Ebay's not-so-failsafe way of determining if a package has been delivered

[airplanemechanic]

I thought I'd share this with anyone who would listen because I NEVER thought about this happening before, but it did to me.

I ordered something off of Ebay, but since I'm not home being a truck driver, I had it shipped to my parents house. Well, after a few days I get tracking on it and it says it will be delivered on Wednesday or something. We wait, my dad informs me nothing came in yet I got an email from Ebay saying the item arrived. Hmmm. Ok.

Ebay is no help, so I call UPS. Finally got a human. I gave her the tracking number and she said whats the delivery address it should have gone to? I told her, she said oh it went to another address in that city, same zip code. She said look at our site and see the photo of the delivery. Sure enough, it's not my parents house. But, and this is VERY important later, the delivered package does not look like what I had ordered. I just didn't think it would be shipped that way, nor be that small. I told UPS that was not our house, and she said she would have the shipper call me.

About 2 hours later, I get a call from New York. A pharmacy. She explained that UPS called and said the shipment had gone to the wrong address. I said yes, it had, but do you guys sell fuel pumps? She said no. I said do you sell anything on Ebay? She said no. I said why the hell is UPS having you call me? She said because they said I was the shipper. I had her read her tracking number to me, and sure enough, it's the same one I have. But I did not order fuel pumps from a pharmacy.

I wound up on a 3 way call with UPS and the pharmacy in New York and we were trying to figure out what to do about this. We needed the pharmacy to get in touch with their customer and see if they received the correct stuff. After a few hours, they informed the pharmacy they had everything they were supposed to have. Ok....that means this shipment that I have the tracking number for on Ebay that is supposed to be fuel pumps from Maryland to Louisiana is indeed a pharmacy order from NY to Louisiana, same city, same zip. Different order. Well then, where the hell is MY order and what is MY tracking number?

Well, after several days, the Ebay shipper finally replied and said they don't know what happened or what my actual tracking number is. THANK GOD IN HEAVEN, last night, the package showed up. It was what was ordered, and everything is fine. Checking the tracking number showed it was TOTALLY different than what I was given. The question then becomes, where the hell did this Ebay guy get that tracking number in the first place? Going to the same city, same zip, but different address but the HOUSE number was one digit different. Instead of 515 the delivery house number was 505 for that pharmacy order.

We still have no idea where the Ebay guy got that wrong tracking number from. But here is the problem......Ebay said my item was delivered because they had the first tracking number the guy gave me. And since it delivered to the same city, same zip, when you go online, it showed "delivered" and the correct city and everything so it LOOKED delivered. But it in fact, was not. So if an ebay seller inputs the wrong tracking number into the system, I guess if its the same delivery city, they have no way of knowing that it's not the correct number. I had one HELL of a battle on my hands. I'm just so glad the package eventually showed up without incident.

So you might want to watch, if you order from Ebay, watch the tracking. If the origin city does not look right, contact someone immediately and ask them what's going on. I didn't pay attention to the origin city, I just saw it delivered to the right city.

 

[excalibur]

Never had that happen, although UPS did send a package back to the original postal center after it arrived at my nearby postal distribution center, and then finally it made its way back to me.

 

[Woodznutz]

I wasn't even able to place an order on eBay. The process was mass confusion.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Mistakes happen. It has nothing in particular to do with eBay. Fedex delivered a package for me last week and left it at the wrong address. I received the notification it had arrived, but nothing was on my doorstep. I could tell by the picture it wasn't my doorstep because we have a welcome mat and that picture didn't. I had a feeling it was delivered to a house on the street behind me that has the same house number as us as I've received their mail before. I walked back to their house and sure enough, there it was.

I also ordered a pair of pants online almost three weeks ago from a store and the tracking still said "in transit." They were supposed to have arrived earlier this week. I had to call the Customer Service and they opened a case to investigate what happened.