USA package delivered to completely different state.

[jellybirddesigns]

Sent a parcel recently to the USA.

It was meant to be delivered to the state of Washington, but has just shown as delivered to someone in the city of Irvine, California! 

I've contacted Aus Post for further information, but naturally the buyer has been looking at the tracking and is seeing the same thing and wanting to know what is going on. 

I mean, how can this even be possible when the parcel is clearly addressed in 2 places, both the main part of the satchel as well as the customs/tracking form????

[padi*0409]

Misdirection can happen if postal workers are not on the ball. It may well be that you'll need to contact USPS (or whoever delivered it) and try to get it redirected.

Make sure you stay in close contact with the buyer and update them on any progress you make.

[jellybirddesigns]

I just checked on Google maps and there is a house with the same number and same street in Irvine! 

That's so ridiculous! I mean the State and Post Code are in big block letters - you literally cannot confuse Washington State with California!

After checking the tracking, it went through many, many steps in California after landing  -  multiple people including the postie would have handled the parcel and NOBODY picked up that it was in the wrong State entirely????!!!!

I mean American stupidity and all that..........

It's a $160 package, so I have no idea how this is going to work out..... Neither myself nor the buyer are at fault.

[papermoon.lady]

Probably some casuals (I guess they have casuals just as AusPost has at this time of the year), although I have read similar stories with AusPost all year round. Same number and street happen, but it is unbelievable they don't notice when a parcel is scanned multiple times!

Once I bought from a seller who not only had the same street number and street name as me, but even the unit number! She pointed it out on the envelope. 🙂

Anyway, you should definitely get compensated, but it might take a bit longer than usual because of the holidays.

[jellybirddesigns]

I believe I have figured out what happened. As many would know, when packages go to the USA and other countries, the PO worker manually enters the address as per the parcel, into the postal system. It appears that they have selected a pre-filled/predictive address that comes up in their system, and have not done a visual check to see that it matches the actual one on the package.

As you might also know, that manually entered address gets linked to the tracking bar code that gets printed and placed onto the parcel. Over the course of the parcel's journey, everyone has gone by what has been scanned from the bar code.

Since I cannot see what a PO worker is entering into their system, I'm not sure who I consider more stupid - the PO worker for not doing a basic accuracy check, or the multitude of people along the way in the USA, including the postie who ignored the actual address written in GIANT BLOCK LETTERS and delivered it to a home in California! If anything, the parcel should have been refused delivery due to the confusion between the actual address and what was being scanned on the barcode.

[domino-710]

It seems as though the person to whom it was delivered has not put in back in the post. ??

[jellybirddesigns]

Yes, they're probably delighted they got a free Xmas present!

[twyngwyn]

Maybe the buyer would be willing to track it down??

[jellybirddesigns]

Yes, possibly - I have been in touch with her and advised I'm still waiting on confirmation from Aus Post that this is what happened. I did try and contact USPS, but it's impossible to get to speak to customer service, and and I could not get through to a rep since I could not provide a US tracking number. The website says that if it's international, a query needs to be lodged by the postal service of that senders country ie: Aus Post.

However, on Monday I will go to the PO that inputted the address and ask if they can assist in terms of showing me what was entered into the system and maybe I can even wrangle a refund out of them directly. If so, I can either reimburse the buyer or make up another parcel.

[eol-products]

I am a little surprised you do not use your mypost account for international parcels for printing out the customs form and tracking info.