Shows "Pre-Transit" but Has Already Been Delivered (Star Seller)

[AviationLab]

I have 100% on-time shipping, perfect response rate, 5 star reviews across the board, etc., etc.  I take customer service very seriously!

I sent my customer a FREE second product, free shipping, no strings.  Well he decided to pay for it by putting in an "order" for the second product which I already shipped and which had already arrived.

It was very nice of him but how I wish he hadn't done that, because...

I marked it as "completed," and inserted the tracking number of the second product that was already delivered the day BEFORE his order.  Now it is showing up as "pre-transit" and there is nothing I can do.

It is affecting my Star Seller status.

It doesn't look like Etsy actually provides tech support here.  How can I get this fixed?  Would sending him a refund work??  I never expected to be paid in the first place .

[ArtDollsbyJD]

I'm gathering from your post that you tried to use the tracking for the free item that was not completed on Etsy into this other order.  You can't do that.  The package was delivered.

You needed a new label with a new barcode that you have scanned at the post office.  

I think unfortunately you tripped yourself up with this and there is no way to fix it.

[AviationLab]

But there was nothing new to ship?  The item was already delivered by the time he put in his "order"?

[BagmakerSupply]

@AviationLab: A order still in "pre transit" usually means that the tracking information AS ENTERED cannot be validated. Have you made sure that the shipped date, tracking number and shipping company show correctly on the actual order?

"How can I get this fixed?" Etsy has made it clear that they will not manually adjust Star Seller stats. We learned a long time ago (way before Star Seller) to take a few minutes each day to make sure that the previous day's shipments all showed as at least "in transit" so we could fix any errors. You have 72 hours to update the shipper and tracking number from the time you mark the order as completed https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015774228-How-to-Add-Tracking-and-Complete-an-Order-?segm...

"Would sending him a refund work??" Probably not, and a cancellation probably will not either.

[audreytherese]

This is most likely due to having a shipment from before an order is placed. I understand how this happened, but I don't know of any way to 'fix' it. I've never done anything like this, so have no idea if cancelling the order at this point would remove the strike. I would think probably, but couldn't say for sure. It's possible that once there's a strike for being late/not having valid tracking, that may not go away no matter what you do. Part of Etsy requiring tracking is also so they can verify it, and having tracking show as being delivered before an order is placed is absolutely going to look suspicious and get flagged as not verified (like it could look like you were trying to not ship the order). Otherwise anyone that has a repeat buyer could copy the tracking number from the first shipment to satisfy the requirements, but not actually send a second order. 

[AviationLab]

Yea, I understand.  Though that means the only thing I could do once he placed the second order was to buy a shipping label with his address on it and then send him an empty box (which I would have to explain?) which is really kind of nuts.  Would refunding his order have worked?  If they were to read our messages on Etsy it is very obvious what happened.

[audreytherese]

As I already said, I have no idea if refunding him (first you would need to cancel, not just refund) would change anything. It might, it might not. 

You are in the US. You could have bought a first class postage label through Etsy labels for $.63 and sent him a thank you card. 

Support is not going to read your messages and determine that this scenario is exempt. There are literally millions of sellers here. It wouldn't be fair to investigate your scenario unless they planned to do it in the instance of every discrepancy, which is why the program is automated. 

[AviationLab · Accepted solution]

FYI, I reached out to customer service, they were able to verify the order was delivered and updated my account accordingly.  I am back to 100% again and all is good.  Thank you all for your replies.

[TheRightPen]

How did you contact customer service?  I am having a similar problem.

[DHamiltonArt]

How can I reach Customer Service?

[DHamiltonArt]

I am having this problem also. 
Is there a way to get in touch with customer service?