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Notes on the USPS
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Author:  dhalem [ Thu Dec 24, 2009 12:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Notes on the USPS
As some of you may know, I won an eBay auction for a Steelfish GMT last Wednesday, 12/16. The seller notified my on 12/17 that she had shipped it via Priority Mail from Wisconsin, insured. She provided me a "tracking number" that began with the letters "VI". She told me the USPS told her it would arrive here on Monday.

Well, here we are a week later and no watch. It turns out the tracking number is an insurance number that cannot be used for tracking. When you ship something Priority Mail, you have to pay an extra $0.80 to get tracking if you pay for it at the Post Office. If you buy the postage online, which I always do, it gets a tracking number for free.

If you try calling the USPS and giving them the insurance number, they won't be able to tell you anything. If you go to the Post Office, they *may* be able to tell you a little bit of information, like when it was actually handed over to them. Otherwise you have to wait 21 days until you can initiate a search for the package.

The lesson here is to make sure that you always get a "Delivery Confirmation" number for your packages, and make sure to ask your sellers to get one and provide it.
Author:  9 iron [ Thu Dec 24, 2009 1:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Notes on the USPS
It's Christmas, shipping times are slow. I've done tons of shipping with USPS and when you insure something it's extremely likely to arrive intact, confirmation or not. They don't want to have to pay the claims for loss or damage. And, tracking for priority mail won't tell you where it is or give you an estimated delivery time like FedEx or UPS, it'll only tell you that it's been shipped and then that it's been delivered, so it's not all that helpful except as to prove eventual delivery. You wouldn't really know any more than you know now if you had the confirmation.
Author:  dhalem [ Thu Dec 24, 2009 1:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Notes on the USPS
I'm not sure of that. I had something else shipped Priority Mail from South Carolina to California. It was shipped on Saturday 12/19 and arrived 12/21.

And the USPS has improved their tracking info a lot. Take a look at the data for the above mentioned package:
http://trkcnfrm1.smi.usps.com/PTSIntern ... 1984785584

But once again, my main point is make sure to get the delivery confirmation number. The insurance number is useless for tracking.
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