I just got a message from a buyer that his tracking number shows as delivered last month, and he’s correct. All my USPS GA labels bought today through Buy Shipping show as delivered within the past 6 weeks, Priority and hazmat aren’t showing up at all. I know they reuse numbers but not from last month, at least until now, for obvious reasons. Apparently it’s happening on Pirateship and Veeqo, and one person reports it started a week+ ago for them. If anyone had this happen to them, did your package arrive at the correct address without too much of a delay, and did the tracking on USPS eventually link to the newer package instead of the older delivered one? Looks like I need to type up another stock FAQ response if this is going to be a thing
Yep. Usps has always recycled tracking numbers. The old tracking will clear out on the first scan normally
Welcome to SAS.
I have this problem with returns sometimes, where a buyer will open a request but then not use the label, but then the tracking gets reused and Amazon debits my account as if the item was returned. I have not had this problem with shipping orders.
I do not use Pirateship or Veeqo, but there are other sellers here who do.
I bought the labels through Amazon’s “Buy Shipping”. I use shipping manifests which always update on USPS as “shipment received, acceptance pending” within 15 minutes of the scan, but it’s been 4 hours now and the tracking still just shows “delivered” to the old address
It will not update until the packages first physical scan.
This shows it has not been physically scanned yet. Don’t panic!
There have been several threads on this on the NSFE; apparently, a lot of numbers are getting re-used in a shorter than normal time-span and still showing tracking from the previous use.
Maybe USPS is economizing by not having to buy so many unique numbers. 
Unfortunately tracking still isn’t updating on USPS. On the seller app I can see all packages have been physically scanned in now and are en route to…somewhere, but even on the ones with multiple departure and arrival scans on Amazon’s tracking service, USPS just shows “delivered” last month. One person on the Amazon forums says their package that this happened to last week never updated to reflect their tracking. Think I’ll be shelling out for UPS for a little while
The only time this happens AFAIK is when the package is scanned as “delivered” rather then “accepted”. AKA when the USPS scanner is set to the wrong function (normally at a PO Counter)
Wouldn’t this show a delivery date of whenever the item was scanned, instead of a previous delivery date?
I few Years ago I mentioned seeing the gap closing but getting the same number in under 90 days is crazy
Welcome to the SAS!
I’ve seen those same statements in the various NSFE discussions as well, because I’ve been following them with no little interest; new ones are cropping up today.
A few minutes ago, KJ_Amazon began seeking those out and posting a variation of this, as found in the ‘main thread’:
It will be interesting to learn how this latest snafu plays out - but let us hope that it won’t be as painful as it currently appears likely to prove.
I experienced a similar situation a few months back with bought on Ebay USPS postage.
Ebay support credited me for the labels with the duplicate numbers and I was able to buy new labels for the shipments which had numbers which did not show past use.
The problem appeared to be intermittent. Sellers who used the labels with the duplicate numbers were not happy with the results of their shipments.
Not all Ebay Customer Service reps provided the same actions and advice.
Sorry if I am adding to mental health strain.
It appears to be getting worse, as one of the seasoned & savvy forum vets has pointed out in the NSFE (emphasis mine):
Just another day in paradise…
My concern was packages bound for IL headed to FL instead, or worse. I got some printouts for three of the packages from my local USPS, they show the old tracking and new as if it were a single package. Delivery in AL then without missing a beat an origin scan in my town a month later, and all the new package progress is there. All the times line up with what shows up on Amazon app tracking.
USPS.com still shows nothing, just delivery last month. USPS phone support couldn’t access anything other than the original scans which end at “delivery” in the wrong state. Based on the new printouts the packages are almost certainly headed to the correct destination addresses and no the original one, and appear to be making good time.
Address is not embedded or linked to the tracking number.
If the address is correct on the label it will be delivered as labeled.
Yes it is. The second item on the USPS intranet tracking reports is titled “tracking number classification” and after “service” the next item is the full destination address. Top section of origin and destination still shows the old destination zip but not address. Package sortation is automated and based on the barcodes, if the second section on this intranet tracking report hadn’t updated to the new address it’d be headed to FL instead of HI. Although the local sorter would likely catch it and RTS, then another machine will sometimes send it back to them, I’ve had packages trapped in that loop for close to a month before.
I’d attach a photo but too much customer info on these and too much work to edit it all out
But that’s not how it’s routed for delivery.
The address on the label is machine read/human read. Scanning the barcode while in transit does not route the package with USPS. Fedex and UPS, different story.
What you are being shown I will guess is related to the delivery scan of the previous shipment.
Well then, I stand corrected.
From our time with the post office (about 14 years ago), the barcode has had the address connected to it within the postal system and the address was viewable with in the USPS computer system by looking up the barcode. This is done when the info (address) is input into the system when purchasing the label and the barcode is assigned to that label.
So if you had a tracking number and took it to the post office, the post office can look it up in their system, see the address of the package along with demension and weight entered, and the path with last location within the system.
What we see on USPS.com is a slimmed down version of the information that USPS has within their system.
If you are big enough and have your account integrated with USPS, then it would be possible to pull down the additional package information including the address. USPS would be granting this access.
The new processing centers are using this information with integrated scanners.
The barcodes themselves are not created like nor do they contain data like a QR code does.