eBay acknowledged that sellers who used its eBay Standard Envelope (ESE) shipping solution may have received Item Not Received claims due to a glitch on its end.
As we reported in the February 17th email newsletter, an Ecommerce EKG report came in reporting a problem with tracking on eBay Standard Envelope:
“Just noticed going as far back as Feb 5th, 90% are not scanned anywhere along the route, just positive feedback from buyer. Anyone else using ESU only have this issue?” The report received 5 thumbs-up confirmations from other sellers experiencing the issue along with 3 comments.
On Saturday, February 22nd, eBay announced it was working to fix the glitch:
“We are aware of an issue with eBay Standard Envelope shipments not displaying tracking events on eBay. We are working to resolve this issue and are in the process of updating the display of tracking events for the impacted shipments.
“If your shipment is impacted and you have an Item Not Received claim due to this issue, your item will be eligible for the included shipment protection. Additionally, eBay will automatically protect your service metrics for Item Not Received cases.”
In a thread on the eBay boards, a seller going by the user name projectblitz offered a workaround along with a warning about bad buyers:
Hi everyone,
We recently noticed that most of our shipments using the eBay Standard Envelope service have had tracking issues. Either no tracking updates appear after drop-off, or the tracking stops updating entirely. We rarely had problems before, but all orders shipped after February 10th, 2025, seem affected. Over the past two days, we’ve received multiple complaints from buyers, so we investigated the issue and found a solution.
Identifying the Issue:
- The original tracking number issued by eBay (ESUS*) directs you to trackmyshipment.co.
- On that page, you’ll see a USPS First-Class Letter tracking number (20-digit number starting with “00”).
- When you click on that number, it redirects to the USPS tracking website, but frustratingly, it shows “Status Not Available.”
The Solution:
1) Copy the 20-digit USPS First-Class Letter tracking number.
2) Go to https://trackpb.shipment.co/track/.
3) Paste the tracking number to get the detailed tracking information (thanks to Pitney Bowes).
This method has allowed us to track shipments accurately and resolve buyer concerns.
Buyer Fraud Warning:
Some buyers may claim they never received their item based on the ESUS tracking number, which does not update correctly. In fact, we had a case where a customer received the item but falsely claimed they never got it. Always check the Pitney Bowes tracking site before assuming a lost package.
Hope this helps! Let’s keep the community informed.
Good luck, everyone!
Sellers were relieved to learn of the workaround, with one seller writing, “I’ve been freaking out for several days, since I don’t have a single ESE shipped after Feb 10 with a single scan. I’m so thankful that you found the solution that you did, and I’m so frustrated eBay didn’t catch this and alert us to it. This is going to invite so many INR claims, and cause service metric problems too.”