OnTrac Tracking. Free & Online.

OnTrac's about page tells how LaserShip and OnTrac combined their East and West delivery footprints for last-mile e-commerce deliveries, and its FAQ says the network makes residential deliveries in 35 states and Washington, D.C. This page covers parcels on OnTrac's public tracker, not the aviation and medical shipments of the Global Critical Delivery division also described there. Once a package has shipped, your retailer has to approve any change to the delivery address, for security reasons.

The FAQ lists C, D, 1LS, LS, LX and BN as the ways its tracking numbers begin, and sends anyone without a number to their retailer. For most tickets, Wink, the chat assistant, also asks for a valid number.

TrackParcel's search box drops a pasted label such as Tracking:, enclosing brackets, spaces and most punctuation, and capitalises the letters. The letters and digits that remain, up to 50 characters, go to OnTrac unchanged, because TrackParcel has no OnTrac shape check. Auto-Detect offers OnTrac for a number that starts 1LSCXM or D100 followed by 9 to 11 digits. For any other start, including C, LS, LX and BN, pick OnTrac by hand.

TrackParcel reads the tracking service behind OnTrac's Track Your Package page. Each event gives the short event wording, the city and state, and the longer description as a remark. The result lists the origin and destination as city and state.

Every scan is read with the UTC offset in its timestamp, so scans from different US time zones are placed in the order they really happened, newest first. TrackParcel does not show the delivery photo, the signature, the two reference fields, the dimensions or the weight that OnTrac's own page can display.

The tracking page explains a missing record in two ways: “the sender may still need to send OnTrac the package data”, or the tracking number is invalid. Once a number has been sent, TrackParcel reports it as not found when the carrier answers that it has no data for it, or returns no package at all.

A package returned without any readable scan is reported as an error, not as not found. If a number from your retailer keeps failing, ask the retailer to confirm it, since the FAQ points customers without a number back to the retailer.

OnTrac's Service Alerts page posts interruptions such as severe weather, with the affected ZIP codes, and refers you to tracking for a shipment's own status. During an evacuation, it says packages not yet delivered are secured in one of its facilities, and delivery is attempted when it is safe.

A missing delivered package, delivery instructions and a package you no longer want all go through Wink, the virtual chat assistant, which opens a ticket. For most of these the FAQ asks for a valid tracking number, so keep it to hand. A change of delivery address goes through your retailer, and the FAQ also lists a text-only self-service line for tracking a package or opening a case.