Pittsboro, NC – As much as I support the US Postal Service, especially this time of year, the price of Express Mail forces me to recommend alternative carriers for similar services. This extends back several years and in particular predates Louis DeJoy being appointed Postmaster General, with the directive we are all already plenty familiar with, that makes that appointment as infamous as it is.
In regards to Joan’s specific complaint, this is a simple misunderstanding — Postal delivery estimates never include the day of mailing. Also, except for a very brief period of time, some years ago, where if you paid extra when ordering from Amazon, the USPS does not deliver on Sundays, never has, and probably never will.
As for scams, if you know how common tracking numbers work, it’s easy to spot. (Tracking numbers as shown are made up on the spot at random and are not real.)
USPS tracking is 22 digits long and the first digit is a 9, unless it’s international. Five groups of four digits, one group of two digits — 9503 8807 3433 2434 7567 02.
There is a peculiar variant of this that shows up most often with so-called “shipping partners”, in particular with DHL Global Mail (aka DHL eCommerce), which prepends a three-digit code and the destination 7-digit ZIP Code to the rest of the number. I’ve only ever seen 420 for the three-digit code — 420 27344 9303 8680 9243 5665 7224 43.
Most other ‘shipping partners’ use a regular USPS tracking number. Also, often, the grouping spaces are omitted — 9405332378690257870823.
The most common international tracking number via USPS has two letters, then nine digits (three groups of three) then two more letters; usually the letter pairs have somethingto do with origin and/or destination countries — LY 987 435 221 US — CN 231 544 243 US — etc.
There is also eBay’s “SpeedPAK” tracking but that is not USPS-trackable; it’s via another carrier called OrangeConnex. These tracking numbers start with ES, then there is a 23-digit number, a letter, and 0N — ES 12013613723254328788323 A 0N.
UPS tracking is generally a 16-digit number prepended with 1Z — 1Z0332780678693245.
FedEx tracking is almost always simply a 12-digit number — 125349230113.
Scammer “tracking numbers” rarely if ever even try to pattern-match any of these and are almost universally random gunk…
XD 231 55587345 FXM
675 778234630 US
20 F4 R7 H4 RD 87 66 99
3387 345 1211 FU
Unfortunately, tracking and dealing with scammers is not a simple task. It’s actually not the USPS’ job to handle — they have more than enough to do as it is anyways. It’s actually the job of agencies such as the FBI and NSA (in the event that the scammer lives in the USA) or the CIA (if they live abroad), and those folks do a pretty good job. But it’s really not worth it if it’s just a few small actors — they’ll generally go away on their own. But cybercriminals often organize nowadays, and turning large cybercrime rings into target symbols is a thing those agencies are seriously good at.
In the meantime, if you get an email claiming to be a tracking number with a problem, and it looks suspicious; click the “Report Spam” button and walk away. If it really is a problem package, someone will follow up.
I hope that helps.