gugie 

I made a custom decaleur once for someone in Canada. After a few weeks they pinged me to check if I'd shipped it. I went into my USPS account and noticed that I accidentally clicked on Cambodia instead of Canada. Never got returned (didn't expect it to!), so I made another one and double checked my click.

@bwilli88 should consider looking for it...

rhm

My 1950(-ish) Armstrong Moth... don't look at the stem, it's all wrong.

francophile 

I definitely, definitely got the country right on this one. I think this is initially why my stomach sank a few feet, "OH F$@!, please tell me I didn't do what I think I just did!" I've been under so much stress since March-April timeframe, it would be exactly the kinda screwup I'd make. But ... I got it right this time. Someone else's f-up.

This is redacted to hell because I've had fun things happen on the internet before with PII, and I'm sure Randy doesn't want his info out there either. You get the gist with what's there. Thankful I saved the label, wish I could get my hands on my old phone to pull the pic of the package.

bwilli88 

I Had some help from non-fixie getting 3 sets of shifters and brake levers for flat bars that are Ultegra level. Tracking showed in limbo up until 2 weeks ago when it changed to being delivered July 8. It actually arrived way back in July about 2 weeks of shipping time from Europe.
My daughter has been non communicative with me. She finally answered me about that package and told me it arrived in July. Stinker

conspiratemus1

Sorry that your generosity is being, temporarily, frustrated. It sounds like the USPS person hit the wrong bin when s/he tossed the parcel toward "Canada", as the customer service person suggested. Canada usually sits between Cameroon and Cape Verde Islands on those pick and click lists. China is several lines down, so we knew it wasn't your mistake. (The U.S. is sometimes confused with United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, so it goes both ways.)


**But the bright side is that if they can track it, they will find it. Either you will get it back, or USPS (or maybe even China Post themselves) will send it on its way to Randy.


Just a practical tip to reduce your stress when it "disappears" again. When a package reaches our border, it doesn't "enter" the country until Canada Border Services Agency releases it to Canada Post (or the private courier) after screening for contraband and assessing duty and sales taxes. While it is "in Customs" it is not traceable by normal enquiry. The originating shipper's tracking may say, "arrived in Canada" or "presented to Canadian Customs for review.", or if by air, the originating post office may just say, "left Lithuania en route to foreign destination." But that just means the originating carrier handed it off. Canada Post's tracking will show it as "awaiting arrival in Canada" until they actually get it from Customs. So unless the shipper requests a formal trace from the carrier you contracted with (USPS in your case), you often don't know which side of the ocean it's on, even if it is the correct ocean. It left Lithuania 3 weeks ago, but it's not "in Canada" yet? Oh, no, it must be lost! And then it appears in my mailbox. All Border Agencies may work this way for all I know, just know that Canada does for sure. We Canadians import a heck of a lot of stuff -- hardly anything gets lost -- and delays in Customs* are just part of the cost of being Canadians....or, well, of not being Americans, since most of our cool stuff (like bike parts) comes from the States. Delays to U.S.- Canada trade ascribed to China Customs are a bit UNusual, sure. [Sorry for that typo.]


It will show up.....eventually.

*Edit: in fairness to CBSA, I must say that from tracking histories, most "delays" in Customs for bike parts seem to be on the order of a few hours, even in the middle of the night on weekends. Maybe I'm a trusted addressee by now.

Yelbom15

I'm having a classic Colnago sent to me via them...im sweating thinking about opening up the box and finding something bent..

SalsaShark

I'm placing my bet for safe delivery on Nov 22

conspiratemus1

But the Minnow didn't have a tracking number. That is everything, and must surely be an enormous relief to the OP.

3speedslow

Who gets technical about Gilligan’s Island.

conspiratemus1

Are you kidding? There are whole corners of the Internet devoted to the technical errors, non-sequiturs, and just general silly tomfoolery of Gilligan's Island.

3speedslow

Enjoy, don’t analyze

peace!

RobbieTunes

No good deed.....

pastorbobnlnh 

Two years ago I returned a freewheel I serviced to a client. He had forgotten to tell me he had left an employer, but I had shipped it USPS Priority Insured to that location.

Tracking revealed the freewheel arrived at the large company in a few days. The client inquired with the shipping and receiving department and was told because he was no longer an employee, they returned the package to USPS and marked it "RETURN TO SENDER" about a week later.

We waited a month, and nothing was returned. I filed the official USPS forms to search for the package. About every 30 days I received an email notice that USPS was still looking for the package.

After the officially advised waiting time, I filed an insurance claim, which was denied a few weeks later because "TRACKING REVEALED THE PARCEL WAS DELIVERED." No amount of frustration and time on my part could persuade USPS to reconsider an insurance claim. I sent the client a replacement freewheel, at my expense.

However, I continued to receive an email about every 30 days telling me USPS "CONTINUES TO SEARCH FOR TRACKING #___________ AND HAS BEEN UNABLE TO LOCATE THIS PARCEL." Shortly after the anniversary of filing the search request I received an email apologizing for the lost parcel and that the search had concluded.

About two weeks later, I found the lost freewheel in my PO Box.

RETURN TO SENDER had clearly worked--- for the (imagine President Trump's voice saying) very, very--- very patient.

markk900

Since we are sharing stories, all in effort of hoping for a good outcome, I can relate the following: I had a custom clock hand made for a very old long case clock; it was shipped *without* tracking from the UK to Canada. Many weeks later I had still not received it and the vendor kindly made and shipped another. It still took weeks to get to me, but lo and behold when it was delivered, the original package was delivered at the same time! My assumption is that the original package was mislaid and they found it when they went to mislay the second package I contacted the vendor and he was fine with me keeping both.

randyjawa 

Guess we are going a bit off target, but so what. Interesting stories, none the less and, of course, I have one more...

Years ago, I sold a pretty nice vintage road bicycle to a fellow in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. He was thrilled to win the Ebay bid and paid with PayPal. Unfortunately, he did not have a PayPal account of his own. With that in mind, a friend of the buyer allowed the buyer to use his PP account. The friend lived in Columbus, Ohio or somewhere south of the 49th.

Anyway, once I noticed the problem (I always track my customer's package until delivered - just in case), I sorted the problem out with the buyer. The buyer was great, accepting full responsibility for the mistake. FedEx Ground was very helpful also. I cannot remember for sure, but I believe that the extra shipping costs were born by the buyer or even forgiven by FedEx. Anyway, back to the "stem" of the problem. and sorry to derail this thread.

conspiratemus1

Well, yes, “Billing address <> shipping address” is a red flag for fraud. You were lucky.
And big whoop that the buyer admitted his mistake. What was he going to do, say, “Well goll-ee gee, I have no idea how that bike ended up in Ohio. Another Fed-Ex screw-up, huh?”

francophile 

I'll say, after 2 pages in, the stories and comments helped me feel a load better, so you won't see me complain!

randyjawa 

Lucky? Perhaps or probably, however...

The money for shipping and product goes into my pocket before the product goes into the box. That has always been my policy.

conspiratemus1

Same as all mail-order operators. But PayPal or the credit card company can still take it out of your pocket if they accept the buyer’s story that the goods never arrived.

conspiratemus1

In the early days of jet travel, there was a joke, “Breakfast in London, lunch in New York, ... and luggage in Tokyo.”

RobbieTunes

Good on him. Not like there's a market for a single item like that.

I long ago had a guy in Ukraine re-covering saddles; he was very good at it. I had him do a Cinelli, and then another. 2nd one didn't arrive. During the interim, Russia invaded Crimea and he became physically unable to get in there or even see his wife. He refunded my money and a little while later, it arrived, via Russian post. I paid him for 3 instead of 2, figured he's probably had at least one or two "get away."

bwilli88 

I purchased a coffee mug with a 531 logo via Ebay a while back. I bought it on Nov and had it sent here in Cambodia. It did not come so I had a friend who was visiting England and He got one sent to him and brought it here. I later received the original after 11 months of waiting.

conspiratemus1

This anecdote puzzles me. Speaking as a person whose spouse worked in insurance, why would you think USPS's insurance ought to have paid that claim, enough to spend time hounding them about it? They delivered it (promptly) to the address you gave them and can prove it. That's the end of their responsibility. Now if your customer's former employer thought so little of him* (and you) that they just slapped a "return to sender" sticker on the package and tossed it in their out-going mail, that is surely on them, not on the Post Office. Return to Sender stuff, with collection of postage due upon return, must be the bottom of the "top-priority" list. I envision a giant former salt mine full of refused mail, most of it junk mail refused on ecological grounds, none of it trackable (because delivered), out of which they periodically dig a front-end loader's worth during slack times to see if they can get any of it back to the original sender, and maybe recover a few cents on the dollar of postage due. Your freewheel finally made it into the front-end loader and got returned.

It's human nature to wish that the terms of any service, including insurance, were more generous than they actually are for the price paid. But they aren't. It's also human nature to think that Other People should step in, at their expense, to fix mistakes that we ourselves made. Honour to you for sending your scatter-brained customer a replacement freewheel. I would have told him to get stuffed ....unless he had been a good customer, of course. Then I'd suck up.


*His termination from his place of work sounds like an old Dilbert cartoon: The boss is reading a memo to his engineers from senior management. Says the boss: "Ted Bloggs has left the company. <pause> You will notice that there is no thanks for his years of loyal service, sincerest best wishes for his future success, or of how much we'll miss him."

Dilbert interjects: "Aren't you over-interpreting that a bit?"

Boss: "I'm not interpreting anything. I'm just reading the footnote."


On the "very very very patient" thing, yes, the President's syntax is unmistakable. But after struggling with the auto-correct and other random persnickitiness of my iPad tablet, I will never mock anyone for tweeting "cofeve". ("Four more years of George, er --", I would worry about, but I would never mock someone attempting to do his best in the face of a medical disability.)

Yelbom15

Y’all need to ride a bike for a couple miles. Jesus.

rhm

But dude, it's, like, raining.