Chitchats - Chose U.S. Tracked got sent by ChitChats Economy. Anyone else?

[byto253]

Wondering if any other ChitChat users has had this happen?

I sent 7 parcels with chitchats recently, 6 US and Canada Tracked, 1 US Economy.  The US Economy service uses a forwarding company called International Bridge and it is a week+ slower than the regular USPS which is provided with the US Tracked service.  I know this and use it very selectively. 

It ends up one of the US Tracked was sent by Economy routing to International Bridge instead of the normal USPS only routing.  All the regular US Tracked were delivered, while this one is still in transit.  

I am wondering if anyone else has had that happen?  Is this something Chitchats is doing now, a bit of bait and switch to reduce their costs?  There is no way the US Tracked delivery time frames can be met with International Bridge handling parcels.    

I will keep an eye on this, and one way to determine if you have the regular US Tracked service routing is that the tracking number for economy is 8 digits longer.

For this one parcel it has the longer Economy tracking number.    The shipping cost was inexpensive, which is great, I just want to know up front which service I am getting. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@byto253 wrote:

Wondering if any other ChitChat users has had this happen?

I sent 7 parcels with chitchats recently, 6 US and Canada Tracked, 1 US Economy.  The US Economy service uses a forwarding company called International Bridge and it is a week+ slower than the regular USPS which is provided with the US Tracked service.  I know this and use it very selectively. 

It ends up one of the US Tracked was sent by Economy routing to International Bridge instead of the normal USPS only routing.  All the regular US Tracked were delivered, while this one is still in transit.  

I am wondering if anyone else has had that happen?  Is this something Chitchats is doing now, a bit of bait and switch to reduce their costs?  There is no way the US Tracked delivery time frames can be met with International Bridge handling parcels.    

I will keep an eye on this, and one way to determine if you have the regular US Tracked service routing is that the tracking number for economy is 8 digits longer.

For this one parcel it has the longer Economy tracking number.   The shipping cost was inexpensive, which is great, I just want to know up front which service I am getting. 

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Can you call them and question about this particular package. It may have just been in error. If that is the case you should be...at bare minimum be entitled to a partial credit. I know opinions will vary but you could let customer know that it went a different service than expected. Customer may have no problem or alternative...expect a credit.

-Lotz

[byto253]

Yes, I have send messages and am just getting a canned response of "sometimes parcels take longer", and ignoring the point that it was a different service.   It really is not about this one item, it is knowing that if I select a certain service that is what I will get. 

[byto253]

Kudos to Chitchats, a person called and we went through it.  

[sparx_63]

Hey, Just recently had the same thing happen (lastweek)...I did not chase it down as item was delivered quickly and the cost difference was minimal (reason I picked the US tracked to begin with).

[ilikehockeyjerseys · Accepted solution]

Chit Chats altered their 'Chit Chats Tracked' service. They seem to be moving away from their previous service that provided First Class and Priority Mail. Now they use something called Parcel Select or Parcel Select Lightweight. Some labels will still come out First Class or Priority Mail, but you have no way of knowing before you print it. 

Chit Chats made this change over around July 1st. There were some issues with orders from Ottawa. They released a post to their website outlining them. A few items I dropped off in that time frame took a bit more than two weeks to arrive. 

Chit Chats claims the Parcel Select service will have similar shipping times to First Class, and that customers won't notice a difference. Based on what I am seeing so far, Parcel Select seems to be more volatile in terms of time, and the hand off between Chit Chats to USPS takes much longer. If I send something First Class via Chit Chats, it is usually inducted with USPS in roughly 2 days, and then delivered in the North East by the 3rd or 4th day from when I dropped it off. This is extremely quick. Parcel Select seems to take 5-10 days to get delivered. It is difficult to make a value comparison without knowing where the price of Chit Chats tracked might go up to if they didn't make this change. It is still much better than Canada Post Small Packet USA.

I am not sure why your orders are being fulfilled with the Economy method. It might be related to the change over I outliend above. Chit Chats customer service is pretty good. If you haven't done so already, you should message them with your questions through the website.

[itolduandso]

As long as they can maintain the low US rates I will take anything, even if it is Chitchats US pigeon.

[byto253]

I think you have it.  I had not sent anything with them for a while since it is to far to bother with 1 or 2 items, but a I had several auctions end at the same time.