Canada Post: Lack of Tracking Embarrasing

Posted on 2011-01-05 by dgilbert

I like new toys.  Who does­n’t.  Most couri­er ser­vices offer online track­ing to reduce the load on their call cen­ters, but it also adds val­ue.  I might not call sev­er­al times a day to watch the progress of my new toy, but I cer­tain­ly keep a tab open on my web brows­er for that purpose…

But today I noticed some­thing on Cana­da Post’s track­ing page:

Please note that this is the most up-to-date infor­ma­tion avail­able in our sys­tem. Our tele­phone agents have access to the same infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed here.

It’s not that this infor­ma­tion is a sur­prise.  While at some lev­el, I hope the orga­ni­za­tion has a slight­ly bet­ter idea of the loca­tion of its pack­ages than is dis­played on its web­site, it’s also fair­ly plain that any­thing you let your out­sourced call­cen­ter look at is eas­i­ly enough put on the web.

So… what’s the deal?  My read of this para­graph is that so many peo­ple think that the web­site must be wrong — because there’s so lit­tle track­ing infor­ma­tion — that they call the call cen­ter and cause extra load and cost to Cana­da Post … enough so that they feel that they need to say this on their track­ing page. Wow.

It is bad.  The track­ing site seems to dis­play when some­one paid for their postage (the pack­age ID is in the sys­tem) and then often there are no updates until after it is deliv­ered.  My last pack­age was stuffed into my mail­box for most of a day before any change in its sta­tus on the online track­ing sys­tem.  If you know super­mail­box­es, the whole front opens for the post guy to insert mail… then each indi­vid­ual door opens for the mail­box own­er.  The prob­lem is that the pack­age was exact­ly the size of the slot — which is a few mil­lime­ters larg­er than the indi­vid­ual door.  I had to cut the pack­age out of the box with my Swiss Army Cyberknife.  Don’t leave home (even for a minute) with­out it (even to get the mail).

I sup­pose it’s bad enough that Cana­da Post no longer deliv­ers to your door, but the super­mail­box­es are an embar­rass­ing trav­es­ty.  All the oth­er couri­er ser­vices deliv­er to my door.  All the oth­er couri­er ser­vices do track­ing right.  I sup­pose the point is: they’re all more expensive.

When I bought a cis­co switch on eBay and had it shipped to Ams­ter­dam, I was able to see many of the steps it took.  Looks like a lot of air freight is going through Dubai these days.  Maybe this has some­thing to do with the recent spat between the UAE and Canada.

One rea­son for the mod­ern track­ing sys­tems is to assure cus­tomers that their pack­ages are safe and prop­er­ly cared for.  Anoth­er rea­son is that the tech­nol­o­gy that enables them is inex­pen­sive and get­ting cheap­er by the minute.  Yet anoth­er rea­son is that the same tech­nol­o­gy helps mon­i­tor your employ­ees — that they are using their time effec­tive­ly.  Hrm.  Is this a union thing, Cana­da Post?

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14 Responses to Canada Post: Lack of Tracking Embarrasing

  1. Greg says:
    2012-01-20 at 00:15

    My expe­ri­ence with Cana­da Post is sim­i­lar to yours. The track­ing infor­ma­tion is vir­tu­al­ly use­less with the excep­tion that it allows you to real­ize that your pack­age has been “deliv­ered” to the wrong addess. I live in an apart­ment build­ing in Burling­ton (that has mail­slots in our indi­vid­ual apart­ment doors which the mail car­ri­er uses to deliv­er mail direct­ly into our res­i­dences) and the Cana­da Post employ­ee enters the build­ing and leaves the res­i­den­t’s pack­ages in the pub­lic lob­by instead of putting them out­side the indi­vid­ual apart­ment doors. I have spo­ken with many fel­low res­i­dents that have not received their pack­ages either because they have gone to the wrong address or have been stolen from the lobby.

    I have lost my con­fi­dence in the abil­i­ty of Cana­da Post to do its job with integri­ty and dil­li­gence. Hon­est­ly, due to my neg­a­tive expe­ri­ences with Cana­da Post, I nev­er send pack­ages through them because I do not trust that they will arrive at the intend­ed recip­i­ent. It is very sad but absolute­ly true and I wish that there was a solu­tion to the prob­lem. Depress­ing­ly, I sin­cere­ly doubt that Cana­da Post cares enough about Cana­di­ans to try to do a bet­ter job.

    Reply
  2. Mitch says:
    2012-06-28 at 19:50

    Bought an item on ebay from a qual­i­ty com­pa­ny locat­ed in New York. Par­cel is shipped USPS PRIORITY Inter­na­tion­al (6 to 10 day ser­vice). On the USPS site see the pack­age scanned on a Tues­day evening, scanned sev­er­al times as it goes in and out of ISC at JFK air­port on the Wednes­day and then a final scan at JFK at 9:57 am Wednes­day as the flight departs for Mon­tre­al Cana­da. Same scan­ning infor­ma­tion is trans­ferred to Cana­da Post from USPS and now shows on Cana­da Post’s track­ing website.
    Now, this is where it gets inter­est­ing. Now Thurs­day and no new infor­ma­tion on the Cana­da Post track­ing web­site. When I call CP cus­tomer ser­vice I’m first told the item is stan­dard inter­na­tion­al par­cel is being shipped by sur­face so that is why there are no new scans in Cana­da yet and if I have any fur­ther ques­tions con­tact USPS.
    Since 911 agen­cies in the US share infor­ma­tion. Call­ing USPS and speak­ing with a super­vi­sor I got the exact flight num­ber, man­i­fest num­ber and skid num­ber and advised that the par­cel was sit­ting in a ware­house at Pierre Trudeau Air­port in Dor­val Que­bec and had been there since 1:02 pm of Wednesday.
    Called back to CP cus­tomer ser­vice and asked for super­vi­sor. On hold for 15 min­utes before I get one. Only thing he will do is con­firm that the par­cel is on the ground in Dor­val Que­bec but that is all he can tell me and that it will take up to 24 hours to refresh on the Cana­da Post website.
    As a Cana­di­an cit­i­zen, I am sur­prised that USPS was more than will­ing to pro­vide me infor­ma­tion about my par­cel, yet Cana­da Post was very tight lipped. Con­tact­ed Cana­da Cus­toms and they would at least tell me (after explain­ing in detail my cir­cum­stances and that I had infor­ma­tion from the US Feds) that the doc­u­men­ta­tion was in order and that it had cleared and wait­ing for Cana­da Post to pick it up at their warehouse.
    With all the tech­nol­o­gy we have in Cana­da, maybe Harp­er and the boys should be look­ing at pur­chas­ing RIM so they can use Black­ber­ries to pro­vide bet­ter tracking???
    I am total­ly appauled at Cana­da Post. And to add to my frus­tra­tion, I received an expe­dit­ed par­cel today from Oakville that did not show up in the Cana­da Post track­ing web­site UNTIL SIX HOURS AFTER I RECEIVED THE PACKAGE!
    This def­i­nite­ly gives new mean­ing to OH CANADA.…..

    Reply
  3. Lorraine Boileau says:
    2012-12-26 at 10:56

    I have no clue what Cana­da Post is doing with the mon­ey they make.I sent out three items to deliv­er across Canada,only one made it.One is miss­ing completely,the oth­er I had to pay them just to get it back.
    I can say only one thing,I’ll nev­er use Cana­da Post again,I’ll pay more any­where else just so that I have the peace of mind know­ing that it get’s to where it should.
    By the way,even with insur­ance I doubt I’ll ever see my mon­ey back.
    Mer­ry bleep­ing Christ­mas Cana­da Post!

    Reply
  4. jim akins says:
    2013-01-18 at 01:26

    I sent a let­ter to uk on 3rd jan,it reached their bor­ders on 5th,according to cana­da post track­ing, and show­ing on the track­ing chart is still sit­ting in transit,i con­tact­ed the roy­al mail and asked why is still sit­ting there,it is now jan 17th,they inform me they can only let me know the let­ter has reached it’s final des­ti­na­tion when it is signed for.
    They tell me if it is not deliv­ered 20 days after reach­ing their bor­ders they will put out a search,canada post tell me if it is not deliv­ered i month from the 3rd jan they will put out a search.
    Once the let­ter reach­es a for­eign bor­der it can­not be tracked by cana­da post tracking,they say this is a vio­la­tion of the oth­er country.
    So we have to hope and pray that the let­ter gets there.
    why are we not allowed to see where our mail is going,? if it goes miss­ing in the oth­er coun­try at least we know when and where it went miss­ing, and who is responsable.

    Reply
  5. Kim says:
    2013-01-31 at 03:13

    My mom has always used Cana­da Post to ship pack­ages to my sis­ter in Ontario, and she loves it. My sis­ter tracks it, and it always comes on the day it says. They delver to her door, and she signs for it, but if no one is home, they take it to the near­est post office. I am using Cana­da Post for the first time. Ordered off of WWE Shop. FedEx is what they use. They then ship it to Cana­da Post I guess, but I could not track it with FedEx. Been track­ing my pack­age with Cana­da Post, and it shows that it arrived, I assume at the air­port on the 30th, and that it should be at my post office on the 31st. Well it nev­er changes. I know it arrived at the air­port, I want to know where it is, like did it go to a sort­ing facil­i­ty, then will be tak­en to my post office with oth­er pack­ages going there to, or is it just sit­ting somewhere.

    Reply
  6. Nathan says:
    2013-09-09 at 11:49

    I juѕt saω soome­thing аbout thiѕ on telеvisiοn.
    It tаlkeԁ thе samе thingѕ you wrotе
    about.
    I go to col­lege in Canа­da and we just nοw
    areleагn­ing aboutt thiѕ in clаss.

    Thаnkѕ foг hеlpіng me
    ωith thе con­clusiоn of my report.

    Τhanks fοr the out­line of tv ѕtuff.
    I def­i­nite­ly thіnk that cable tele­viѕion is gоing to go аwaу.
    Or at least have too chаngе with thе times.

    Intеr­net tv is tοtal­ly thе wavе of the
    future. As com­putеr speeԁs get faster, eveгy­one wіll be watch­ing thеir tv
    ѕhowѕ on siteѕ likе this.

    What do уou know аbout this? I think there’s a lot morе to the subject
    I ωas just watch­ing thіs on PBЅ this weеk.
    Theу spoke the same things you wrotе abоut.

    Reply
  7. Pat says:
    2013-11-09 at 13:19

    sent a let­ter from BC to Alber­ta a month ago. no track­ing num­ber so no help. Any­one see a let­ter car­ri­er walk­ing that way?

    Reply
  8. Michael saunders says:
    2014-06-04 at 20:32

    Michael Saun­ders
    509‑1011 Con­cor­dia Ave.,
    Win­nipeg, Mb., Canada:
    R2K3H1
    2042568414
    sss@shaw.ca
    To any com­pa­ny ship­ping Items To Canada:
    When ship­ping any item of val­ue to Cana­da be very leery of uti­liz­ing any for­mat that uses Cana­da Post as a car­ri­er. (USA POST SHIPS THEIR ITEMS INTO CANADA UTILIZING CANADA POST TO DELIVER SUCH).
    Over the past year I have had three dif­fer­ent deliv­er­ies com­ing through Cana­da Post mys­te­ri­ous­ly disappear….The lat­est, which Cana­da Post claims was deliv­ered, was done so when no one was at our res­i­dence to receive it (we had left our res­i­dence at 13:00 hrs. so to be at a doctor’s appoint­ment at 14:00hrs…a 25 to 30 minute dri­ve from my res­i­dence…. which I arrived at 13:35 hrs.) yet they incest that the pack­age was deliv­ered to our apart­ment at 13:30 hrs on the day in question……
    I had ordered a Tablet from a sup­pli­er in the USA….a gift for my Grand Son. Liv­ing on a mea­ger pen­sion I had to save for four months to be able to get this item and when it didn’t arrive I had noth­ing to present to him for his birth­day. I end­ed up spend­ing my gro­cery monies so/as to get him a gift for his birth­day (I couldn’t afford to pur­chase a tablet) but I could see the dis­ap­point­ment on his face when he didn’t get what I had promised him.
    When I con­tact­ed Cana­da Post I received noth­ing but a com­plete run around. They insist­ed that their dri­ver had deliv­ered the pack­age to my apart­ment at 13:30 hours and that it had been prop­er­ly received. They told me to check with my land­la­dy to see if she had received the pack­age and fail­ing that to check with the oth­er peo­ple on my floor.
    I checked with our land­la­dy and she stat­ed that no one from Cana­da Post had come to her office at the time (Re: 13:30 hrs) that Cana­da Post had sup­pos­able deliv­ered the par­cel) nor had she seen any­one from Cana­da Post go up in the ele­va­tors which are in plain view of her office.
    I checked with our neighbor’s liv­ing on the same floor and they did not seen any­one that didn’t belong on the floor any­where near our apartment…..(Our neigh­bors are extreme busy bod­ies and don’t miss any­thing that tran­spires on our floor)…..yet Cana­da Post insists that they had come to our door and had deliv­ered the pack­age to our apartment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    I guess that some­one had bro­ken into our apart­ment just after we had left for the doctor’s office and had received the pack­age from Cana­da Post then had left lock­ing the door behind them all with­out alert­ing our vig­i­lant neigh­bors nor dis­turb­ing any­thing in the apartment……..
    By the way if you think that this tran­spired then I have a nice piece of prop­er­ty for sale in Florida…..running water and nice pets and I will deliv­er the paper­work van Com­mu­nist Post….that way you will be assured of receiv­ing it!!!!!!!!!!!

    And this is one of three pack­ages that had mys­te­ri­ous­ly vanished!!!!!!
    One, a blue­ber­ry rake ordered from Ban­gor Maine….something that is not avail­able in this part of Cana­da…. went miss­ing when Cana­da Post had stat­ed that they had deliv­ered it to out apart­ment. In Aug. I was out at Sandy Lands (A local wilder­ness area not­ed for wild blue­ber­ries) where I was pick­ing wild blue­ber­ries. At one patch I noticed a per­son using a blue­ber­ry rake of the type that is used to har­vest blue­ber­ries in Maine (some­thing that is extreme­ly rare in Man­i­to­ba). When I com­ple­ment­ed her on such and asked her where she had got­ten the blue­ber­ry rake she stat­ed that it was a gift from her hus­band. I then asked her where her hus­band worked……she stat­ed CANADA POST!!!!!!!! I can only guess where my blue­ber­ry rake end­ed up!!!!!!!
    Even though I can­not prove that Employ­ees of Cana­da Post are doing any­thing ille­gal (and have been informed by their UNION REP that I will be charged with slan­der if I even men­tion them in any investigation)…..and the fact that I, with­out catch­ing them red hand­ed, can­not prove any of these allegations……I can only sur­mise what has tran­spired. All I know is that I have nev­er had any item not arrive which was shipped by a courier…..but with Cana­da Post……..three that I know of in one year out of sev­en deliv­er­ies being made!!!!!!
    So, in clos­ing, when you have to ship any­thing of val­ue to Cana­da try and uti­lize a ship­ping method that accu­rate­ly traces each and every pack­age and insists that all items are signed for with proof of res­i­den­cy before they are released!!!!!!!!
    Some­thing that Com­mu­nist Post Does Not Do Unless You Insure The Items In QUESTION and demand that the deliv­ery is ver­i­fied!!!!!!!!!! Using this method you just might receive the items that are shipped to you!!!!! Oth­er­wise kiss it goodby!!!!!

    Reply
  9. subhash Juneja says:
    2015-02-04 at 20:30

    I sent one pack­age to India 28 days ago. I paid 104 dol­lars for 1kg pack­age. They said that it will reach in 2 wks. Track­ing sys­tem on Cana­da Post says “it is in tran­sit”. I went to Cana­da Post post office, they gave me a tele­phone num­ber 1–800-267‑1177. I called the num­ber, it says the same thing what was on site that it is in tran­sit. Than the mes­sage came press zero to talk to some­one and I pressed zero and kept hold­ing phone for 2 hours, No body talked to me, a filthy music was on,

    I can imag­ine the worst ser­vice I have ever seen. Be aware of this if you want to ship pack­age over­seas, at least.

    Reply
    • dgilbert says:
      2015-02-05 at 11:14

      Filthy music? Pray tell…

      I think in the last sen­tence there, you’d like to say that you can’t imag­ine worse ser­vice or they met your worst expec­ta­tions. “I can imag­ine the worst ser­vice (that) I have ever seen” (fill­ing in the implied word) … does­n’t real­ly say any­thing oth­er than you have a good imagination.

      Reply
      • Chris says:
        2015-09-22 at 05:09

        Its great that you are spend­ing time to read each com­ment and answer­ing them as well as cor­rect­ing the gram­mat­i­cal mis­takes. I appre­ci­ate that.

        Reply
  10. shoplover says:
    2017-09-30 at 00:52

    Cana­da Post offi­cial web­site may break down some­times, so you can switch to oth­er par­cel track­ing site like Track­ing­More. For Cana­da Post track­ing page, it goes to: https://www.trackingmore.com/canada-posttracking.html.

    Reply

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