USPS Says "Delivered", But Wasn't.

MisterBungle

Header says it all.

I won an graded pack on eBay last Wednesday. Followed it with
the tracking number. Says it was delivered at around noon
today, but nothing in the mailbox, no slip in the door, and
nothing sitting outside my door.

I guess it could have been delivered to the wrong address,
and I could hope that it will get put back into the mail stream
at some point.

Anyone else run into this? What did you do and how long after?

~

LarkinCollector

Hopefully, whoever it was delivered to is honest and it makes it on it's way to you. If it shows delivered in your zip code, it's the only time I'm aware of that eBay will rule against a buyer on an opened case.

charrigan

Call national USPS customer service. They will open a case and give your local PO 24 hours to respond. They'll fix it; they almost always do. Don't listen to the doomsayers.

Baez578

Not to sounds negative but hopefully it appears. I've had some bad luck in this department

lawnmowerman

<< <i>Hopefully, whoever it was delivered to is honest and it makes it on it's way to you. >>



That's happened to me twice! Both times somebody was good enough to bring the mailer to my house.

MisterBungle

Thanks guys.

I guess I'm torn as to whether to go ahead and contact
the PO, or wait a couple of days to see if it turns up on
its own.

If I wait, and it doesn't turn up, then I'm further away
from the so called "delivered" date, which would make
it harder to track down, but if I start something now,
and it turns up tomorrow, I'm going to have to do a
face palm.

~

Raulsmaster

any complaints I've made to the p.o. in regards to this topic I've been essentially told to pound salt

dytch2220

I had a couple of these. I did start a case on both but I basically just had to wait and they eventually showed up. I had given up on one and it suddenly appeared two weeks later.

jay0791

Call your local PO right away. that way they can talk to the carrier while everything is fresh.
Usually it works out.

good luck

charrigan

Contact PO.

Don't listen to grumpy haters - USPS delivers 99.999% of all stuff. Probably 5% of packages show errors (misdelivered, missed scans, etc.). Bumps along the way, yes. But you'll get your package.

jimq112

Call the local office that delivers your mail first thing tomorrow morning. Have them ask the carrier while it might still be fresh on their mind. We have a couple subs that deliver by number and not always the correct street. The time it got scanned delivered should help them figure out where it got misdelivered.

If you enter your zip code here and find your post office you should be able to get the local phone #.
The longer you wait to call the lower the chance the carrier will remember.

If you can find out what the packaging looked like from the seller that might help the carrier remember.

Priority comes with either $50 or $100 insurance if the seller happened to ship it that way, even if they didn't pay for insurance.

grote15

If it was misdelivered, hopefully the recipient is conscientious enough to return it. Charrigan is being optimistic and while it is true that most packages do turn up, it's obviously an entirely different scenario if package was delivered to the wrong address. I hope it turns up.

brendanb438

Had this happen last year with a $200 comic. At the time this happened I was receiving around 10 to 15 packages a week at my house. My mailman was really cool and swears that he delivered it to my door step. Sadly the same day my wife who was about 6 months pregnant didn't hear him ring the door bell, about 2 hours afterwards some punk kids who where going door to door trying to sell junk magazines or books rang the doorbell and she ignored them like I told her to. My guess is they ran off with the package and it ended up trashed somewhere nearby.

With the USPS you just never know though. I had two 1/10 Oz Gold American Eagles I had purchased off eBay back around 2009 come up lost in route to my house and the seller (a huge PM dealer) ended up having to send replacements out to me. Well a little under 2 years later the package ended up being delivered to my address. Imagine my surprise at getting them. I contacted the original seller and asked him if he would like me to mail them back to him, he told me not to worry about it since he insured the original package and had been paid out already by USPS on them.

RookieHOFers

I just had this exact thing happen to me, and the time frame was identical. My package was shipped on Wednesday and on Friday, it showed delivered at 3:19 PM. I got NO mail that day, nor did I on Saturday. I went to the PO yesterday morning and spoke to my mail lady, she confirmed that there was nothing for me. It showed up in yesterday's mail during her regular delivery, so hopefully you have a similar experience.

Matt

MisterBungle

Thanks for all the advice, guys.

I decided to wait until after today's mail to start
contacting people, just to make sure I wasn't
jumping the gun. Still nothing in the mail.

The first thing I did was to contact the seller to
see if he had put a signature conformation on
the package which, I didn't know at the time,
opened a case against him.

As I'm getting ready to go to the Post Office
and get them looking for it, it arrives at my
door. It seems that it was delivered to the
wrong address after all, and the guy was
good enough to bring it to me.

So, all is well. I have the pack in hand, and
it is the last pack I needed to complete my
run of PSA graded wax packs from 1975-1989.

It took me quite a while to find a full sized
1975 wax pack. I've had chances at '75
minis, but I wanted to hold out for a full sized
pack, since all my others are full sized.

And even though there are a couple of places
where the gum has tried to escape from this
pack, I'm happy to have found one.

Thanks again for all the good advice.

John



~

charrigan

Glad it worked out.

charrigan

<< <i>It seems that it was delivered to the
wrong address after all, and the guy was
good enough to bring it to me. >>



One other thing: we don't know that is what happened. It is possible, but not definite. Another explanation would be that the item was marked delivered but then not actually delivered and stayed with the carrier. Carrier then found misplaced item and delivered the next day. That sort of thing seems to happen occasionally, in my experience.

grote15

<< <i>

<< <i>It seems that it was delivered to the
wrong address after all, and the guy was
good enough to bring it to me. >>



One other thing: we don't know that is what happened. It is possible, but not definite. Another explanation would be that the item was marked delivered but then not actually delivered and stayed with the carrier. Carrier then found misplaced item and delivered the next day. That sort of thing seems to happen occasionally, in my experience. >>



That would be possible if the carrier brought the item today, but if it was a neighbor that brought it over, obviously that wasn't the case. Did you get the package with your regular mail or was it brought over separately? If the latter, it was almost certainly misdelivered. If the former, it's possible the carrier brought it.

Nice pack, btw! I remember watching that auction.

charrigan

Grote: I have had carriers circle back at the end of their route to drop off mail that was mistakenly not delivered earlier. If a neighbor brought it over, yeah, that's a big mistake. If it simply arrived after the original mail came, you can't say it wasn't USPS. This is mostly irrelevant but I did want to point it out. As I said before, some people who have had 1 bad experience in 10,000 shipments with USPS tend to universalize their failings and lean toward worst-case thinking that is rarely correct.

grote15

<< <i>Grote: I have had carriers circle back at the end of their route to drop off mail that was mistakenly not delivered earlier. If a neighbor brought it over, yeah, that's a big mistake. If it simply arrived after the original mail came, you can't say it wasn't USPS. This is mostly irrelevant but I did want to point it out. As I said before, some people who have had 1 bad experience in 10,000 shipments with USPS tend to universalize their failings and lean toward worst-case thinking that is rarely correct. >>



That is all possible, yes, but in this case, my money is on an honest neighbor bringing the package over, as it was brought over the day after the carrier scaned it as delivered. Carriers make mistakes. We all have received pieces of mail that don't belong to us. I will either walk the package over myself or leave it in my box with the flag up for the carrier to correct his error.

LarkinCollector

<< <i>Grote: I have had carriers circle back at the end of their route to drop off mail that was mistakenly not delivered earlier. If a neighbor brought it over, yeah, that's a big mistake. If it simply arrived after the original mail came, you can't say it wasn't USPS. This is mostly irrelevant but I did want to point it out. As I said before, some people who have had 1 bad experience in 10,000 shipments with USPS tend to universalize their failings and lean toward worst-case thinking that is rarely correct. >>


What about those of us who have had to exchange mail with neighbors over 100 times due to misdelivery? It's not worst-case thinking, just common sense in my neighborhood.

MisterBungle

Yeah, It was exactly that.

I went to check the mail, and there was some junk
mail in the box, but no package.

I came back and was doing some stuff on the
computer when I though I heard a noise outside.
I was busy at the time so I didn't go check on it
right away, but when I did, the package was
leaning up against the door frame.

I guess it could have been the postman, but
then why didn't he just leave it in the box?

Anyway, I'm just glad it's here!! /;-)

Thanks Tim, I hope I didn't bid against you
on the pack.

~

grote15

No worries, John--I had it on my watch list but never bid on it. Regular sized 75s are very tough to find and you got a nice price on that one. Enjoy! Always nice when you have an honest neighbor, too.

charrigan

<< <i>What about those of us who have had to exchange mail with neighbors over 100 times due to misdelivery? It's not worst-case thinking, just common sense in my neighborhood. >>



Out of how many packages ordered?

I'm not saying USPS doesn't make mistakes.

I'm saying that, on balance, serious mistakes are rare. Bumps along the road that get resolved well for the buyer (as in this case) are common. So, it's best to keep a level head and avoid doomsday "OMGEEZES HATE USPS!!1!" talk.

LarkinCollector

<< <i>

<< <i>What about those of us who have had to exchange mail with neighbors over 100 times due to misdelivery? It's not worst-case thinking, just common sense in my neighborhood. >>



Out of how many packages ordered?

I'm not saying USPS doesn't make mistakes.

I'm saying that, on balance, serious mistakes are rare. Bumps along the road that get resolved well for the buyer (as in this case) are common. So, it's best to keep a level head and avoid doomsday "OMGEEZES HATE USPS!!1!" talk. >>


I haven't seen a single doomsayer in this thread or anyone hating on the USPS, just you repeatedly bringing it up. When I first moved to this residence, there were at least 10 misdeliveries a month for the first year or so. Now it's 2-3 times a year, unless we get a new carrier, in which case it shoots up significantly at those times. I would say I'm a lot closer to 200 misdeliveries per 10,000 than 1, but I don't expect that to extrapolate to be a common statistic across everyone served by USPS. Perhaps you should consider that everyone's experience is not the same as your own and there are significant deviations from averages. Mine is mostly due to idiotic house numbering when the neighborhood was first built (they put the same house numbers on two streets with the same name and only the suffix different). I actually know my neighbors and it's a short walk, so it's not a big deal and I know where to look if something isn't received at my house.

charrigan

LC--looking at this thread alone, there are 2 anecdotes of "one time something bad happened to me". My comment is broader, though, directed at the general tenor of USPS-related discussion on this board.

Your comment that:



<< <i>everyone's experience is not the same as your own >>



is exactly the point: individual anecdotes aren't particularly helpful, especially when taken out of the context of an overwhelmingly effective delivery system like USPS.

Instead of responding to someone's lost package by explaining that you too have lost an item, it is far more productive to just state the best practices for recovering a package (which is simply: contact USPS customer service and the seller to verify your address. Has anyone even cited another course of action?). To reassure the buyer, point out that USPS is overwhelmingly effective (packages sent are eventually delivered to their intended destination). If you just want to vent, that's cool, but start a new thread because that doesn't really do anything to help someone looking to locate an item.

grote15

Charrigan, no one here is bashing the usps, just sharing real life experiences which is what the OP requested, after all. Your zealous defense of the usps, even in a case like this, where the carrier clearly goofed, at least to some extent, is noble, but not really necessary.