Shipping problems

[kaskurgi]

Okay so apparently two people I purchased items from ebay are having USPS hand deliver items to my home address. It states that they were here today at 1:57pm and I was home. No one came anywhere near the house and there was no pink slip in the mail as I got the mail around 3pm. Now the one item has "Standard Shipping" as the sellers method of shipping and the other one has "Economy Shipping". I have bought items before in the past with both of these as the shipping method and I have Never had someone claim they left a notice and then on the tracking information say I have 15 days to pick up the item. It says it's delivery date is the 24th...that's Christmas Eve and I won't be home that day so I assume that will be attempt #2. LOL! Mind you the post office that it was sent to isn't even in my county....I sent a message to the one seller and informed him and kinda grilled him about it. Asking why I was told it was being shipped one way and not the one stated on the sale.

I need to get a hold of the other seller asking the same thing. To me this is pretty shady. So now Christmas Eve my plans are going to have to be rescheduled around two packages...I can't contact the USPS today and that automated system would not accept the delivery date for any day other then the 24th LOL. I just want to punch these two Ebay Sellers right now. Honestly had I known they were going to ship it like this and cause such a big hassle I wouldn't have purchased from them.

Anyone have any problems like this before? How did you resolve it? Any tips?

Here is his second response:

Hello!

It shipped USPS with tracking. Sorry that I can't help more, but there's not a lot I can do about the Post office - you should probably check with them on Monday when they open.

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If it was shipped like that how come they are trying to hand deliver it from a post office in another county? I am so lost ;(

[Sunshine]

That's really weird... but I actually just got a package in the mailbox yesterday that had a sticker on it saying that two attempts were already made, and one was already dated 12/21 and 12/24... It was delivered on the 21st... in the mailbox...

So I have no idea, our postal system is always whining and moaning about how people need to keep our postal system alive and yadda yadda yadda, and then they have stunts like this...

Though I also don't know what to say about the sellers shipping methods... but when I've not had slips, and had things say they were delivered it was because our old (now fired) mailman was a drunk, who sometimes didn't feel like delivering the mail, and NEVER wants to deliver mail to our house because we requested that they not drive up our driveway (because we have ducks/geese/chickens running around, and they always fly like 25mph up the darn thing...), so sometimes he just... doesn't deliver the mail. I hope that's not the case...

I hope this gets resolved for you soon and I'm so sorry you have to deal with it on Christmas Eve

[ponylady]

Yes, I am having a similiar issue but I was the seller.  The package was sent out December 11th.  Here is the tracking info posted below just to show you how screwed up this is, oviously it needs to be read bottom to top.

Depart USPS Sort Facility

2012-12-21, 00:00:00, MERRIFIELD, VA 22081

Processed through USPS Sort Facility

2012-12-20, 16:21:00, MERRIFIELD, VA 22081

Out for Delivery

2012-12-15, 12:43:00, WILSON, NC 27893

Sorting Complete

2012-12-15, 12:33:00, WILSON, NC 27893

Arrival at Post Office

2012-12-15, 04:19:00, WILSON, NC 27893

Depart USPS Sort Facility

2012-12-14, 00:00:00, GREENSBORO, NC 27495

Processed through USPS Sort Facility

2012-12-13, 20:51:00, GREENSBORO, NC 27495

Processed at USPS Origin Sort Facility

2012-12-11, 19:17:00, AKRON, OH 44309

Acceptance

2012-12-11, 12:10:00, WADSWORTH, OH 44281

Depart USPS Sort Facility

2012-12-11, 00:00:00, AKRON, OH 44309

The buyer contacted me to let me know but we are baffled. Because first of all it was sent to a depot in another county, not her's. Then it was was in limbo for four days before it gave an update, then it shows up in Virginia and the updates stop again. I have never in all my years on ebay had something like this happen, even at the holidays.

So something screwy is really going on with the PO right now.  I don't know if they were told not leave packages or what if noone is home and they don't fit in your mailbox.  But is definitely the posts fault not the seller's. I know in my situation there is not much I can do. 

The thing is in your case, Economy Shipping is considered Parcel Post, which is about the slowest shipping method there is.  Was the package your waiting for big? or expensive?  If so they could have added signature confirmation to it to ensure you received it.  I am not entirely sure just throwing my ideas and recent experience out there.

[Breyer600]

It's most likely the post office's fault and nothing to do with the way your sellers shipped.

I had a package that I got a slip on one time even though there was someone home - it was a day that we had a sub instead of our regular person delivering.  Instead of being told to pick it up at the closest post office that actually delivers our mail, I had to go halfway across town to the larger post office to get it. 

I've also had a situation similar to ponylady's where a package travelled all over for a couple of weeks before being delivered.  I wish I had saved a copy of it's route but as I recall it went from here in TN to TX (across town from the buyer actually), then to WV, over to OH, back to WV, back to OH, again to WV, then I think it made one more stop somewhere else before heading back to TX and being delivered.  We finally figured out that even though the address was correct on the package, the clerk that entered  the info into the computer had swapped the first two numbers of the zip code so that the bar code on the postage sticker was saying it belonged in WV and no one was actually reading the address on the package.  I had called customer service a number of times trying to get it back on track to TX, but I don't know if that helped any as it took several calls.

[kaskurgi]

Yeah I am going to call my local post office and go there first thing in the morning as well as call the post office it's supposedly at going to just run around to try to get them. It's apparently two packages. Both from ebay and one is my SDCC Pony Hooves...which I got dirt cheap but I don't want it to go back to the seller I am not paying for shipping again on either package because the PO messed up.

[Ringlets]

What a pain! it does sound like its the PO thats messed up rather than your sellers    I was going to ask if you had news of your parcels, but since its the holiday I dont think you will have been able to contact them yet have you?  The PO might be open today though