That’s the model working as intended rather than anything going wrong. Cross-border services like this one carry your order out of the US and then hand it to a delivery company in your own country for the last stretch — your national post, or a local courier, depending where you are. So the name appearing later in your timeline is whoever is physically bringing the package to your door, which at that point is more useful to know than the international carrier’s name. It also tells you who to deal with about the delivery itself: redelivery, a safe place, a collection point, all of that now belongs to the local company rather than to the service that flew it over.

You wouldn’t have, as it is a specialized cross-border logistics service owned by UPS. Services like this sit behind the scenes for US retailers who want to sell internationally without running their own export operation: the merchant hands the package over, the service handles customs paperwork and the international flight, and a local postal or courier carrier finishes the delivery. From your side, it just means your order from a US website is travelling under a logistics provider name that wasn't shown at checkout. That is normal, and your contract remains directly with the shop you bought from.

If the shop collected duties and taxes at checkout, that’s usually the whole bill — paying upfront exists precisely so nothing is owed at the door. Keep the checkout confirmation showing that tax or duty line, because it’s your evidence if anyone asks for money later. Occasionally a second request does appear, and it’s worth pausing before paying: it might be a genuine local handling charge, an assessment error, or a scam message with no connection to your package at all. Read what the message is actually asking for, compare it against your order confirmation, and if the two don’t match, contact the shop before paying anything. Genuine charges can also be queried and refunded when duties are prepaid, though that conversation runs through the retailer.

The handover happened, and your story moved to a different number. The international number typically stops updating at the point the package passes to a local carrier, which then opens its own record — so the original looks dead while your package is moving perfectly normally under a new one. Nothing is lost; it’s simply being written down somewhere else. The new number usually turns up on your order page or in an email from the shop, and once you have it, add it here alongside the original so both halves sit in one timeline. If no new number appears within a few days of that last international scan, the retailer is the one who can look it up.

Returns rarely go back the way the package came. Start with the retailer’s returns page rather than the carrier, because the shop decides the route: some provide a prepaid label through a local partner, some run a consolidated returns address in your own country, and some expect you to ship internationally at your own cost — which for a small item can exceed the refund. Check before you post anything. Whatever route you’re given, use something trackable and keep the receipt, since proof of return is what triggers most refunds. If duty was paid on the way in, ask the retailer whether it can be reclaimed; that varies by country, and it’s easy to lose money simply by not asking.

Work outward from the shop. The retailer sold you the item, holds the contract and can chase the carrier as the sender — which is often the only route to a real answer. The cross-border service itself generally deals with retailers rather than shoppers, so contacting them directly tends to be slow or impossible. Your local carrier is the right call for delivery-day matters once your package is in their hands: a missed attempt, a collection point, a safe place. The rough rule worth remembering is that anything about where your package is goes to the shop, and anything about getting it into your hands today goes to the local courier.

That stage regularly runs longer than people expect, because it isn’t really one step. If your parcel seems stuck at a US export hub, don't worry! It’s just waiting to be grouped with other shipments, loaded onto a flight, and cleared for export, none of which creates frequent scans. Several days is ordinary, and a week isn’t unusual in busy periods. What you’re watching for next is an arrival scan in your own country, which is normally when the timeline wakes up properly. If there is no tracking update from the export hub for two weeks, contact the retailer so they can open an inquiry as the sender.

That’s exactly what we’re for. Add the international number and, once it exists, the local one, and we’ll join them into a single timeline so the US leg and the delivery in your own country read as one journey rather than two disconnected fragments. It saves the usual routine of watching one site until it goes quiet, then hunting for another. Switch on alerts and you’ll be told when the handover happens and when the local carrier starts moving — the two moments that actually matter on a cross-border order.

Once the parcel lands in your country, a local carrier finishes the job. i-Parcel doesn't publish which carrier that is in each market, and it varies — so if your number stops updating after an arrival or handover scan, that's the point where it happened. What to do: keep using the i-Parcel number first, since a few quiet days around customs is ordinary. If it stays silent, go back to the retailer rather than to UPS — the shop holds the i-Parcel account and is the party who can raise a trace. And if they give you a second, different-looking reference, try that one against your national carrier as well.

You may also want to explore tracking for these other destinations:

• Keep an eye on United States deliveries

• Tracking made easy for Great Britain

• See deliveries to and from Australia

• Where's your Canada parcel?

• Follow your shipment in Germany

• Got a parcel from France? Track it here

These carrier pages are worth a look too:

• USPS tracking, step by step

• See where your UPS package is

• Got a FedEx number? Start here

• Check your OnTrac shipment

• LaserShip updates in one place

• Waiting on Asendia USA? Track it here