Does FedEx recycle their tracking numbers over time?

[Descartes]

One facet of an e-commerce architecture I built is to send shipping confirmation emails. I was a bit perplexed when I located duplicate tracking numbers in the system. This is only for FedEx, and not UPS (as far as I can tell). Does FedEx "recycle" their tracking numbers after a certain time? Since there are 1,000,000,000,000,000 possible tracking numbers, I guess it is possible that they would permute each possible number and require them to be recycled. Does anyone know how often they do this?

Thanks!

 

[chiwawa626]

Nope but whoooweee thats a lot of packages, im guessing they deliver a million a day, so im guessing they prolly do recycle them, but just not sure howlong...It must be months because ive accidently checked old numbers and had the same old thing come up or sometimes just says its invalid. I think after a while they take it out of circulation, then wait then put it back in as a new one...

 

[Freejack2]

I suspect seeing as they ship worldwide they do more than a million packages a day. 10 million maybe? 50 million even?

Add in the fact that part of the number is probably a location code and I can see them having to recycle numbers at some point in time.

 

[Murpheeee]

Well I once tracked a package sent to me and got tracking info from 1997.

I assumed it was a recycled number

 

[The Stigenator]

yes they do recycle it.

 

[ViRGE]

On the subject of recycled numbers, what do you do if you have one? I have a package from Newegg I want to track, but my number is someone else's recycled number. The tracking screen asks for the shipping date, but when I put in the date Newegg gave me(9-03-02), it's not pulling anything up. Newegg had the number up since this morning; do I need to wait a bit longer, or is something amiss?

 

[Smolek]

try calling newegg

 

[Thegonagle]

I'd guess that the NewEgg system has read in the tracking number from your shipping label, and your package is currently sitting in shipping awaiting the pickup from Fed Ex. So, while New Egg knows your tracking number and has relayed it to you, Fed Ex won't have a record of your package until it has actually been picked up and read into their system.

 

[FoBoT]

i hope so

save the rainforest!!!

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
i hope so

save the rainforest!!!

save the rainforest? recycling #'s wouldnt cut down on paper, would it? they could always add a few extra digits, that'll give them even more combinations

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: AkumaX

Originally posted by: FoBoT
i hope so

save the rainforest!!!

save the rainforest? recycling #'s wouldnt cut down on paper, would it? they could always add a few extra digits, that'll give them even more combinations

True, but that would require an overhaul of their computer systems.