USPS Says Delivered But Package Never Received

You buy a package online and ship it through USPS. Tracking info says delivered, but package never received. What is going on?

If this happens when you just printed a shipping label, and the USPS tracking site shows your package is delivered, then you do not need to worry as the United States Postal Services recycles its tracking numbers periodically. Just wait for a couple of more days and the new tracking info will appear.

However, if this happens in a normal way. Let's say, it gives you full package tracking info and at the end of track, it just says "Delivered". In this case, you had better first check all the surroundings near your house. Besides, local courier might sometimes also puts it in one of your neighbors. So it might also help to ask for your neighbors if they have kept your things.

If all these have done and still no results, try to contact USPS customer service and let them check for you. Sometimes, USPS customer services are just imbeciles. Please directly make a claim about your potential missing packages.

For online sellers who experiences such thing too often, I suggest you do some analytics to see which areas have high package missing rates and thus avoid sending packages to those places.

Also, buying a third party insurance or finding cooperation with a fraud prevention company is recommended to reduce cost.

What would you do next time if your package shows delivered but you do not actually get it?