Hi everyone! Just a quick question....I had ordered a book and the member who sent it to me used the PBS instant credit tracker thingy. I was watching it on my map and it was almost to me, then it started going back the way it came! Now its almost back to where it was mailed from. Just curious.....

Jessie

Perhaps it was delivered to the wrong address and was refused by the recipient?

Was there a "notice left" anywhere on the logs? Maybe it was left for the wrong person, and when it wasn't claimed it was returned?

Well, if it actually had waypoint markers (little dots) along the way to you, then probably something weird.

But the tracker interpolates the journey until it gets a waypoint - it could have just been guessing how far along the package was until it got an actual piece of scan data.

I had that happen to me once.  Something like the package got damaged in transit & my address was illegible, making it undeliverable, so it went back to the sender.  She messaged me when she got it and asked me what I wanted to do.  It's been a long while back, but I think she just mailed it back out to me, maybe first class, and I got it in enough time that it didn't go lost in the system.

Oh - and I messaged her when I noticed it was going back, so she was expecting it.  I'm sure your sender will know what's up; either they watch their shipments themselves, or they'll know when it comes back to them, but I'd inbox them just to be safe.

I had one that did that. It made it almost all the way to me in WV, then it went up to around Pittsburgh on the map, then the next day, it showed up at my P.O.... who knows?

The most probably explanation is that the post office that took the book into the USPS system didn't scan it - so PBS used the print date and the "mail" date that was provided by the sender.  So it estimated until it either got scanned or hit a waypoint and got scanned.  If it hit an earlier waypoint on the journey then the PBS system had to adjust the journey.  Not all PO's scan in books.  Major ones do.  Here in VA either Richmond, Dulles, or Clinton, MD is the 1st point that scans them...if they aren't at those then it will be when it reaches its end point PO.  Butin cross-country journeys there are standard hubs that will scan.

Ruth

I sent a book to a person & it went a town away from them then it went the opposite way to Iowa & back to them. I think packages get placed in the wrong trucks & such.

Ruth gave the same explanation I was going to give...the little truck moves along an estimate route so long as the book's been scanned once, but if the estimate has it too far along the way and it eventually gets scan, though not nearly as far from it's point of origin, the truck will jump back to the place it was scanned.  However, if your book was being scanned along the way and it's also being scanned on it's way back to the Sender, then I would guess there was something wrong with it that caused a "return to sender" action by the P.O.  Have you tried looking up the DC number at the P.O. website?  Here's the link to the Track & Confirm page: http://www.usps.com/shipping/trackandconfirm.htm  It might have some more details as to what the package's doing.

also, if there are little circles along the route on the map, you can click on those and read the scan data.