my package arrived at my small town (pop 300) post office almost a month ago, but was never marked as delivered. Upon further investigation, my local postal employee found it, apparently had fallen off a cart unnoticed and lay behind something.

Moral of the story:
The lost figures have been found.
Tracking numbers matter

They help except when they deliver to the wrong address and point to the tracking number and say "you received it.". Had that more than any other issue.

I've signed up for the USPS informed delivery service (free!!) and now get an e-mail every delivery day with what can be expected – from bills (ugh!) to letters to packages. Plus I get package tracking notices via e-mail and cell phone texts. That way I know if a package is really making its way to me or is stuck in a distribution point or in a trailer somewhere.

So far the only thing missing so far once I got on this system is an issue of "Wargames, Soldiers, & Strategy" magazine that supposedly made it to Mississippi but has disappeared. Jasper at Karwansaray Publishers is mailing a replacement.

Jim

Always save the order number and do tracking, more to know when to run to mailbox as never had a problem yet.

I love tracking numbers. I get so much enjoyment watching my packing moving thru the system.

Other side of the story, a few years ago a woman came to my door with a small flat rate box that she found on the street. Everything was in good shape. Thank god no one had run over the box. It must have fallen off the mail truck somewhere in the neighborhood.

It's great when you have tracking numbers, but sometimes they aren't offered.

Same thing happened to me as an order got lost in the mail. As I had no tracking number, it is gone. At least it was a fairly small purchase. I'll re-order once the mail sorts itself out crossing the Atlantic.

I had a package left on my doorstep the other day and the courier sent me a photo of it sitting there with the time it was delivered!

My experience with tracking numbers is that they allow a postal supervisor to be able to tell me that they don't have my package, nor do they have any idea where it is at or what happened to it.

They are great when everything is working correctly.

I ordered a package from Germany. It took over 6 months to get to TX. I've ordered from the same company before and it never took more than 30 days.

Seller sent me the tracking number. German post said it was in the US. USPS tracking said they never got it, even after it was finally delivered.

While I was still waiting, I tried to contact USPS via their online service request. Yeah, that was helpful. Never received a response, even to tell me they weren't going to bother looking for it.

Tracking systems or no (and let's be clear – I love tracking systems), there is no substitute for a competent, enthusiastic seller with a moral compass and a commitment to customer service and communications.

Engaged, reasonable proprietors are both easy to find and fun to do business with, and worth their weight in hobby gold. They pop up here and on other forums all the time, with thanks (and patronage) from the community far and wide.

All the best ones I know use tracking systems of some kind, the only real hiccup being those times when international shipments get passed from one national carrier to another.

Well said!

The USPS
Losing your stuff since 1775

(& I have 2 in-laws that work for them)

I had an email that an ebay package was delivered by the USPS, but nothing at the door. When the mailman went back the other way, I asked him about it, and gave him the tracking number. After a while, I saw the truck go back down the road, then return back to our house. They tracked that it had been delivered to a house further down the road that had received several packages that day. I was impressed with his effort.

andy

I too have found tracking numbers mostly helpful in telling me no one has any idea where my package might be or when it will be delivered. (And when they tell me my package in some out of state warehouse where the USPS is aging it like wine, I have absolutely no way to verify the claim.)

Better to have them than not, I suppose. But personally my knowledge of one has never speeded up delivery or recovered a lost package.

I occasionally get entertainment from them. Watching a package running back and forth across the country with occasional stops here in town before the next detour can be SOOOO much fun. The package in question was shipped from about 300 miles away and took over 3 weeks to arrive.

The fun part is when you can see them get close to you--next state over, say--then they change their minds and go back to the UK.

Pre-tracking numbers of the electronic kind, there was signature tracking, as in you verifying legally "I received this." Missing a book order once, I inquired of Canada Post. "You signed for it", they said, a bit annoyed, and mailed me a photocopy of my John Henry. Upon receiving it, I mailed back my actual signature, and my actual address: the John Henry belonged to someone with my last name who lived three provinces and 2,000 miles away. Restitution followed.

Tracking numbers ARE important, as is a POD.

However, with the USPS, the latter isn't really worth more than the paper it is written on, or the bits/bytes in the ether.

I got a POD for one purchase that I was able to confirm was delivered to another city, more than an hour away, with no relation to my mailing address or zipcode.

When I first inquired with the USPS about it, and retrieval of said package, so that it could actually be delivered to the intended address, I was told nothing could be done. I was shocked and dismayed.

I raised holy hell with the on-line people, my local P.O., and the shipper (I was actually much nicer to the latter).

The local P.O. was dumb-founded as to how a POD to a completely different address more than 60 miles away could be confirmed as "delivered" to my address, which wasn't even in close in name or number to where it was delivered. They attempted to throw eBay under the bus and blame them, even though it was their POD and personnel responsible for the "non-delivery" delivery.

I was home on the day of "delivery", and we have a mail lockbox too, for packages.

Not sure which had the most impact, but about 10 days or so later, I eventually got the item, even though originally the on-line postal people said nothing could be done to retrieve the misdelivered item, which I found to be astounding.

I wasn't too worried, since I had requested insured Priority Mail delivery, and had paid with Paypal. I was worried for the original shipper though.

Thankfully, in my case everything worked out, but I suspect that may not be the norm, given issues in the past with some shipments.

I also had one order placed in the UK, years ago, never arrive.

I inquired with the seller and found out that for some reason, it never left the UK.

I eventually canceled that order, and received a refund from the seller, since I considered the distribution process to be a little too dicey at that point in time to proceed further.

I didn't have tracking on that shipment, but apparently the seller was able to get some action on his end. so it isn't just the USPS that is the problem.

Exchanging shipments across multiple distribution services/companies seems to exacerbate the problems in the delivery chain.

Then there is this:

;-)

Fred Mills:

The phrase is "John Hancock" as in signer of The Declaration of Independence" whose signature is easily twice as big as the others. Legend has it,, he wanted to make sure the King could read it without his spectacles.

John Henry was a "steel driving man" of American myth.

Korvessa, my mistake, with thanks for the lesson/reminder!!

I will also have to correct past errant usages of Jerry Doe, Jonah H. Public, and 'John, Dick, and Harry'. :-)

The keyboard races; the editing gods come close behind. Thankfully!

Fred no worries
It is a common enough mistake – made it myself numerous times when I was younger!