I ordered an item for my favorite hobby item last month and after a couple of weeks it showed up in Canada Customs.
Thankfully, had the item sent as a trackable item.
Well, for what ever reason the parcel shows as sitting for the last two weeks in one of Canada Posts Sorting offices.
I checked with the local Post Office for advice and one of the workers told me that a lot of packages go missing, somehow the label falls off and they do not get delivered ever.
They do however end up at auction as something in a box, how much do you bid?
Apparently it is not cost effective to have Canada Post open these boxes and look for any documentation that may be in the box.
I was advised by a Canada Post spokesman from their online service that Canada Post would not do anything until April, that is when they would officially declare the parcel lost and send me notification that the parcel was not delivered and wend missing.
I can then send off a copy of that letter to the vendor and request reimbursement.
Different postal systems have different rules. There is a similar process here for making claims on the postal insurance.
Depending on the vendor, they may replace the lost item sooner, but generally they are under no obligation to do so. That’s why you want insurance or some other provision for loss. With ebay and paypal, you get similar protections, so that’s why it’s good to keep them in mind. Sometimes your credit card may cover such a loss, so that’s another possibility.
I had a ebay purchase package delivered by the USPS one time (confirmed by scan time), was home and even saw the post truck parked out on the street. By the time I checked the mail about 1/2 hour later, it had apparently been stolen by a passerby. The seller made good and replaced it.
I sent a check to Dallas last year via Priority Mail. It never arrived. There was a huge storm that flooded parts of the city about the time it was confirmed as arriving in Dallas, but then it was lost somewhere before delivery. USPS did eventually (after 30 days) refund the value of the Priority Mail I paid, because you get $50 of free insurance coverage when you buy Priority Mail shipping. I just wrote another check to the recipient.
Those are the only two issues in hundreds of mail and ebay transactions over the last couple of decades, including international mail to Canada and other locations. Things do happen, but I’ve found the postal service to generally do a good job at getting things delivered.
Same here- only one package that I’ve sent (out of 100’s) ever went totally missing, and that was a package sent to Russia! Customs showed it left the US, and it disappeared after that. The person I was sending to just shrugged it off, he said sometimes more of the pakages sent get stolen than delivered!
And I’ve had one in the US that CLAIMED the package wasn’t delivered- even though the USPS tracking said it had been. After he started the Paypal dispute he discovered his wife had received the package and left it on his workbench. He didn’t notice for a week that something was sitting there?
But back to the original problem- could you call the Customs office directly and see if they could help? If you furnish teh shippers name along with yours it seems they could at least take a look at the dead package room?
hi, well the package being traceable shows entering and then leaving Canada Customs. After Canada Customs finished checking the package it was then sent to Canada Post, so Canada Customs did their job and passed it to the Post Office.
Was surprised to learn that packages that lost their labels were not eventually opened by Post Office staff.
Many vendors/shippers include copies of the ordering information such as who the parcel was being mailed to.
But that is not the case, however they do an auction every year where each and every package is a mystery package?
I sent a package via USPS Priority Mail to my daughter in North Carolina two weeks ago. The package was supposed to have been delivered on a Tuesday; the postal carrier reported it as delivered. The package was a large flat rate box, which doesn’t fit in her apartment box, or the package drop that her apartment provides. She previously has had to pick up large packages at the aparment office. Neither the apartment manager or the local post office know what happened to the package. As the carrier marked the package as delivered, I cannot file an insurance claim.
In the future, I will require her to sign for all of her packages…
I can tell you that some times the post office mis-delivers mail. I’ve had mail in my box for neighboring townhouses - must be a brain fart or something. I can see how if a post office marks a parcel as delivered that had tracking, it could be marked delivered and yet to a wrong address like what I’ve seen in my area. If the person who got it didn’t drop it down a few door numbers or do the right thing and give it back to the PO to re-deliver, it’s not hard to see how this might happen.
When I send a package, I cover the shipping label with clear strapping tape that is extensively applied. The label cannot be lost. Defaced. Perhaps.
It takes time to open a package, investigate, perhaps repackage, and deliver. While auctioning a package actually may turn a profit. There is no financial incentive to do the right thing.
In a more local similar situation: I had tool boxes stolen. Every year, the police auction recovered stolen property. The police never contacted me for a walk-through to see if I recognized anything.
I have received a few parcels that were not mine. A couple I hand delivered as they were only a few houses away. A couple I returned to the post office, wrong street, wrong address. The parcels were not the only items beng misdirected, mail for the neighbours houses being put in my mailbox is not that common, but does happen periodically. The posties when organizing their mail put the items in postal code order, they do not read the address on mostof the items they are carrying.
Once I was tracking a parcel on line and it showed the current status as being out for delivery, after lunch I was waiting for the parcel as that time is my usual parcel delivery time (give or take). I checked the online status and it said delivered. I looked outside and there was no parcel.
I phoned the post office and be coincidence the driver was talking to the person who answered the phone. The driver remember the parcel as it was just about 5 ft high and the box was 2 ft width and 3ft in depth.
The driver went and fetched the parcel, it was left on someone’s porch.
The driver brought me the parcel and when I asked just where the parcel got delivered, it was on the other side of town, the driver just shrugged.
Decades ago I ordered a remote and a teleconverter for my camera from one of the camera shops in New York. They were sent separately because they didn’t have one in stock. One parcel arrived OK, but no sign of the other one. Waited for some time and contacted the store who sent me a US Mail claim form. I filled it out and received payment some time later. What’s really surprising is that the missing parcel did show up a few months later! No indication where it had been. So I got my item for nothing, except for some aggravation.
I sent something with a bad address (my fault) It returned to Baltimore, where it sat for 2 weeks, via tracking. I asked them to look for it, they said they couldn’t find it. A month later I tracked it to the “Mail Recovery Center” aka the dead letter office
The MRC is beyond mere mortals. The only way to communicate with them is to have your postmaster fill out a form. They don’t have to answer, and they didn’t. It was not insured, unfortunately.
At least once a year I send or am sent something that is returned Addressee unknown, or moved no forwarding address or unknown address. None of these are true and there is no accountability.
A couple of years ago, near Christmas, I ordered some books from Amazon. They were shipped Fedex Smartpost, which means that Fedex ships it most of the way, then turns it over to USPS for final delivery. IN this case, it came from the west coast, and Fedex delivered it to a USPS sorting facility in Northhampton, MA which is near the W. Springfield intermodel yard. Fedex tracking showed it delivered, but USPS tracking did not show it arriving. After a week, I contacted Amazon and Fedex. They and USPS did a search, but found nothing. Amazon replaced the shipment. More than a month later the box arrived. My guess is that it fell off a conveyor somewhere in the sorting facility, and during the holiday rush it did not get found until a cleanup some time later.
In another case another shipmemt (UPS or Fedex I don’t remember which) was shown out to delivery, and never arrived. I called Customer Service who said the local office would contact me, which they did, saying that the driver would call me when he returned to the office. So I decided to take a look around the neighborhood as a storm was coming that night. I found the pacakge by a neighbor’s garage door; they had left for Forida for the winter. The driver did call, and I told him that I had found it
Have not had that happen BUT I have had them loose an entire street before. We built a subdivision. Atfirst all went well and they delivered to the first few homeowners and then about the fifth Home owner they lost the street and couldnt find it to deliver the mail ! Yep and Goverenment and the IRS want to run my health care ! Scares the living you know what out of me !
I have not had them “loose” any of packages, they have all been securely wrapped and taped. [swg]
They have, however, lost a package. (So, they do lose things.)
They had delivered it to the wrong house, my uncle up the road had gotten it… They seen the last name on the package, and delivered it there. Right last name, wrong first name, wrong house… So, I still got it, just not from USPS directly.
I told him he really needed to bill them for delivery, as they make way more than he does an hour. [:P]
I just got off the phone with Amazon. While checking my orders, one was marked as “Delivered” but I didn’t see any packages anywhere near my house.
Your package was delivered. It was handed directly to a resident.
The delivery was signed by: CARLOS
Well, I’ve lived in this house 35 years and I’ve never met Carlos!
So I clicked the UPS tracking number and it seems the package was delivered to Paterson, NJ! I live in Cleveland, Ohio!!
Amazon had no explanation but I’ll bet Carlos was surprized to get four pounds of cat treats!
I’m still scratching my head over this one. I probably get more than 200 packages a year from Amazon. How this one got sent to Paterson, NJ is anybody’s guess.
My experience is that very little actually gets lost in the mail. I think it is more common for people to blame the Post Office as an excuse than that it actually happens. Having said that I didn’t receive my copy of the December RMC and had to contact White River to get a replacement sent which of course they did.
My problem is not that things get lost but that the UPS drivers will hide things if they deliver them while I’m not home. Rather than just putting the package on the front porch where I’m sure to see it, they will hide it somewhere next to the garage where I might not see it for a week or more. This is very problematic because I order quite a bit of perishable food from QVC and the dry ice will only keep it frozen for a couple days. After that the food begins to go bad. Fortunately QVC’s customer service is top drawer and they have always taken care of the problem.