Anyone else having issue with Royal Mail scanning on collections?
Summary: nixbarchetta raises a concern about Royal Mail's inability to scan parcels during collection due to a new system being implemented, causing potential issues if a parcel goes missing. technthread and c_of_e84 offer advice and insights, highlighting alternative solutions and expressing skepticism about certain service policies. marco@ebay responds on behalf of eBay, confirming the issue might be with Royal Mail and not eBay. They assure nixbarchetta of ongoing support. The discussion broadens to include issues with scanning procedures, defects from unscanned collections, and hypothetical scenarios involving AI predictions for shipping.
For the second time this week Postie has been unable to scan my parcel on collection. Upon pressing him further he tells me it’s to do with them switching over to a new system which goes live on 24th August. Seems my local office (Macclesfield) has started some procedures early which means they can’t scan anything until the 24th.
Anyone getting this problem? Seems unacceptable that parcels can’t be scanned for the next 2.5 weeks! What happens if something goes missing? Simple delivery won’t cover it.
@marco@ebay @kat@ebay any thoughts on this please?
2099doom
·3 days agoI HAVE BEEN TELLING EBAY FOR MONTHS AND NOW I FIND OUT THAT EBAY ARE GETTING THE SECOND SCAN WHICH COULD BE 12 DAys later and yet again for the second month i have lost my trop rated seller level and ebay do nothey to adress it
c_of_e84
·1 week agoI wouldn’t worry too much, even if an item is scanned when the royal mail postal operatives stand on your door step, zaps the parcel, the PDA bleeps and you get an email from royal mail to say they have collected the item that does NOT count as dispatched, I have the online chat with ebay to prove that’s there policy, it doesn’t count as dispatched until its scanned at a mail centre, a collection scan offers no protection at all.
technthread
·1 week agoI don’t understand how that is justified. The postie is an RM employee, it’s more in their hands being collected from home than being sat at a post office. I use lockers to get the dispatch scan on untracked items and haven’t seen any instances of that being insufficient either.
In that case if we use another courier the drop off at parcelshop doesn’t count and the courier collection from parcelshop doesn’t count but in reality there is no problem with that in terms of metrics / defects being removed.
If they can show the policy then fine but otherwise I don’t believe what they said on that chat to be true.
c_of_e84
·1 week agoc_of_e84
·1 week ago05:40:01 UTC Agent
05:40:37 UTC Agent
c_of_e84
·1 week agoHi I have posted details of the defect below along with the reply I got from an Ebay trained representative in a live chat. the case refers to my business ID.
technthread
·1 week ago · EditedThe only thing I can hope is it being an international delivery caused them to veer away from the norm and defects for this shouldn’t happen domestically. I’m pretty much sold on lockers now and I haven’t got recent home collections to go off.
Did the tracking that pulled through to eBay show the home collection or did it miss that bit because it was international? I love the fact you’d have had to drop it off at Heathrow Airport for their logic to make sense.
c_of_e84
·1 week agoIts Ebay, defects happen when the machine says so, we havnt got royal mail lockers around here but we do have the option to drop items off at the local SPDO problem is theres never anyone there to take items, we can use a local shop to drop royal mail items but they refuse to scan and give receipts, the post office is great but gets very busy and if you take too many parcels other customers get the hump because they take too long to scan and theres no way on earth I would just drop them off without getting them scanned.
When an items is collected I load the tracking number into ebay but as you can see even thats meaningless, its also clear from the screenprints it says dispatched on the 12th but ebay customer services says it was on the 13th even though it was really the 10th so even customer services cant see what it says on ebay.
As to dropping it off at Heathrow Airport, well thats only a 280 mile round trip and if thats what it takes to comply with ebay policies that may well be what I will have to do, other options include in person delivery worldwide, or sending orders before the buyer even starts looking for the item they want, maybe soon with the help of AI this may be possible.
technthread
·1 week ago · EditedI was making the mistake of going to the delivery office after 5:30pm for a while because the 6pm close confused me re the latest posting time. I got the scan but it took a while before they told me that wasn’t in time for collection and I’d be better off going round the corner to the priority postbox with the 6:30pm collection if I actually wanted things to move the same day.
The issues you have with the local shop surprise me. I’d have thought no scan means no payment for them, I’ve never had any of those collect+ type places refuse to give a receipt.
I averted a disaster at a shop once by pure luck as they don’t take international post so they rejected it but didn’t tell me that. Someone I know happened to spot my return address on the parcel at their counter and told me it was weirdly left out of the RM sack. I went back and they handed it back to me, they would have just left it uncollected and told me if I ever went back in 🤦
When we all have neuralink installed there will be predictive shipping built in for the item we decide to buy tomorrow and the delivery drone ready booked 🤣
c_of_e84
·1 week agoI think the reason the local shop wont scan parcels is because there system is linked to a "Merchant Advance" so they can do a scan/transaction and what they get for doing it less than the amount taken from there account towards the repayment of the advance.
I have noticed that some post offices dont show there cut off times but my local one does.
As to predictive shipping, years in law dept in local government would lead me to believe that would be classed as "Inertia Selling" and against consumer law in the real world, whether it is in internet land is another thing entirely, I was a victim off it during the plandemic with a major tech brand.
marco@ebay
Hi @nixbarchetta , thanks for your post.
Sorry to hear about that, but I am not aware of any problems causing this at the moment, it might be something related to Royal Mail directly.
If you confirm the item number, I can look into this for you no problem, and will also flag them with them directly.
Thank you,
Marco
nixbarchetta
OP1 week agoThanks Marco. Yes it’s definitely a general RM issue and not specific to EBay’s simple delivery. Some good news though… I’ve just looked at the tracking on today’s collection and it’s been scanned when it reached the local delivery office. This didn’t happen with the parcel earlier in the week. I’m hoping they’ve found a way round the issue 🤞
marco@ebay
Ah that's great to know, thanks for confirming, @nixbarchetta .
If this ever happen to you again, please feel free to let me know and I'll be happy to look into it for you.
Thank you,
Marco
2099doom
·3 days agoI HAVE BEEN TELLING EBAY FOR MONTHS AND NOW I FIND OUT THAT EBAY ARE GETTING THE SECOND SCAN WHICH COULD BE 12 DAys later and yet again for the second month i have lost my trop rated seller level and ebay do nothey to adress it
nixbarchetta
OP1 week agoI’m not sending that much recently as my sales have dropped off a cliff. 2 parcels in a week is good for me at the moment! I do get very nervous though when things don’t get scanned. I’m just thinking I might take a photo of the parcel with its label on in postie’s hand as some kind of proof should I need it 🤔
technthread
·1 week ago · EditedI do to be fair, if it was custom postage / eBay business account this would stress me but as it’s simple delivery, not so much.
Having said that I’m not sure I’d want to send something expensive via simple delivery knowing the first scan will be delayed. As weird as it sounds if it was me I’d be hoping none of the more valuable stuff sold before the 24th so anything sent is fairly low risk.
nixbarchetta
OP1 week agoI thought exactly the same.
c_of_e84
·1 week agoIf I have a collection and its not one of the normal postal operatives I tend to tell them I haven’t got anything there system must of made a mistake and take it to the post office, yes I lose my 30p collection fee but that’s a bargain when you consider the implications and support we get.
technthread
·1 week agoSimple delivery will cover you provided you have some form of scan along the way whether it’s a Post Office scan or RM scan along their network. I wouldn’t worry too much unless you’re using custom postage, the vast majority of buyers won’t take advantage of a non-scan anyway.
technthread
·1 week agoApologies @nixbarchetta just realised you wrote collections. Should still be ok, the chances of one not reaching a depot are very slim. The only issue may be missing the dispatch time and getting a ding for sending it late.
c_of_e84
·1 week agoThe other problem around here is that we are off and on a not spot with cellular coverage so PDA's dont always work.