Follow my package with me!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I ordered a part for my RV on July 20. It’s in Ohio, and is to be delivered to the west coast of Canada. Follow it’s journey along with me! So far, as of July 26, it’s gone approximately 800 miles in the wrong direction. I was hopeful when it went to Detroit, as that’s the direct route up to Mississauga, where much of the international mail comes through. But no. It’s away to New York. Where to next? Who knows? Follow the adventure!

July 20 - 3:06 PM Departed Post Office Holgate, OH
July 22 - 12:19 PM Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility Detroit, MI
July 23 - 1:24 PM Shipment Departed Carrier FacilityHoward, PA
July 23 - 12:32 PM Arrived at Partner Facility Newark NJ
July 23 - 5:32 PM ARRIVED AT USPS REGIONAL FACILITY Newark nj distribution center
July 23 - 7:25 PM Arrived at USPS Regional Facility Mid, NY
July 24 - 7:16 AM Arrived at Post Office Smithtown, NY
July 24 - 7:37 PM Arrived at GlobalPost Facility Hauppauge, NY
July 24 - 8:54 PM Departed GlobalPost Facility Hauppauge, NY

2

Looks like for some reason they thought it went to an address in Smithtown, and it got as far as the Smithtown post office before somebody noticed that wasn’t right and bounced it back into the wider system.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t loop around to Smithtown again.

3

USPS can be, um, interesting at times. I mailed a package to my sister who lives just north of Baltimore. I live in southern Maryland, just over 100 miles from her. For whatever reason, the box went to North Carolina before being sent where it should have gone in the first place. Weird.

So welcome to the What-the-Heck-is-the-Post-Office-Doing club!

4

The ways of the USPS are dark, but never pleasant.

5

I ship more than 100-150 packages a month via USPS. Your package’s journey is, as you may know, not at all unusual.

It’s great fun trying to explain to an impatient customer why their item is on a whirlwind tour of the U.S.

mmm

6

Maybe you ordered a Flat Stanley by mistake?

7

It’s being shipped to Canada, so I wonder if there’s some overlap between Canadian postal codes and US zip codes that resulted in it going to Smithtown.

After Smithtown it looks like it went to a “GlobalPost” facility. Based on the name I’m guessing that’s the place that handles international shipments.

8

Yeah, my guess is that in Smithtown an actual live human who knows what they’re doing took s look at it and said ‘not only isn’t this ours, it’s supposed to go to Canada!’ and sent it off in the right direction.

Whether it’ll keep going in the right direction, these days, is anybody’s guess. Though I will say that nearly everything I mail seems to get there, and a couple that didn’t I strongly suspect of having been lost by the recipient.

9

I’ll still vastly take USPS over Amazon’s delivery service. When I see in my order history, delivery TBA34567, I think, well I ain’t getting that for a while.

10

My street is under construction (mostly storm sewer work) and is closed to traffic. You can get in/out before 7 am or after 7 pm. (Possibly other times but not guaranteed) My mailbox has been moved to a nearby open street, no clue how package delivery will work. I guess you can request delivery to local centers.

Brian

11

Is the explanation something other than “people are idiots”?

US postcodes are 5 or 9 digits. Don’t Canadian post codes include a letter? Though I suppose some letters can be mistaken for some digits…

12

UPDATE:

Well not much of an update really.

July 27 - 8:54 PM In-Transit

In transit to where? Perhaps we will know soon.

13

“In transit” is USPS-ese for “hasn’t been scanned recently so we’re putting something here to placate you.” Notice that it’s exactly 72 hours after the last real scan.

But otherwise, there isn’t anything crazy about the path it’s taken IMO. The USPS routes all international mail through only a few facilities, one of which is in NYC.

14

Are any of them in Smithtown?

15

Several years ago I mailed a package, which ended up getting damaged in transit thru no fault of my own and ended up in a distribution facility in KCMO. While the USPS does a great job with package and letter delivery, my experience with their problem and tracking resolution was phenomenally abysmal and really an insult to any normal person’s intelligence.

16

I hope your package gets delivered soon. What an interesting journey.

I recently had a package coming from California. Suddenly my amazon page said it was delivered but it wasn’t delivered to me. It was delivered somewhere in Nevada. I live in Pennsylvania :joy:!

Thankfully the 3rd party seller was very responsive and the problem was sorted without too much difficulty.

17

My Fedex shipment is maybe worse. Shipped from China to Alaska and now back to China: Note it is in reverse order, bottom first.

  1. Tue, Jul 28,7:38pm On the way SHENZHEN, 51812
  2. Tue, Jul 28, 6:24pm International shipment release - Export SHENZHEN, 518128
  3. Tue, Jul 28, 4:39pm International shipment release - Import ANCHORAGE, AK 99502
  4. Tue, Jul 28, 4:28pm At local FedEx facility ANCHORAGE, AK 99502
  5. Tue, Jul 28, 4:27pm On the way ANCHORAGE, AK 99502
  6. Tue, Jul 28, 1:36pm Arrived at FedEx hub ANCHORAGE, AK 99502
  7. Mon, Jul 27, 10:24pm Left FedEx origin facility ZHONGSHAN, 528451
  8. Mon, Jul 27, 6:44pm Picked up ZHONGSHAN, 528451
  9. Mon, Jul 27, 12:13am Shipment information sent to FedEx
18

UPDATE:

July 28 - 9:38 AM In Customs Burlington, ca

(Burlington is in Ontario, about an hour from Toronto)

Looks like it’s going the right direction now!

19

I have a feeling the actual order is Zongshan - Shenzen - Anchorage and documents and customs paperwork just got entered into fedex’s tracking system out of order. Differences in time zones too maybe - China was 16 hours ahead of Anchorage on July 28: Shenzhen used UTC+8, while Anchorage used Alaska Daylight Time, UTC−8.

20

Unless that means Burlington, California.