Lost, Damaged or Missing Packages

Holiday Shipping Delays

USPS, FedEx and UPS have all announced that they are at maximum capacity for the holidays. Due to high package shipping during the holidays, worker sickness at parcel centers (and carriers too), there will be further delays. If you are not one of those customers wondering “Where’s my stuff?”, count yourself as lucky as most people will see slower deliveries than normal. Remember too, that parcel transit days are measured in Business days not Calendar days.

USPS, FedEx and UPS no longer guarantee on-time service deliveries. According to recent surveys, the usual 95% to 97% on time deliveries won’t happen. Current statistics indicate out of 2,800 packages tracked, about 20% arrived late.

NOTE: If you choose to have the carrier leave a package, then we will not longer be held responable for that shipment.

Lost Packages

We ship thousands of packages a year and roughly 1% of those are slowed in transit for a few days to a week. If your package is ‘lost’ in transit of has not arrived yet, you can check the status of it by entering your USPS tracking number (provided to you via email when it was shipped) and enter it at USPS.com® - USPS Tracking®. Please note: All claims about lost, shortages, miscounted, damaged or missing packages or contents issues must be done within 60 days of shipping and include copies of all packaging and labels.

If the package has not showed movement within a couple of days you can go to USPS Missing Mail and file a search request and they will keep you updated with the status of your parcel.

Should the package be missing for at least 15 days, then a USPS Claim can be filed Domestic Claims | USPS for reimbursement. Please note: Domestic Claims investigations can take up to 60 days conclude, and until USPS has concluded their investigation, no refund will be issued by USRS. Additionally, credit card "charge-backs" will be held until the investigation concludes. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions page.

NOTE: You can also contact us when your parcel is missing or not delivered, but we will do exactly the same as outline above and it will not be any faster. You are a customer of your local post office, we are not. They will take care of you faster than they will us, since you are local and we are not.

USPS Website Showing 'Acceptance Pending' or 'Awaiting Item'

USPS website says, 'Accepted Shipment Received, Package Acceptance Pending' or 'Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS, USPS Awaiting Item'.

USPS allows large shipments to be scanned during pickup by using a Scan Form, which is a sheet of bearing a barcode that represents all the individual pieces of mail. When the shipment is created, the USPS tracking website creates the entry "Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS, USPS Awaiting Item". At this point, the shipment has not yet been received by USPS.

Once the shipment has been picked up and the Scan Form has been scanned, the tracking changes to "Shipment Received, Package Acceptance Pending" on each of the individual tracking pages for that pickup. If not for the Scan Form, the postal worker would have to scan each of the items individually at the pickup point (business), thus allowing the driver to pickup 100+ packages in a couple of minutes, without having to scan each item.

Once it gets to the actual Post Office, they are supposed to scan each package as it comes in off the truck, and when they do, it would update to show as ‘Accepted at USPS Origin Facility’. However, often (our estimate 2% of the time) they miss scanning a package and when they do miss it, it shows only the Pending status.

This does not mean it isn’t in transit, it just means that it wasn’t scanned. Now what happens next, is sometimes it is scanned further down the line, like when it is rerouted, and it would then show the ‘Accepted’ status.

However, what normally happens, is that the package status stays the same until it is actually given to the recipient, and then suddenly, all the tracking shows up at the same time. I would like to say this happens very infrequently, but in reality; it happens for us about a dozen times a week.

USPS Package Going the Wrong Way

Your parcel may go the wrong way for various reasons, nothing that any of us can do about it. Mail/packages at the post office is sorted and placed into large shipping containers. These are then shipped to the next distribution destination (hopefully the right one!)

Employee error. At times, mail must be classified manually, which leaves room for mistakes. It usually happens if the parcel has a damaged barcode, or the computer can’t scan it for some reason. The employees can also accidentally throw the package in the wrong container and never notice it. A ‘bad scan’ of a barcode can send a package a thousand miles in the wrong direction…

Misclassification. Machines and computers can also make mistakes when they classify mail. Envelopes and packages may fall into the wrong container, just like when they are sorted manually. The good news is that the employees will realize it in later stages and correct the mistake before the parcel goes out for delivery (mostly). Sometimes it even gets out to be delivered when they finally realize that it is in the wrong state!

This doesn't happen often, we usually see it about 1 or 2 out of every 500 packages, but it does happen. Shipment to California goes to San Juan PR first, or a shipment to RI goes through MA then NV and then finally to MA. This is usually caused by Misclassification above.

Tracking 1Tracking 2

Orders Not Received or Missing

If your carrier shows it has been delivered but your don’t have it, here are a few suggestions to start with.

  1.       Check with your family and ensure that they haven’t picked up the items for you or if they checked the mail box yet. Surprisingly, this happens frequently.
  2.       Your neighbor may have picked it up for you or the carrier may have left it with a neighbor so it won’t be stolen.
  3.       Sometimes carriers leave the packages under the  front porch, behind the fence, in the garage or on the back porch so that the delivery is out of sight.
  4.       Contact your local USPS Post Office or your carrier the next day. Sometimes they will remember the delivery and it may have been delivered to the wrong address.

 Damaged Packages or Missing Contents

If your package has been damaged, inspect it immediately for damage or missing contents. All packages we ship have been insured, so you can file a claim directly with the carrier, or contact us and we will do it for you. NOTE: ALWAYS save the original damaged package and anything that came with it for at least 60 days as the carrier may want to physically inspect it.