Japan Post Tracking Not Updating

Hi, I've purchased an item on eBay with Standard International Shipping that's coming from Japan on January 12 and received the tracking number and had no problems yet. Was updating for 2 days perfectly fine and suddenly stopped updating on January 15 with the info: Dispatch from outward office of exchange at 4:30pm. Its been over 14 days since any update and past it's expected delivery January 18-28. I've contact the sender questioning the unusual event as I've never experienced this before. They told me as quoted, "Japan Post says US custom and USPS is over capacity now due to a lot of packages. So it will take a few more while than usual." I've contacted Canada Post, to ask if they have received the parcel and told me they haven't received it yet. With that being said, is it possible it may have been lost/stolen? Or is it really that busy during this type of month?

I don't know about the seasonal busy time, but it sounds like the parcel left Japan. It sometimes happens that the recipient's country's postal service forgets to scan it, or that going by the rules of the recipient country tracking is not available for the type of parcel, thus no update. I would say be patient... I have had a few parcels that kept me worried but arrived safe, the recipient writing me to tell me even before the update said "delivered."

Depends on the type of mail it was sent as. Standard Mail just sounds like SAL. As Japan post dont do standard mail as a product description. But it is probably registered SAL which fails to update in many countries. So it would still be a 2-5 week wait.

I've sent things to my daughter in Canada, and there have been delays with delivery. I've followed the delivery online using the Japan Post tracking page and I've often wondered what was taking so long. I7ve seen that same message... I think Canada is particularly lax when it comes to their postal services.

Give it a few more days and then consider filing a claim.

Did you add insurance when you sent it?

Thanks for the reply everyone. By the looks of it I'll just wait for a couple of weeks before I issue a refund. @Yubin, unfortunately no, I don't have insurance on the item.

can you get a refund from the seller ?

@Ken, The seller does not mind for me to issue a refund if the item does not arrive at the expected delivery date, which it has, but I'll wait a few weeks just incase.

It is a tracked item so the seller will pass the issue onto JP.

JP will not investigate a lost parcel until the item is more than 8 week old.

Considering you don't know what type of service the seller used. And it has only been 2.5 weeks. And some of JP services allow 2-5 weeks. There isn't much you can do other than wait.