Let me try to make that even more clear.
If I liste the my name or the name of someone that lives in my household and my address is 360 Something Dr., but I accidently put in a shipping address of say, 358 or 362 and there are no houses on my road with those numbers, is it possible that the mail man will bring it to my right address since my name and whatnot is on it?
An odd question, I know, but that’s how I am. 
If you have a regular mail carrier and they’re familiar with the the people on his route, it’s possible.
Or it would be delivered to your neighbor’s house. If your neighbors know your name, hopefully they would pass it on to you.
So they will leave it with someone? I just don’t want them going “hmmmm, this address doesn’t exist anywhere, so I’ll just take it back to the post office”.
Depends on where you live and how well the delivery folks know you. I live in a small town and both the mail woman and the UPS guy know our family by name. If something were to be addressed wrong they’d have no trouble at all delivering it. In fact it’s happened a few times.
When I lived in Baltimore, on the other hand, it was hard enough to get them to deliver things correctly even if it did have the right address on it. Without the address being right there was no hope at all.
I wouldn’t really count on it, BrentLumkin. Sure, they might deliver it, but if the address doesn’t exist, it most likely will go back to the sender. Of course, you could always try to look out for the mailman and intercept him to see if they have your package.
I work for a major courier service, and the policy is that we deliver to ADDRESSES not people, so that’s what makes me think that if the address doesn’t even exist, the package (or letter or whatever) won’t make it there. Of course, there are exceptions to ever rule and situation, so YMMV.
If the Mailperson is smart, they’ll just compare names on the front to the names of others on the street getting mail. As long as the they match, I bet they’d deliver it.
Matter of fact, about a month ago I wondered this very same question when a friend of mine left a digit off of our address. So instead of 1106 E. Fake Streek, it read 106 E Fake Street. Despite living in a city of 40,000 they still found and delivered it.
Depends on several things, not the least of which is your carrier.
In theory, the address takes precedence over the name. So if it a wrong address, but that address exists, it should get delivered to that address. But a carrier may intervene. For example, my company moved several years ago from one office to another office right next door. Occasionally we still get mail with the old address. The old address is still there, and occupied by someone else, but the carrier knows us, so he just ignores the address and brings it to us.
If the address is non-existent, I don’t think the Post Office is obligated to try and find you (although I can’t remember what the actual rules are, it’s been too long since my dad was a carrier and we talked about this) but most carriers I’ve known will make at least some attempt, and some will do everything they can to find the proper recipient.
My dad delivered the occasional letter where the address was something like “Uncle Dave”, no address, but the correct city and zip. He just kept asking everyone on his route until he found someone who recognized it.
If the name, city, state and the 5 digit zip are correct, that will get it at least to correct post office, and in some cases to the correct carrier. If there is a correct 9 digit zip, that will narrow it down to a either a single address, or at most to a few very close addresses, and so definitely to the right carrier.
And if it does get to the right carrier with enough name and address to give them a good clue as to who the addressee is, there is a fighting chance it will get to you. If it doesn’t, asking at your local branch may find it.
In fact, if you know that such a package is on the way, tell your carrier about it. Most will be glad to watch out for it, and get to you forthwith.
Once (decades ago), Mad Magazine published a photo of an envelope they had received that had no address at all, just a picture of Alfred E. Neumann (sp?) on the front.
" I just don’t want them going “hmmmm, this address doesn’t exist anywhere”
They would know that before it went out.
As the others said, if the postperson knows you they should bring it to you. You could talk to the postperson about it too.
I had something shipped by UPS that I typo’d the numbers on (my street is a number - xx10 and I typed xx19), and no, they did not deliver it. Not on their own, at least. UPS has online tracking and when it came up as “so such address” on the tracking page, I had to give them a call to get my package. Regular mail might be better, and if it is only the house number and not the street, it is possible, But if you know for sure you messed it up, you can always give the PO a call and maybe try to straighten it out - I’ve alsways found my PO to be helpful.
I recently received a letter from the US with only “Colombia” after my name and address. No city was shown and it got to me OK. I live in the largest city in Colombia.
I think I might just leave a note in my mail box for my mail man, letting him know to look for a package or two with a non-existing address, with our name on it, lol.
Thanks a lot guys!
You never can tell what’s gonna happen.
I’ve had a package, addressed to my wife at our home address, delivered to my office across town when nobody was at home to receive it.
On the other hand, I’ve mailed something to a well-known pizza restaurant in town with the street address off by a couple of numbers (I knew the building was between, say 168 X Street and 174 X Street) and had it returned.
I just wrote a small note and put in my mail box for my mail man, so hopefully he’ll help me out.
Thanks a lot everyone!
Out here in the central WI sticks, the addresses look like this:
W1234 County Road AA
N567 County Road B
And so on. The letter/number combination is what used to be your “fire number”; all the roads are known as “County Roads” and the letter(s) that follow serve as the name of the road.
This confuses shipping departments to no end. They usually want to interpret my address as one of the following:
1234 W. County Road
“West 1234 County Road” <pause> “AA?”
For some reason they cannot simply transcribe my address as I provided it. I have to tell tham that “W” is not “west” and the “AA” is necessary and names the specific County Road that I live on.
Regardless (and probably because this is a small community), I once received a piece of mail addressed to my name at “1234 Country Road.” Kudos to my carrier for THAT one.
I tested the UK mail once and managed to get a letter delivered with just the postcode and surname of the recipient, but this isn’t particularly remarkable as UK post codes generally cover a relatively small number of addresses.
To the OP; is this something you bought online with a credit card?
If so, didn’t you have to enter the billing address?
May Aunt Mary got mail addressed to “Aunt Mary, Marion, WI”. Marion is pretty small tho.
I get mail that is not to my address (but has a last name beginning with the same letter as mine) Generally the real recipiant is nearby (block or 2 away)
Brian
trying to guess where Scarlett67 lives (Iola?)
Of course, there’s the probably false story of a letter addressed something like this:
Get it?
Solution:John Underwood, Andover, Maryland
N9IWP: Nope. But a lot of WI burgs use the same system.
Re UK mail delivery: A member of a mailing list I subscribe to tells the story of a piece of mail that was correctly delivered from overseas to his grandfather, addressed to “Surname, England.” Granted, it’s an unusual surname, but still . . .