What should I do when USPS says "Delivery Attempted - No Access to Delivery Location"?

[zhouhsh]

This is a signature required USPS prority package and 7 days ago I got the following tracking info "Delivery Attempted - No Access to Delivery Location". So I called the buyer's local post office but they have no idea what happened. The buyer's address is single family house without fancy gate.

The manager said it could be the carrier's mistake but they don't know where the package is now. They said there are more than 100 parcels in their facilities now that can't be deliver for all kinds of reasons.

Since they are very busy and don't want(I assume) to check through all these packages.

As a seller what should I do in this case? I already informed the buyer of the situation and he want his money back. The thing is that I didn't buy extra insurance other than the default $50 USPS priority covery, which is a very expensive lesson for me. I may end up with losing >$200 on this case. 

Any advice is appreciated.

[em9219]

This is your fault: eBay and PayPal do not required signature confirmation until the total payment is at least $750.

But eBay will rule in your favor as eBay considers Attempted Delivery is "Delivered" and it's the buyer's responsibility (you can stop bothering the post office) to retrieve the problem.

[mam98031]

Go to the USPS website and put a trace on the package.  Oddly that actually does help sometimes to shake the package loose.

Also you may suggest to your customer for them to try and stop in at their local PO and see if they can locate the package.  Over the phone is one thing, but face to face may render a different result.

I hope it works out.  You need to give it some time to be worked out.  I know your buyer is probably frustrated, but they won't win an INR if they file it as the tracking showing the attempted delivery means delivered in Ebayland as the other posters shared with you.

But still work closely with your buyer to try and recover this package as quickly as possible.  I would NOT refund it at all.  

[lja440]

Don't worry so much. 

I'm a rural carrier. Even marking packages there has been times these past weeks when I have brought packages back at the end of the day. It can be as simple as not being able to safely get to the house for delivery. All this week they (road crew) have been trimming or removing trees along our 2 lane State Route. They actually have been removing the mailboxes then replacing them as the move along the road. 

It also can be that they missed the package or knew they had a package and couldn't find it. I have had exactly ONE day these past few weeks where I could get all of my packages in my Jeep and not had to run back to the PO for second and third loads. Sometime it is simply a case of a package not being sorted to the correct stack for loading. 

I agree with the other poster. Ask the buyer to contact or go to the delivering PO and ask about the package.

[lja440]

 This is a picture of my parcel markers from Monday. Note that this does not include the last 2 hours of my route. My sub worked the end of my route because I had to get tires on my Jeep due to my old ones having busted belts. 

[lja440]

Lost the fight with eBays short edit time. 

The Meaning of these is each green marker is a large box, Pink are large poly bags, Orange are small packages and poly bags that I organize in tubs. 

[arun7500]

At this time of the year, SNOW. In the West coast, it was the fancy way of saying aggressive pets.

[juststuffisell]

Don't fret about the "It's your fault" comment. I have sent 50 dollar packages with signature required. Inconvenient to the buyer? Sometimes I am sure it is, but I am of the mind set if I think you might be sketchy, you're signing for it. Good for you. Especially remember the above when shipping to Apartments, trailer parks and Condo communities - this is where you will lose most of your packages if you know what I mean.....

Email the buyer and let them know they will need to go to their local delivery post office - the post office responsible for sorting and delivering to their address - and they will need to pick the package up. The worker behind the counter will have no choice but to go to the back and rummage around and find and give the customer their package. I've had to do it myself when they couldn't deliver a gold coin I bought and then "Lost" the package at the local post office. As I told postal worker when I asked for my package, It's a very expensive gold coin that is here in your building and I am not leaving until you hand it over to me....lol

Needless to say, they found it in about 10 minutes.

Cheers

[divwido]

May I add to this?  And don't let them try to not search.  Sometimes you have to be forceful and demand what is rightfully yours.

[goldguy22k]

Sounds like you are a thoughtful, careful and good USPS carrier.

I have run into the situation that the original poster mentioned.  One was an AMZN delivery on a Sunday and I was sitting in the front room watching football when the carrier marked the item as "undeliverable" or "bad address" or "no one at home" or whatever.  But also had similar things happen on regular USPS deliveries.

Best info I get from the Day Manager at the carrier facility is that perhaps a substitute was on the route that day or that the AMZN deliveries are a separate "crew" that may not be so wonderful.

I can see where a sub or contractors might be overwhelmed by the load at times and take an easy way out and just mark a bunch of packages as undeliverable.  But it gives the seller the impression that the problem is the buyer, when they should be complaining about the service received or NOT received.

[futurespast1113]

If the package you didn't receive the day you were home was being shipped by Amzon aka AMZN Logistics that is why you didn't get it that day. 9 times out of 10, if Amazon was the carrier in question their delievery service would mark it delivered or mark some generic term on the tracking while I was home all day waiting for it and never got it. Amazon's own delivery service is the worst.

It got so bad that I had to call Amazon's customer service and tell them I no longer want AMZN Logistics to deliver my items or I am going to cancel my Prime subscription. After a long argument, they finally agreed and now all of my items get shipped via USPS and arrive with no problem.

I also noticed that USPS subs are notorious for marking things delivered when my item didn't arrive (usually get it the next day) or my item gets marked No access, or Inaccessable (not the exact terms but close to it). My regular mailman said these workers are non-union, lazy, low paid and don't really care. He said they are the bottom of the barrel workers. I hate it when the subs deliver and my mailman is on vacation as a lot of my mail and packages always get delayed or are delivered to the wrong address.

[lja440]

I can't say much about the Amazon Delivery drivers, I'm in a rural area and we don't have them around here. But I don't think they are low pay as I have a cousins son who works in one of the fulfilment centers packing boxes for shipping, he makes $15/hr. I will say they are probably like our new subs, just struggling to get around the route. I started in 2000 with USPS, learning my way around one route with then nearly 600 households was daunting. Now subs have to learn multiple routes, 5 or more. With multiple sir names and people moving in and out there is bound to be some mistakes, and better they scan it attempted and a bit delayed than delivered to the wrong address.

If you are consistently getting the wrong mail, then look at your mailbox and home. Is your address CLEARLY marked on both your mailbox and house? Can it be read from the side that the carrier approaches, can the numbers on the house be read from the street?

[goldguy22k]

While there is an AMZN fulfillment center about 15-miles away from me, the package I mentioned had a USPS tracking number.    So no, it wasn't the fault of AMZN logistics.   Thing is tracking showed that it went to a neighboring PO location 2 miles away and didn't move from there.

The supervisor at my local carrier station (separate location from the retail location) told me that indeed, USPS hires contractors to deliver AMZN packages on Sunday.  Also mentioned that they can not find good help.

A clerk at the retail outlet mentioned that USPS hires newbies all of the time, but they usually quit after a couple of weeks because the "work is too hard!"

Now as to the other comment - Yes, recently AMZN made big head lines that they were raising their minimum wage to $15/hour for all of their employees.  I guess AMZN could be sneaky and not insist that any of their subcontractors do the same thing and thus "contractors" making deliveries are earning less.

[futurespast1113]

My regular mailman is great and we love him. However the fill-ins or subcontractors leave a little less to be desired. Also the same goes for those low paid Amazon subcontracted delivery workers. When they deliver they usually fudge the tracking details, don't scan my pakages or they end up being delivered to the wrong house or the scan shows attempted delivery when I home all day or "delivered" and turn up a day or two later.

I understand that they have an enormous amount of packages to deliver and it could be a hard job. However, what really **bleep** me off is when I go to the post office and ship something here in NY to a far away state like California sometimes it can cost me $20-$30+.  I feel we are all subsidizing Amazon Prime as their packages are treated with more care and delivered much more rapidly then packages delivered via Priority mailed from other online sellers. 

My mailman told me they have a huge contract with Amazon and they are told to get those Amazon packages delivered, no ifs ands or buts. He said a lot of times he is stuck past 6:00-7:00 pm trying to get Amazon's packages out and regular Priority Mail packages end up sitting on the truck undelivered that day because if they don't get those Amazon packages out first there will be hell to pay. He said some of the less than honest mail carriers mark the tracking as attempted delivery or no access just to have something to show their superviser as these Amazon packages are like the holy grail. If they don't scan it as attempted or couldn't gain access they get hollared at. Those false scans cover their butts as they don't have enough time to deliver all those packages in one day.

Thankfully my mailman is honest and that is why I am bummed out when a sub or fill-in is working instead of him.

His supervisors are constantly down their throats about getting those Amazon packages out on time. He told me he is accounted for at all times via a GPS scanner and if he takes a few minutes to get a drink or has to go to the bathroom the supervisor will notice and start breaking chops because he is being tracked. Apparently from what he said, the USPS is always short staffed and they do not have enough people to deliver all these packages. To save money USPS hires a lot of non-unionized temp workers to try to help the regular mailmen keep up with all these packages. He said they pay them garbage and most of them quit soon after being hired and are lazy. He said most of them are very dumb and uneducated and can hardly read addresses properly.  He hates working with them.

My mail and packages delivered to the wrong houses way too often when the subs or temp workers are working and it makes me appreciate my regular mail carrier way more. He said the Amazon drivers get garbage pay too ($11-$15) and a lot have to even use their own cars. He said a lot of them can barely speak English. No wonder all these packages don't get delivered on time or have false scans or get mis-delivered. Amazon pays peanuts to ship out their packages and has basically taken over our post office. For that priviledge we get to pay way more for shipping our things out, thus subsidizing a multi-billion dollar corporation.

[robot-hands]

You do nothing unless the buyer contacts you or opens a case.