I made an EBay purchase in September and received the tracking number 85804110065 from the vendor. I’ve been using AfterShip to track the parcel and it tells me that the parcel departed on flight CZ305 (bound for Auckland) in October 2nd. Since then there have been no updates.

NZ Post (the app, website and customer service call centre) tell me that the tracking number is invalid as it contains no letters. They suggest contacting China Post (I don’t speak Chinese) and the vendor (who doesn’t seem to speak or read English and just says to track via China Post’s website). Next step is to elevate the issue with eBay, but I just want my parcel.

Any suggestions?

Still no sign of the item.

I took the issue to eBay and promptly received a full refund on the grounds that it isn’t a valid tracking number.

While I’m happy with the outcome, the process has made me very suspicious. There’s no way that this item has been held up so long by any interested party in NZ, without me being notified. This would indicate to me that the item never arrived here, which tells me that the tracking information (that the item had been passed to an airline to depart on a specific flight, which departed and arrived on time) was false. No matter how I look at the information I’ve been given, China Post has lied to me.

How can I seek redress from China Post?

As I see it, if I don’t call China Post to account for this deceit, there is no real incentive for them to tell the truth to the consumers who they profit from.