Not a fan of the eBay standard envelope

[tschock]

Originally Posted by jayshum

No, the time listed as Delivered is well after it arrived at the post office but well before it was actually delivered. Other packages that I get arrive at the post office around 6:00 AM, and after talking to my carrier about this one, he definitely had it well before the time that is listed.

The older thread referenced a few posts earlier has some suggestions as to how the Delivered time gets generated, but nothing that seems to make sense based on what I have recently seen or several others have reported in this thread.

I totally buy what you are saying. The point is that the items themselves are not 'tracked'. This is true of PWEs (ebay generated postage or stamps), media mail, priority mail, etc, based on a couple reasons. Barring outright theft, packages would never get 'lost' within the postal system like they do now. Also priority items are manually noted as delivered by the drivers when they actually deliver them, assuming they perform their job as they are supposed to which most of them do, hence the general accuracy of delivery dates/times once they are out for delivery. Some do not do as they should and scan them early, witnessed by similar delivered-but-not-delivered experiences in that same day or even a day later (I've had both).

During a recent lost item claim, the USPS person was trying to track down and check the container, which they found, but they did not find the missing priority package. So my theory is based on the fact that individual items are not 'tracked', but rather the containers they travel in, which makes sense. What I was guessing at was how the 'delivered' message is triggered. So my new guess is still based on being container dependent, whether it is arrival at the PO (not so), some manual process/scan after it arrives, some departure trigger and when it sent back out from the local PO, or once it arrives back at the distribution center from the local PO.

Bottom line again is that what this means is different from the distribution center's perspective (they did their job) than from the customer's perspective (where's my package). Ebay is just forwarding what they are provided from the USPS, which obviously could use some massaging to present it to an end-user customer such as ourselves.

[glynparson]

Had it happen with padded mailers as well as with ups packages. I don’t think it’s the envelopes fault

[GrewUpWithJunkWax]

Had a scare recently with USPS showing Delivered. I was going to be away on travel, so I had my mail put on Hold, knowing I had a couple cards en route and not wanting them to sit in the mailbox.

Despite deliveries on Hold (and I also kept a screenshot of USPS confirmation of the Hold status), I had 2 cards suddenly show Delivered. I texted a neighbor and had them check our mailbox - nothing there. Tried calling the post office, but it was impossible trying to get an actual person on the phone who could help. So, I waited it out.

A few days later, when the mail resumed and I was home, I walked down and watched the mailman deliver the cards with the rest of my mail.

Tracking is better than nothing, but not perfect.