I guess it was too good to be true?

[ziggy29]

I won a Seritek e6G eSATA card for my G5 Quad on eBay back on the 8th. I won it for one cent.

Even with shipping it came to $7.21.

Problem is, it is "lost in the mail". Tracking shows that it was accepted at a PO on February 13, and there is no scan in the system after that point. There is no scan to indicate it even made it to the local processing plant that evening. The seller has proactively messaged me and seemed all too ready to offer a refund since it seems to be lost, even though I never inquired with them about why I didn't have the item after it had been "shipped" more than a week earlier.

I hate to say it, but I suspect someone may have concocted a way to get something "lost in the mail". I have no proof, but I wonder if they had a friend in the USPS scan the item as accepted and then took it back, hoping to issue a refund and back out of a one-cent sale?

Still haven't asked for a refund. I don't intend to for a while. Not until it's too late to file a refund claim. Will also check to see if the item is relisted later. Will probably tell them I will be contacting the local postmaster or appropriate supervisor at the local PO where it was accepted.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Mighty suspicious...I've had exactly the same happen to me, win something at a rock bottom price and it goes missing in post :/

 

[ziggy29]

Yeah, maybe it was honest bad luck....but it doesn't pass the smell test. I've had so many good transactions and the ONE that gets lost is the one I won for $0.01? I just replied to the seller -- told them still not here yet, but I am patient, I want the item, not the refund, and I told them I knew what the tracking history meant (accepted in the local PO, looks like it never made it to the plant) and I will be contacting the postmaster at the accepting office and escalating as necessary from there. If this is a case of seller's remorse, I at least want to make them sweat a little bit by taking it to postal management.

 

[eyoungren]

I had an item last year around November that shipped from Dallas. Normally takes about 3-4 days from Texas. About a week into it I still hadn't seen it and USPS tracking only showed 'Enroute to Destination'. The package took TWO WEEKS and FOUR DAYS to arrive! In the meantime, because something happened in the system it got sent from the destination regional PO to the wrong destination PO. That added three days because they had to send it back to the regional PO so it could be redirected.

So, I did a little bit of poking around…and here are some things that may help.

• The actual package is not scanned between origin and destination. First, they don't scan it directly after the initial origin scan. Second, it's only scanned directly again once it hits the destination PO and actually gets sorted.
In the meantime, what's actually going on is that the package is inside a metal box with a bunch of other packages. That box itself is scanned for ALL the packages inside it. So if your package is delayed, every package in the box is delayed right along with it because the box has not been scanned.

• USPS has had a lot of breakdown and service issues lately. That adds time when their trucks break in the middle of nowhere.

• I have found (based on a suggestion) that if you sign up for their text alerts for that package it often triggers something on their side that makes them go "Oh crap!" and gets things moving again.

Maybe something will give you a bit of hope there.

Also, if the shipping was done by a third party service that uses USPS as the last mile you can often wait. Those services wait until their truck or container is actually full before they deliver to the PO. Your package can sit for the week or so it takes for their truck/container to fill up.

 

[ziggy29]

Thanks. This WAS an acceptance scan at the PO, not just the "label printed" scan. It was clearly accepted and presented at the PO. No doubt about it -- the PO scanned it as having physical custody. But it never made it to the local plant.

 

[ziggy29]

Update -- called the PO where the package was accepted and the customer service rep agreed the scanning history was peculiar, especially given that it was a 1 cent eBay win. She suggested I contact the postal inspectors. Now normally this isn't worth doing that, and I may not, but I will at least communicate to the seller that the PO suggested that should be my next step. If there's anything hinky going on, at least let them sweat.

 

[eyoungren]

Update -- called the PO where the package was accepted and the customer service rep agreed the scanning history was peculiar, especially given that it was a 1 cent eBay win. She suggested I contact the postal inspectors. Now normally this isn't worth doing that, and I may not, but I will at least communicate to the seller that the PO suggested that should be my next step. If there's anything hinky going on, at least let them sweat.

The Postal Inspector worked for my wife once.

She had ordered some sort of curio that had a leg break off during shipping. So, she asked the seller if she could have either a refund (she would ship it back) or a credit back.

Somehow the seller's father got involved. According to the father, the seller was doing this as a way to make income and a refund on a less than $20 item was not possible. So eBay got involved because my wife filed a claim.

Which sent the father of the seller ballistic. We know what we know about the father being involved and the details I just gave you because he managed to somehow get a hold of my wife's unlisted phone number, call her, and then verbally yell, threaten and curse at her over the phone. He didn't believe the item had broken.

THAT, got the Postal Inspector involved because eBay was useless at this point. My wife had to turn over the package and their investigation determined it had broken during shipping because of the poor packing. eBay gave my wife her money back and I believe suspended the seller.