USPS Lost 100+ Shipments
Anyone who has shipped with USPS and has had a problem knows the nightmare of their customer service. We get a daily pickup by a USPS Mail truck. Our packages go straight to downtown St Louis at the regional sorting facility where they will receive their first package scan. Unfortunately, it appears that after 8 days now having been shipped Friday, January 6th, the entire pickup of over 100 packages is lost. At a minimum, they have gone missing. At this point, even if found, it may do more harm than good as order are starting to receive refunds. My question, how long do we have to cancel a shipping label purchased through Amazon? If they label is cancelled, will USPS return the packages to us?
74 replies
Seller_pBEwo8CxxHc63
100 packages lost?
I dont know, I’d be calling my postmaster.
Canceling a label after shipment is officially postal fraud, just sayin.
Seller_olet7eVOHxQZd
Canceling the labels will do nothing. The packages will still move through the system (when they are found).
I would get your local Postmaster on the phone come Tuesday. Remember that Monday is a postal holiday.
Seller_49pAMBSPEe6HX
Southern hospitality. Up in the northeast they won’t even talk to you.
Seller_oKmJV0C8o3RF0
USPS carriers are paid to scan all the packages at time of pickup. If you have 100 at your address or 1 at over 100 addresses on his/her route. It is done at my business and in my City. For example, USPS picks up at Kohls hundreds of packages and the carrier scans every one when they pick them up. That is their job and USPS policy. Now with USPS Local Connect it is extremely vital packages are all scanned. USPS future is package delivery with Local Connect and UPS wants out of residential package delivery.
Seller_v464qaa51kUSi
I live in St Louis, and this happens to us all the time as well. We are then accused of being a fraudulent company that prints labels without mailing the books. It is most annoying because even when using Amazon Shipping, we’re required and heavily debited with Amazon metrics for customers not receiving items, and then we have to refund them ourselves. It is most unfair. I would say that we’re close to 50 or more in the last year. I never thought to try to get a refund from the post office for failed shipping labels but now maybe I will try to see if I can at least get a refund from USPS…
Seller_GmN5rpIBX0Dj7
I am not following this story.
Did you have a scan sheet or not?
Also, what do you mean it’s picked up by the truck that drives around to the various post offices to pick up their mail? That’s done by semi……how would you even schedule something like that. They aren’t even allowed to do that.
Some of you have lousy post offices. No post office should ever be refusing to scan packages because of the volume. You need to report them if they do. We need to get these crappy apples out of USPS because that’s not policy.
However, that’s assuming you DO use a scan sheet. If you aren’t and are mailing that many packages….then you are the one who is out of touch. That would be akin to going to the store and paying for a $200 purchase with pennies. The scan sheet is the most basic thing there is.
We’ve had an issue like this or two but I am friends with our postmaster and I have actual cell phone numbers of supervisors at the regional sort facility our mail goes to. If I ever have an issue, I just text them. I don’t mess around with my livelihood.
If I were you, I would reprint all of those labels and get ready to ship them again if need be. I would also drive to St. Louis and get answers. They just don’t lose 100 packages like that….one of them had to be scanned somewhere. That’s the great thing about the scan sheet….it automatically updates all packages on that scan sheet when one gets a scan.
Seller_oKmJV0C8o3RF0
This is true. We have family that work at our local post office. You are referring to in USPS World as “collections” that occur. We have a 2 ton here as well that picks up the businesses and yes does scan the packages as prepaid acceptance on collections. We have 2 collection routes here. Every package out of a blue collection can is also scanned as well as picked up. This is the USPS policy that should be followed and if not they are not following USPS policy to try to save time. The carriers union should be filing a grievance if management is instructing the carriers to not scan the packages when picked up.
Seller_WbJTIc6vxdply
Maybe yours doesn’t but ours does, without us even having to ask. Usually well over 150 packages.
Only takes him 10 minutes how we have them all laid out.
They understand the issue of Amazon not viewing an order as shipped on time if the package doesn’t get a physical scan by midnight on the ship by date.
We usually transport our packages to our local PO ourselves though.
Use a scan form if you want, doesn’t make a difference to my business.
Seller_WbJTIc6vxdply
But a scan sheet isn’t a physical scan and if the package disappears you’re SOL. Our USPS shipments rarely reach the plant before midnight so if they didn’t scan all our packages individually at pickup or drop off we’d have to add an extra handling day to our orders to allow enough time for our packages to hopefully make it to the plant where they’d maybe be scanned.
We also have plenty of orders that get all the way to the customer’s local PO before being scanned again so it’s absolutely imperative that packages get scanned in individually.
Seller_vCnXndegmTZZ6
Actually Post Office’s do NOT have to scan your parcels as being accepted. Whether or not they scan each parcel is up to each stations Post Master (General Manager). I spent close to 6 months last year trying to make my local Post office scan my parcels and I was told by the Post Master General’s office in DC that local Post Masters can refuse to scan parcels as being accepted.
Seller_49pAMBSPEe6HX
You must be living in some out the way boondocks or down south. Here in New York the same carrier has been picking up at the local UPS store for years and he never scans the packages. Never. The first scan you get is when it hits the regional hub. Maybe.
Seller_GmN5rpIBX0Dj7
I mean, yeah, you are SOL if the package disappears no matter what. However a scan sheet at least says there is some record it got to the post office. It certainly would prevent ridiculous accusations that you are printing postage without shipping items like a previous poster said their post office accused them of.
That being said, OP’s post office might drag their feet because they don’t see actual proof it was received even as a scan sheet.
Also correct me if it’s different here but our post office never scans these accepted either (they just do the scan sheet). The first scan is at the regional sort facility that night either before or after midnight. However, it auto puts in an origin scan 75 minutes before the regional sort facility scan. I believe the computers do this automatically if they haven’t scanned the origin scan before it gets to the sort facility. It’s literally exactly 75 minutes too. I’m assuming it auto does it so it doesn’t look like the origin facility just was lazy and didn’t scan.
Seller_aV1Bh32hE0KND
You cannot cancel a label, and if it’s been scanned you cannot request a refund, does tracking show that the packages have been scanned?
Have you opened a case with USPS, they are usually very good at locating lost packages, it needs to be done online.
Seller_GUAOqRYicSfGk
You should be forcing them to scan them at pickup. Typically you are sol both with usps and Amazon if there was never a scan. We always make usps scan our packages before they leave our building.
Seller_aUbEyzlSSnsDJ
Here in Fl met with postmaster all our packages scanned at pick up.
Seller_b2ARmBJO3xrEf
I have experienced the same thing and also have USPS pickup. Had approx. 40 packages disappear that were shipped on the same day. It was part of approx. 200 packages and when I went back to my security camera discovered a “porch pirate” had taken an entire bin from the outgoing shipments. It was not the USPS but someone who snatched it before they did.
Seller_spBEmM4GC9jW1
Each time you cancel a label, you agree to the following…
Don’t play with the labels, even if you can afford to take the metrics hit.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/200202270?ie=UTF8
