I was sent a rare CD of one of my favorite bands from a friend in CA. He sent the CD through USPS and even got a tracking number with it. So, I anxiously await the arrival which should come today. I check the mail, nothing.
I check the tracking and see that it says ‘delivered 1:42PM’.
It wasn’t delivered. By the time I saw this, the post office was already closed. Everything was correct with the rest of the tracking such as it arrived at the local post office this morning etc. I know for that my info was correctly written on the package as well.
I’m worried…. What gives!? Did they deliver it to the wrong address? Am I screwed?! Is this somewhat costly CD now gone? Has this happened to anyone before? I checked my neighbors and they didn’t have it either.
What now? What should I do?
Don’t panic yet, this story may have a happy ending yet. This has never happened to me with USPS but over the years I’ve had a fair number of packages gone astray when using express mail services. Usually the explanation is that the package was misdelivered to a business and signed for by a clerk (who assumed the package was for someone who worked there), or by someone who didn’t realize that the package wasn’t addressed to them.
The next step for you is to demand to see the signature of the person that signed for the package and after you inspect it, tell USPS “but that’s not me.” Then they need to check with the delivery person who took the signature and find out where the package went to and who signed for it. Then hopefully they can get it back.
It is also possible that the mistake lies on the website and they still have the package.
Let us know what you hear from the Post Office.
Unfortunately there was a delivery confirmation but no signature required 
Call the post office in the morning. Chances are they have it,
A friend of mine had something like this happen during the winter. He had to get his Palm repaired and knew what day it was supposed to get to his house. He checked the web site and it showed it as delivered but it wasn’t at his house.
What happened in his case was the driver scanned it as delivered, then was afraid he couldn’t get his truck down the street without getting stuck in the snow and didn’t deliver it. It was delivered the next day.
We just had a thread about someone’s Ebay purchase in a similar situation. The post office had it.
Wait a day. No, really. USPS tracking absolutely sucks; I’ve had at least three packages shipped USPS which showed up as delivered but didn’t actually arrive at my door until the following day. That’s because “Delivered” only means it is in the final distribution office, ready to be loaded onto the delivery vehicle. It does NOT mean it was actually delivered to your door.
Just for clarification, what some people call “tracking” is actually Delivery Confirmation, often used for Priority Mail, whereas Express Mail has actual step-by-step tracking. The latter is more reliable than the former.
I wish I had good news to report but the post office doesn’t know where the package is. They called the person on my route and he said he put it in a mailbox. Not mine though.
They have the employee on todays route looking in the boxes to see if she finds it. I’m not getting my hopes up
Yes, don’t panic yet. I had a package that was tracked and supposedly delivered to me one day. Only thing I wasn’t home at the time, nor did I find a package anywhere near my house. This was an Amazon delivery which has never missed in the past. I was about to contact Amazon to get my money back, but decided to wait a day. And lo and behold, the package arrived the next day. I asked the postman what happened and he said that another postman handed him the package that day for delivery. So it was apparently misdelivered, returned, and correctly delivered to me. All’s well that ends well. Hope that happens for you too.
This is, by the way, a prime example of why NOT to use the so-called “Priority Mail” method from USPS. It should be noted that “Priority Mail” doesn’t really guarantee anything; read the fine print.
If you want to be sure of when and where something will be delivered, use the next-day service, or spend the extra bucks for signature confirmation of delivery.
I’m not a huge fan of any service; none are perfect, but some are better than others for certain tasks. I’ve shipped 10,000+ packages using USPS, DHL, FedEx, and UPS. Priority Mail works fine for low-value, easily-replaceable contents where a day or two late is acceptable. We’ve had great success with Priority Mail, but no way I’d ship something unique/rare via Priority Mail.
Sometimes the USPS can give you rather spectacular service.
A couple of weeks ago, I sent a small box of parts to someone by Priority Mail. When the customer didn’t receive it after 3 or 4 days, they called me to check on it. I went up to the USPS site to see what their tracking process could tell me, and it showed that they had received the package for shipping on June 17, 2008, and they had delivered it on January 6, 2002.
Where else can you get a package transported back in time six years for only $4.75?
Unfortunately, my customer hadn’t been living at his current address six years ago, so he wasn’t there to receive it. Somehow the postal service figured this out, and the package was re-directed to our time and it was finally delivered.
What outstanding service!
the same thing hapend to me. i was in panic i bough a 100 dollar phone on ebay. and it said it was delivered on the tracking device. it was saturday had to see on monday if it come back. waited and did disipointed i going to see if got better luck tommorow.
Call the post office when it opens. Fedex did this to me last year. It turned out that they’d delivered it to 123 Mulberry Street instead of Mulberry Avenue. Two days later, a happy ending.
It’s been 4 years, but SweetHomeColorado never told us what happened to his package. Could he still be waiting?
Figures. The USPS gives you a happy ending, but it takes them two days to complete the task.
Talk about chafing.
What ???
Sorry. As to the O.P. Yougetwhatchapayfor . If I’m worried, I pay for tracking. Real tracking. Express by USPS or FedEx Express. For I have learned, nothing but nothing is suckier than FedEx Ground.
" Yes. It was scanned in in the Temecula Terminal. It will arrive, or not arrive, some time in the next 20 Jovian days. You paid for Ground. We do not track Ground. We do not hire Ground employees to deliver. We disavow all knowledge of FedEx Ground. Why don’t you go away, you’re making my Manwich go cold. "
And so on.
ETA: Musicat, the delay IS the answer.