Buyer gave me an address that doesn't work.

[blairchris]

Buyer gave me this address (I x'd some letters for privacy )

Alexxxxx Xxst
4201wxxxxxxx Avenue
suite B-2 BNB-900KN west palm beach
Miami FL 33409-4778

USPS shipping system says this is not valid address. 

I contacted the buyer and asked "What is your correct address?" and their answer was "yes".  

What do I do now?  I can't use this address and the buyer doesn't seem to be any help.  

Any suggestions?

[soh.maryl]

From what little you've shared, that address looks like it might be a freight forwarder.

But, in that case, the USPS shouldn't have had a hard time recognizing that address as valid.

And that's the address you saw for the buyer when they paid?

Worst comes to worst, you may have to cancel, citing problem with the buyer's address.

If I had to do that, I would message the buyer and explain why.  

[1tuna]

I am unsure what the problem is

did someone tell you this is a bad address

did you try to print postage or did you just look it up

you need to print the postage out and drop it off

ebays postage system works just fine with all the extra numbers for  FF

[soh.maryl]

OP states "USPS system states this is not valid address".  

[blairchris]

I thought it might be some kind of mailing center as well.  

The problem is there is no such address in Miami FL, however, when I actually printed the label it changed the city to West Palm Beach so I hopefully that fixes the problem.  

[soh.maryl]

Hopefully, that will work.

So the address that showed up when the buyer paid was not the same as the address when you printed the label for this purchase? Was the zip still the same?  

[blairchris]

The problem is there are two cities listed on the address, West Palm Beach and Miami, but when I printed the label it automatically changed the city to West Palm Beach so I guess the issues resolved its self.  

[findersltd]

The zip code is for West Palm Beach.  If you change the address you may loose your protection for it being delivered. Miami is not even in the same county. I have to agree, you can cancel on grounds of problem with address. 

Have you tried googling the address?

[lacemaker3]

@blairchris 

There is a "courier and freight" business at that address, so that is a freight forwarder's address. Google street view shows that the location has multiple small businesses or offices, it's not a residential address, and there are multiple businesses operating there.

The Zip+4 is sufficient to get the location and full address. If you enter the address the buyer provided into the USPS lookup app, it says that the correct city for that address is West Palm Beach. There are a lot of different +4 numbers, that are associated with different suite numbers at that address. The suite number is how freight forwarders identify which customer the delivery is for, so they know where to send it to.

https://tools.usps.com/zip-code-lookup.htm?byaddress

If you are concerned about shipping to this address, especially if it is a high-valued item, I would cancel the transaction for the reason "problem with the buyer's address" because the buyer did not provide the correct address (wrong city) in the proper format for a USPS address.

If you change the address to correct it, then you may not be covered for an Item Not Received dispute, because they may conclude that you shipped to a different address.

[blairchris]

Yes, eBay gave me this message:  

Warning: the shipping address City (Miami) may be wrong. We think it should be West Palm Beach. 

Change it for me

. . .so I checked the address through the USPS website and it gave me red flags too.  But I let the eBay system correct the address and then shipped it so I guess I'll find out soon if it worked.  

[blairchris]

Yes the zip was the same.   I think the buyer is somewhere in the Caribbean and just might not be familiar with the US format for mailing addresses.  Or the geography of Florida. 

[blairchris]

Thank you for taking the time to find this information. 

It is not a high dollar item so I'll take my chances and make the corrections eBay recommends and ship it.   

Just FYI this is the message I got from eBay when I first tried to print the label.  

Warning: the shipping address City (Miami) may be wrong. We think it should be West Palm Beach. Change it for me

All the extra letters and numbers threw me too but I understand now those are probably something to do with the mail forwarding center and a buyer who is not familiar with the formatting of US addresses. 

Thank you again for your assistance.