bought amazon shipping (fedex -> usps), but usps picked it up, and package now stuck in limbo

Sharing a situation in case it helps anyone in the community if it happens to them.

I am selling a product on Amazon, seller-fulfilled using a fulfillment service.

I purchased the shipping from Amazon for an order as usual. It was for Fedex Ground Economy.

That was about 3 weeks ago.

A few weeks ago, Amazon emails me that my VTR is below standard. I’m thinking WTF, I ship *always* within the “ship by” date. And after navigating to some page in seller central and downloading a spreadsheet, i find the order #.

Tracking at amz seller central says the package was picked up, and nothing more.

My fulfillment guy tells me to check the USPS tracking (turns out this is one of those shipments where Fedex picks it up and hands it off at some point to USPS). USPS tracking says it is being held waiting for postage payment. WTF??

It took several support chats and calls to figure it out.

It looks like USPS picked up the package, not Fedex. Which is why they have no postage/payment. I don’t know who USPS is trying to contact to get the payment, I have not heard from them.

Amazon says they can’t do anything about it.

USPS call centre says they can’t do anything about it.

My fulfillment guy is going to contact their USPS contact.

I’m going to cancel / claim a refund on the shipping and for the “lost” order and ship a new one to the customer if they still want it. And see if Amazon will reset my VTR coz this sure wasn’t my fault.

Anyhow, I hope this doesn’t happen to you. And if it does, hopefully you will remember my story and it will save you some time figuring out what the heck happened.