What is going on when Amazon tells you a package is “out for delivery” and expected by 10 p.m. then a later notice tells you it will arrive 3 days hence. I only ordered it yesterday. The tracking info showed it moving to the local delivery warehouse in the middle of last night and out for delivery this morning.
Did they lose it? I doubt the driver can tell by looking at the package whoops this is the wrong book in here, I’d better send it back and get the right one.
Lost it, broke it, ate it, depending.
They lost it. IME, you have a 50/50 chance of it showing up tomorrow or in two weeks/never.
When this happens to me, as soon as I know it’s going to be late*, I’ll reorder it. Since it’s late (with some exceptions) you can return it without an issue, so if it does eventually show up, it’s not a big deal.
*For me, that’s when it starts to get past 8 or 9 pm and it’s not “out for delivery” yet. Or earlier if it makes sense. ie it’s noon and still in another state.
Also, having said all that. For how hard I can be on Amazon WRT to their late deliveries. They are super busy right now and I generally cut them some slack about it from a few days before Black Friday until after Christmas. Not only are they busy, it wouldn’t surprise me if a large percentage of their employees, particularly drivers, just started within the past week or two.
Sometimes the delivery guy can’t find you.
It happened to me just recently.
IME the “out for delivery by 10pm” means
We hope to get to it before end of day, but we put far more packages on that truck this morning than even 2 shifts of drivers can realistically deliver today. So it’s riding around in a truck all day and if by some miracle they get to your part of town before quitting time, you might get it.
If not, it’ll be dumped back off the truck into a holding area and we’ll reload it tomorrow and try again. Unless the higher priority stuff that must be delivered tomorrow overcrowds the truck … again.
So I don’t think that message means it is lost. But it does mean that the process of taking it back off the truck at end of shift sure increases the odds it’ll might get lost real soon.
FWIW, just overnight I received a message from my building timestamped at 3 minutes before 10pm that they’d received a delivery on my behalf. So somebody is out driving around delivering packages well into the night. And I bet he ain’t wearing a furry red suit.
There are many possible explanations, but I had that happen on my last order (the only time it ever happened). A package was supposed to arrive on Saturday by 10 PM, and then I got a notice that it was delayed until five days later.
This seemed strange but I guess maybe the five-day window was “so we don’t disappoint you again”. In this case, though, the detailed tracking info (a clickable link on the tracking page) showed that it wasn’t lost, just briefly delayed in transit between warehouses. It arrived the next day.
IME, when that’s the case, I’ll get a message along the lines of “Running Late, your delivery is now expected to arrive tomorrow by 10pm”. The ‘we lost it’ status, again IME, tends to me more along the lines of “Your package is still on the way but running late. If you don’t receive it by [some time 3-14 days in the future] you can contact us to request a refund”.
IOW, if it’s just running late for ‘normal’ running late reasons, they’ll give you a new delivery date. If it’s lost, you won’t get a delivery date since they don’t know where it is in the system, or if it’s even still in the system. You’ll get a range of dates, or a date to request a refund if you still don’t have it. There’s also often a link right there to cancel it.
This happened recently to a package I purchased from a lady 2 towns over on November 29th. I still haven’t got the package as it seems to be stuck in a perpetual loop.
The lady has informed the post office and has since sent me a replacement package but they haven’t managed to stop the loop yet. We both found it amusing and frustrating.
USPS tracking
In my last gig, I was the guy in charge of shipping quite a fair number of millions of packages.
I have never seen a tracking history like that before.
We could be looking at the first true perpetual motion machine here.
Is there any reason to believe that this behavior has resulted in a (small, but measurable) atmospheric low pressure zone?? You guys seen worsening weather since 11/29, when your saga began?
I assume the USPS Facility was actually not in Saint Paul, MN 55131, as indicated, but in Punxsutawney, PA. It may take a while yet.
If that package keeps making that circuit, soon it’ll wear a rut to rival the Grand Canyon. At which point the Mississippi will reverse flow to fill it with water.
Gonna be bad.
I’m guessing an inept carrier at it’s last leg of the journey (out for delivery) repeatedly mistaking a return address for the delivery address and rerouting it. I think they’d eventually recognize it as a “hey, haven’t I seen this one before?”
I got a similar message on a delivery this week. The package was delivered a few days after I was initially told it would be.
My guess is the same as LSLGuy’s. I think they overload their delivery schedule with more packages than can be realistically delivered in a single day. They deliver as many as possible and the leftovers stay in the truck and get delivered a day or so later.
Several many things- truck break down, or driver cant finish route in time, or package mislaid or really lost, all sorts of things. Amazon is so great at Delivery for us, I just dont worry about it unless it is really late.