Return to Sender...Address Unknown ðŸŽ¶ðŸŽ¶ðŸŽ¶ | Selling

I am in a little panic mood today. I got another return.

I checked the address to confirm...I goggle the address and can't find the house 1608...found 1609 and 1606...and I finally gave up looking for it.

And I did something I have never done before...I contacted the buyer plus another buyer...I never do that.

This last order is a nice sale(s) and I can't afford negative feedbacks.

I checked the postage...they both got cancelled in San Francisco...so they were sent out from my city.

I wonder if there is something going on in the hubs or something or buyers just don't know their address.

Can a house change their house number? Good heavens...I have no idea what's going on.

mr_lincoln

·1 year ago

@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I am in a little panic mood today. I got another return.

I checked the address to confirm...I goggle the address and can't find the house 1608...found 1609 and 1606...and I finally gave up looking for it.

And I did something I have never done before...I contacted the buyer plus another buyer...I never do that.

This last order is a nice sale(s) and I can't afford negative feedbacks.

I checked the postage...they both got cancelled in San Francisco...so they were sent out from my city.

I wonder if there is something going on in the hubs or something or buyers just don't know their address.

Can a house change their house number? Good heavens...I have no idea what's going on.

@12345jamesstamps

San Francisco ... may be a homeless person ...

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago

Not sure what you mean?

I do know you live in a farm town of 3100...or a little less.

San Francisco is around 1,000,000 without tourists and those who commute outside of San Francisco.

I live in 'Pacific Heights' and will probably never see a homeless person on my street unless they are lost.

A house just sold the other day without walking distance.

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19676 View listings

edited by me.

wastingtime101

·1 year ago

0 View listings

@mam98031 wrote:
@12345jamesstamps wrote:
Not sure what you mean?
I do know you live in a farm town of 3100...or a little less.
San Francisco is around 1,000,000 without tourists and those who commute outside of San Francisco.
I live in 'Pacific Heights' and will probably never see a homeless person on my street unless they are lost.
A house just sold the other day without walking distance.
News to me, do you just make things up or is this an April's fool joke. I'll let my family know we apparently moved. Just let me know my new address so we know where to go !! LOL

Are you perhaps confusing a response to Mr Lincoln as being directed at you?

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19676 View listings

@wastingtime101 wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:
@12345jamesstamps wrote:
Not sure what you mean?
I do know you live in a farm town of 3100...or a little less.
San Francisco is around 1,000,000 without tourists and those who commute outside of San Francisco.
I live in 'Pacific Heights' and will probably never see a homeless person on my street unless they are lost.
A house just sold the other day without walking distance.
News to me, do you just make things up or is this an April's fool joke. I'll let my family know we apparently moved. Just let me know my new address so we know where to go !! LOL
Are you perhaps confusing a response to Mr Lincoln as being directed at you?

I did, thanks.

gurlcat

·1 year ago

The OP lives in San Francisco.
The buyer lives in Valrico, Florida (see zip code in photo).

chapeau-noir

·1 year ago

Radicalized by decency6558 View listings

@mr_lincoln wrote:

@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I am in a little panic mood today. I got another return.

I checked the address to confirm...I goggle the address and can't find the house 1608...found 1609 and 1606...and I finally gave up looking for it.

And I did something I have never done before...I contacted the buyer plus another buyer...I never do that.

This last order is a nice sale(s) and I can't afford negative feedbacks.

I checked the postage...they both got cancelled in San Francisco...so they were sent out from my city.

I wonder if there is something going on in the hubs or something or buyers just don't know their address.

Can a house change their house number? Good heavens...I have no idea what's going on.

@12345jamesstamps

San Francisco ... may be a homeless person ...

*rimshot. ðŸ™„

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19676 View listings

I've always advised sellers that get the item they sold to someone returned to contact the buyer and open up a conversation to figure out the next move. I know that is not what you normally do as you have explained this on other threads.

I've also always warned sellers about depending on Google or any other service to tell you if an address is a valid one or not. None of the internet maps are in REAL TIME. The are anywhere from 2-5 years behind. I've used where I live as an example before. All new houses on our street. Our addresses did not show up in any GPS or the internet for almost 3 years after the completion of our homes.

a_c_green

·1 year ago

@mam98031 wrote:
I've also always warned sellers about depending on Google or any other service to tell you if an address is a valid one or not.

Likewise; I don't care what Google may or may not show about any given address. If I am able to purchase a shipping label through eBay using the address provided by the buyer, then out the door it goes.

@mam98031 wrote:
None of the internet maps are in REAL TIME. They are anywhere from 2-5 years behind.

Yes indeed. In fact, if you dig around somewhere near the bottom of the screen (in desktop view), you can usually find the date that the photo was taken.

I was miffed when I saw the current Street View shot of our house. They had to come by on the very same day that the city was having one of their periodic lawn waste/tree trimming pickups, so the foreground of our house shows piles of hacked-off tree branches and piles of clippings heaped up all along the parkway. Thanks a lot, guys...

turtles-trading-post

·1 year ago

5955 View listings

I get my fair share of Return to Senders. As a stamp dealer, I send mainly by regular first class mail, using interesting stamps. Doing my due diligence, I found the addresses were legitimate. First, messaging the buyer who confirmed that was indeed their address. Then using the USPS lookup and last Google Maps. I'd even do street view to look at the house.

I saw this as related to the fact that scanners are doing all the work now, and there are no human eyes on the mail. Scanner messes up and it goes into a big bin. And after 2-3 weeks it's Return to Sender. When a buyer messages me that they haven't received their order in 2 weeks, I generally know it's coming back to me the 3rd or 4th week.

A colleague and I discussed this and determined that it must be my hand writing that the scanner was rejecting. So I tried to write neater, especially the zip plus 4. I also started looking into getting a printer that I could use just to print the address label.

Then I did a 1600 piece mailing for my club's annual event. These all had printed labels and I instructed our team the proper location to put the labels (the previous year I determined the return to senders were due to the haphazard way some of our folks applied the labels). Usually after doing this mailing on a Saturday, our social media would blow up on Monday with people excited they received their invitation. Not this year... close to 2 weeks later people started to mention it, with replies from others that they hadn't received theirs!

Then the returns started! First thing I noticed was that there were no postmarks on the stamps. That's over $1000 in postage! Then I looked at the addresses that were rejected... many of them were legit! I emailed folks I knew who confirmed it! I sent those back out again and they got them the second time.

That mailing was done February 15th. I'm still getting a trickle of Return to Senders. The system is indeed broke.

a_c_green

·1 year ago

@turtles-trading-post wrote:
A colleague and I discussed this and determined that it must be my hand writing that the scanner was rejecting. So I tried to write neater, especially the zip plus 4. I also started looking into getting a printer that I could use just to print the address label.

Abso-tively. Go to any garage sale or estate sale and you'll find a printer. If your computer doesn't recognize it and install it right away, go to the manufacturer's website to get the drivers and installation software there. If it's an inkjet, you'll probably need to buy new cartridges (which can be pricey), but if it's a laser printer, you may be fortunate enough to have plenty of toner left in the cartridge. (I prefer hitting up estate sales rather than garage sales for computer equipment, because there's a better chance that the device was actually in use up until the day the owner expired.)

@turtles-trading-post wrote:
Then the returns started! First thing I noticed was that there were no postmarks on the stamps. That's over $1000 in postage!

Your post office didn't cancel the stamps? That would be on them. Maybe you can reuse the envelopes by sticking new address labels over the old ones, although it's possible that the address scanners printed a routing code below the original ZIP codes that would need to be covered as well.

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago

Working for the government my experience and 'hand writing' on packages and such for shipping.

Some people write a '7' and put a line through it...that's a no-no addressing in the USA.

There are those who do the '2' with a loop in on the bottom...the way you see this 2 is the way it show be printed on the package.

Some people write a '4' with the top being like an open box...you should only write the 4 as this.

Otherwise, computers might reject the numbers and thus the address and it doesn't get to it's place.

And I prefer only black ink for writing the best.

buyselljack2016

·1 year ago

107 View listings

Your post office didn't cancel the stamps? That would be on them.

----------------------------------------------

In the office, where mail is "boxed" there are inked pads located strategically for those putting the plain letters in the boxes to quickly cancel postage missed by the machine process. Some employees will protect the revenue, some will not bother.

Out on carrier routes where mail is presorted in "delivery point sequence" to accelerate delivery the missed cancellations probably rarely get handled as they should.

If one were to dig deeply into the DMM they would likely find that the USPS frowns upon reusing postage that missed the cancel machines (or hand cancelling).

toysaver

·1 year ago

7833 View listings

You'd think somebody that collects stamps would know more than the average person about how to present their address.

gurlcat

·1 year ago

@toysaver wrote:
You'd think somebody that collects stamps would know more than the average person about how to present their address.

Question is, how do you know they didn't give the correct address?

I'm not saying anything in particular, all I know is I've only ever had maybe 1 or 2 RTS's ever. A big pile would be crazy. 2 in one day would be crazy.

But then, I print all shipping labels directly from the Order screen ..... I don't hand-copy them from the screen. Ya feel me?

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago

I don't know.

How do I know the person is using someone else's credit card to see if they can use it? I don't.

It's just strange the 'Ship to' on the left side of the order does not match 'Order' on the right side with names and telephone numbers not matching.

There needs to be in place where these should always match.

You do the 'shipping labels' which is great.

I print everything but I also look closely at everything to get an idea if I need 'tracking' or not.

I had one this week with address to Doral, Florida...red flag...'freight forward'...why for a standard envelope?

It's going to Colombia and that country is on my blocked list.

So, I have to take precautions for this 'freight forward'...more for feedback and don't really care about losing the item.

reallynicestamps

·1 year ago

2473 View listings

address to Doral, Florida...red flag...'freight forward'...why for a standard envelope?

Because the forwarding company is more reliable (pays off the right officials?) than the postal system?

You would have to use tracking to the FL address rather than untracked lettermail, but that used to only cost you guys a quarter or something . Does it still?

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago

I take a photo of buyer's envelope with postage and place next to it a piece of paper with the country name, 'freight forward', date and send that to buyer in a friendly email explaining it does takes a week or two longer to get to the country.

'Tracking' for 'freight forward'...I can afford to lose the item(s) but I never have yet.

I stopped using tracking to freight forward since they are not scanning 100% items as 'delivered in Florida, Delaware, Oregon, etc.

I don't think anyone is going to steal a standard envelope but will steal boxes going freight forward.

Tracking is under usually $6.00 for an envelope in the USA anywhere.

So far, really don't get items lost in the mail.

A few might get delayed but they usually show up.

a_c_green

·1 year ago

@12345jamesstamps wrote:
How do I know the person is using someone else's credit card to see if they can use it? I don't.
It's just strange the 'Ship to' on the left side of the order does not match 'Order' on the right side with names and telephone numbers not matching.
There needs to be in place where these should always match.

No, there doesn't. The Ship-To: address of a purchase can go anywhere, to anyone. Heck, on our family Amazon account we have something like 20 Ship-To: addresses stored, due to friends and family members living all over the place.

@12345jamesstamps wrote:
I had one this week with address to Doral, Florida...red flag...'freight forward'...why for a standard envelope?

Well, international air mail postage is more expensive than domestic, and your buyer apparently has a reshipping account there already, so why not.

@12345jamesstamps wrote:
It's going to Colombia and that country is on my blocked list.

Okay, it sounds like you answered your own question there. ðŸ˜

mr_lincoln

·1 year ago

@12345jamesstamps

Time to consider Local Pick up only ...

One of my favorite songs is Elvis Presly's "Return to Sender" link here if anyone wants to listen to that LOL!

Bing Videos

meme6253

·1 year ago

3930 View listings

Love that song!, Haven't heard it in forever.

mr_lincoln

·1 year ago

@meme6253 wrote:
Love that song!, Haven't heard it in forever.

@meme6253

Me too and I like the YouTube version from the movie it was in!

meme6253

·1 year ago

3930 View listings

I have not seen the YouTube version, I need to check it out.

mr_lincoln

·1 year ago

@meme6253 wrote:
I have not seen the YouTube version, I need to check it out.

@meme6253

The link in my post up thread was to the YouTube version ...

quicksilverdiecast

·1 year ago

53907 View listings

Curious? when ebay accepts a new seller are they not inclined to check the seller address for accuracy since it is their policy to ship to the address given by ebay to ship to? I do not get a lot of them but enough to make me aware of it. Should it not go hand in hand that since ebay deemed the address to ship to is the buyers, that if an issue like the buyer not knowing where he lives crops up....then that buyer files a INR case and it shows delivered back to seller and the seller gets stuck with lost postage etc.

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19676 View listings

@quicksilverdiecast wrote:
Curious? when ebay accepts a new seller are they not inclined to check the seller address for accuracy since it is their policy to ship to the address given by ebay to ship to? I do not get a lot of them but enough to make me aware of it. Should it not go hand in hand that since ebay deemed the address to ship to is the buyers, that if an issue like the buyer not knowing where he lives crops up....then that buyer files a INR case and it shows delivered back to seller and the seller gets stuck with lost postage etc.

The address a seller uses to register their account must be their primary address and the address shared with all the other info the seller supplies in order to get the account set up. Meaning the address must match banking info.

Ship to addresses are completely different. While a buyer or seller can have multiple ship to addresses, when a buyer is paying for an item they purchase, they can designate any ship to address they want to during checkout. This isn't new, it has always been like this. Even when PayPal was our money processor.

pickapaper

·1 year ago

4612 View listings

@mam98031 wrote: "This is a common occurrence for this seller. They have been on many threads over a long period of time with this issue."

Is there a policy against this?

luckythewinner

·1 year ago

1158 View listings

@pickapaper wrote:
@mam98031 wrote: "This is a common occurrence for this seller. They have been on many threads over a long period of time with this issue."

Is there a policy against this?

No, there is no policy against having buyers repeatedly give you insufficient addresses.

Did you really think there might be?

pickapaper

·1 year ago

4612 View listings

@pickapaper wrote:
@mam98031 wrote: "This is a common occurrence for this seller. They have been on many threads over a long period of time with this issue."

Is there a policy against this?

No, there is no policy against having buyers repeatedly give you insufficient addresses.

Did you really think there might be?

@luckythewinner That question about the policy was directed at mam98031 who was "complaining" that @12345jamesstamps writes about his insufficient addresses returns too often. She is always posting links to policies on here so it was meant as "tongue in cheek".

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago

It's just to point out of a possibility...now mind you...just thoughts...nothing more...

Person has a credit card not theirs and want to see if they can use it...putting some weird address on it.

Or person using the address next door or nearby where tracking will show when package is being delivered.

I have had a few where house is vacant.

I usually get a rather 'good window' of like 2 hours when my package is being delivered through tracking.

People here post where's my package...it's been delivered in my zip code...but not my address to me.

I think there should be a thorough check on name, address, telephone number of a buyer into the system.

So many times the name of buyer and telephone number are different in where the name of credit card used does not match the eBay ID with the telephone number.

I don't think it's 'the buyer doesn't know there address' all the time.

tobaccocardyahoo

·1 year ago

5488 View listings

@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I think there should be a thorough check on name, address, telephone number of a buyer into the system.
So many times the name of buyer and telephone number are different in where the name of credit card used does not match the eBay ID with the telephone number.
I don't think it's 'the buyer doesn't know there address' all the time.

Once upon a time, it was common practice to check all credit card orders against the credit card issuer's Address Verification System.

Amazon was a pioneer in not checking AVS (well before it had 3P sellers) because they did not want to make it hard to make gift purchases or decide to ship to your office. With AVS in place, buyers had to update their credit card accounts to include other addresses other than the address their card billed to.

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19676 View listings

Seller have never had access to a buyer's credit card information. Not in Paypal and not in Managed payments.

UNLESS prior to Managed Payments you had your own Merchant account and processed your own credit card transaction. But that changed with Managed Payment and there are now you can't do that either.

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19676 View listings

@pickapaper wrote:
@pickapaper wrote:
@mam98031 wrote: "This is a common occurrence for this seller. They have been on many threads over a long period of time with this issue."

Is there a policy against this?
No, there is no policy against having buyers repeatedly give you insufficient addresses.
Did you really think there might be?

@luckythewinner That question about the policy was directed at mam98031 who was "complaining" that @12345jamesstamps writes about his insufficient addresses returns too often. She is always posting links to policies on here so it was meant as "tongue in cheek".

No I wasn't. YOU don't speak for me. I wrote a fact. Nothing more. It is YOU trying to make more out of it than was intended for whatever reason you may have. FYI your paraphrasing of what I said changes what I actually posted to better fit your desire to stir things up. I never said what I highlighted above. Those are your words, NOT mine.

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19676 View listings

@pickapaper wrote:
@mam98031 wrote: "This is a common occurrence for this seller. They have been on many threads over a long period of time with this issue."

Is there a policy against this?

A policy against what exactly? The OP being on many threads with this issue. NO and I did not say their was. I would ask are you trying to stir something up that is unnecessary? I simply stated a fact. If you have some issue with that, I can't help you. It is simply a fact.

reallynicestamps

·1 year ago

2473 View listings

It's amazing how many people do not know their own addresses.

True story- our favourite taxi company had trouble finding our house - for an airport run no less!- and we were calling repeatedly.

Turned out they had a reversed house number recorded. Instead of "3456" they had "3546" putting the driver several blocks away and just as frustrated as we were.

Could have been the dispatcher. Could have been their computer record -which recognizes telephone numbers. Could have been us. Corrected and made the plane.

meme6253

·1 year ago

3930 View listings

They forgot to check their address APP.

krazzykats

·1 year ago

5712 View listings

It could be as simple as NE, NW, SW, etc...that is missing from the address...maybe. But if let's say Main Street is 75 miles long, then there could be NE or NW. Or N or S...

510 NW Main Street is way different than 510 NE Main Street...

Don't get me started on RR street numbers....ðŸ˜€

á“šá˜á—¢

mam98031

·1 year ago

Owner / Operator19676 View listings

This is a common occurrence for this seller. They have been on many threads over a long period of time with this issue.

gurlcat

·1 year ago

How did you find out that house had 6 people in it, and why would that cause it to be RTS? Anyway is 6 people in a house weird? 2 parents, 4 kids. 2 parents, 3 kids, one grandparent. Even 6 adults wouldn't seem so bizarre to me, considering the cost of living now.

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago

All had different names of people in the house...like a commune.

So I am thinking it was now 'vacant' and everyone moved out.

gurlcat

·1 year ago

@12345jamesstamps wrote:
All had different names of people in the house...like a commune.

Sorry maybe I'm dense but I still don't understand. "All had different names" -All ... of what ... had different names?

And I don't get why you think 6 different names is weird. To look at that and think "commune" instead of "family" or maybe "roommates" ..... that's like hearing hoofbeats and thinking "zebras" instead of "horses."

Would it be less commune-like if they had the same name like George Foreman and his 5 sons? ðŸ¤£

(RIP George)

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago

The house was currently 'up for sale'...by a realty.

gurlcat

·1 year ago

@12345jamesstamps wrote:
The house was currently 'up for sale'...by a realty.

-Ah yyyyeah, that's totally what I asked about. ðŸ™„

But in an ironic way the picture is actually getting clearer.

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago

So my volume of shipping is probably rather large compared to a lot of others who post here.

Some might ship as many items to different addresses as me and some do not and some don't even sell anymore.

Shipping out 100+ standard envelopes in a week is not unusual to me as a one kid operation.

gurlcat

·1 year ago

Exactly, so don't you think with that much volume, that many times hand-copying addresses you might be accidentally writing a wrong digit here or there? I sure suspect I would.

I started following this thread because of inhawaii's one about the ethics around contacting/refunding buyers for RTS items. I still would wait for the buyer to contact me, but only because I'd know for certain their shipping address was exactly what they typed for the order. But if I had hand-copied the addresses I sure wouldn't just plop these into a pile, assuming I did nothing wrong.

-Does it not occur to you to peel off the yellow stickers and do a quick check to see if you goofed? Or do you not want to know?

a_c_green

·1 year ago

@gurlcat wrote:
@12345jamesstamps wrote:
The house was currently 'up for sale'...by a realty.
-Ah yyyyeah, that's totally what I asked about. ðŸ™„

But in an ironic way the picture is actually getting clearer.

Any address with frequent turnover (especially if it's an apartment or rental) will have a long list of names associated with that address, but not necessarily all living there at the same time.

12345jamesstamps

OP1 year ago