Canada Post: Paying $9 to let my package sit in the box.

[awalkman]

I recently started selling things on eBay. Someone made a purchase over the weekend so I purchased regular parcel shipping and pasted the printed shipping label off of PayPal onto the padded envelope. I dropped the package into a drop box Monday morning. It's now Wednesday evening and the tracking still hasn't said it's been accepted. This makes me look bad because I'm supposed to ship within 2 business days and now three have passed according to the tracking. I've already mailed another parcel through the same box and it was scanned as accepted within a couple days. It worries me that this one is taking this long.

Has this happened to anyone here? Like their package somehow skipped the accepted scan or somehow never made it from the box into the system?

[Chantel]

Did you put it in a regular mailbox (like the one you'd find outside a store or on a streetcorner) or leave it at a post office?

Never leave a package in a mailbox or anywhere that it does not directly get into the hands of a postal worker. There are too many variables when it comes to that and it's so much easier for things to go wrong or things to get missed.

[awalkman]

I put it in one of those large red boxes, outside of a Shoppers Drug Mart just because it's quicker than walking in. I've learned my lesson. I'll definitely hand it in inside from now on.

Turns out the package skipped a bunch of scans. This morning, it showed the "processed at local facility" and "out for delivery". That's all the tracking info it has.

[blueeyetea]

Call Canada Post and complain. Not only do they pick-up mail every day , the carrier or the post office receiving it is supposed to scan it before putting it in a bag. Every corporate mailbox has a sticker that says what time the pick-up is supposed to be, as well.

[Lyssia510]

Canada post doesn't always scan those PayPal labels. I had them get delivered to buyers and when I checked tracking it still just said a shipping label was created. I actually don't think I ever had a paypal label get scanned and tracking updated but every packages made it to the buyer within the normal time frame.