USPS not understanding an address?

Factual Questions
1

I’m just curious if there is anything I as a shipper can do about this issue?

A customer has a normal, legit street address that checks out and if findable on all online mapping sites. Not a rural street either, nothing seems out of sorts.

Yet each time I ship to them they complain to me that USPS priority mail isn’t reaching them in 2-3 days and ask what the issue is, checking the tracking number it is sent to a couple nearby but unrelated areas/cities and postal processing centers. Their current order includes a new different city where sorting and delivery is attempted, adding a couple days more on to the already long delivery time.

:smack:What should I do here? Is there any way I can contact USPS to help clear this up? I asked the customer to talk to their postal worker but I doubt they will(yet they complain to me each time as if it is a new issue.

I’m worried that eventually an order is just going to get delivered in the wrong zip code and paypal will therefore make me eat it.

2

Can you look up their USPS standardized address, including a ZIP+4 code, and use it to print an Intelligent Mail barcode?

Or just use UPS/FedEx for that particular customer.

3

Otherwise, you can look up their post office and contact them yourself.

4

I run into 2-3 addresses a year that USPS will not validate - often old, long-established ones like book reshipping depots, libraries and residences that haven’t been empty in a generation. Sometimes you can call them and get an alternate address, especially for destinations on college and industrial campuses that might have two different mapping/addressing schemes. But sometimes you just have to send the parcel blind and follow up.

5

Have you talked to anyone at any post office? Just go down to your local PO and explain the situation and see what advice they have. In my experience, staff at post offices really try to help when issues come up.

6

I’ve seen situations where a Zip Code used to serve a couple of small suburban towns, and then one of the towns got its own Zip Code and Post Office. This might be the same situation, with the address you are sending to is using the old Zip Code, when it should be using the new one.

7

The issue is that it’s * not guaranteed* to reach them in 2-3 days, and the USPS says as much.

Bolding mine.
Similarly, most delivery is made within one, two, or three days with normal first class mail.

8

I’ve had problems because my USPS deliverer sucks but there have been issues because according to the Post Office, my address doesn’t exist but the mobile home behind our house with the same street address (1234 Street Ave. - Rear House) does exist.