We are not your mail collection service

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1 
								June 1, 2026

Attn Stephanie, Louis, Roger and/or any other Collinsbergs*:

You may think of your community as “North Hills”. UPS does not; USPS doesn’t either; they both consider you to be a resident of Roslyn Heights.

More importantly, I think, your ZIP Code is not 11040. It is 11577.

And, incidentally, you apparently live on a road called Center Court, not Center Street.

I bring these matters to your attention because again and again packages intended for you keep getting delivered to our house at 77 Center Street, New Hyde Park NY 11040.

We have on a prior occasion brought this to your attention and physically brought you several of these misdirected packages. We searched Google and Facebook and found contact information for you, reached out to you via phone, and told you about the six or seven packages, and you gave us your correct address. We drove over to your gated community, where the guard at the gate verified with you that it was okay for us to enter, and we came to your house. Or thought we did… you don’t have a house number visible and no one came to the door when we knocked. So we called again, and you said just to leave the parcels by the front door, so we did so.

We assumed you would fix whatever registered shipping address information you had stored that would enter your address as 77 Center Street, North Hills NY 11040. Apparently you did not. There being no such valid address, UPS and the post office do some kind of lookup and redirect your parcels to our address as the closest approximation. So we’re still receiving your packages.

One of the most recent misdirected shipments is a box that indicates it is temperature-sensitive medical equipment, which is a disturbing thing to find sitting on our front porch. A prior package had markings hinting that it contained tickets to an imminent event at an expensive venue.

Your Not-Quite-a-Neighbor,

AHunter3

—————
** all names and addresses have been modified to protect the innocent and the stupid

Neither USP nor USPS has a mechanism for us to block such parcels from coming to our house. I’ve now sent the above as a certified letter w/return receipt requested to her real address. If that doesn’t work, should I video myself dousing their family’s mail in gasoline and burning it in our charcoal grill, and then post it to YouTube?

2

This whole thing seems very suspicious to me. What better way is there to protect yourself if you are receiving stolen/illegal goods than to NOT put your own name or address? It’s pretty obvious at this point that they WANT to continue this, and there has to be a very sketchy reason as to why.

I would no longer make any deliveries. If they want their stuff, they can show their faces and come and get it.

3

Well, yeah. Gal is weird — knew we were coming over but wouldn’t open the door when we knocked. And won’t redirect their mail. I’ve been trying to figure out a scam angle, too, but we certainly aren’t bringing them their packages any more. Trying to stop delivery, in case we’re somehow leaving ourselves open to accusations or legal actions for the parcels coming to our house.

4

You are WAY too nice.

Registered Letter:

"Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dumbass.

I’m throwing your packages in the trash from now on, and I don’t care if it’s your baby’s insulin.

Respectfully yours,
People Who Understand How Addresses Work"

5

I don’t get it. USPS is not supposed to deliver mail to “the closest approximation” of someone’s address. If it’s not your exact address they are delivering it to then I would write NOT AT THIS ADDRESS and hand it back to the mail-person or drop it off at the post office and tell them it’s not your problem. If it is your address and just not your name on it, that’s a different story.

I bought my house two years ago and I often get mail for the previous owner who never bothered to update their address. Just a few weeks ago I got all of their title documents for a house they purchased. I’m sure they would like to have them, but I have no idea where they live or why their title company thinks I wanted these docs. When it happened I just wrote NOT AT THIS ADDRESS and stuffed it into the outgoing mail slot. The USPS is legally obligated to deliver any mail sent to a legitimate address regardless of whose name is on it, so that’s not their fault.

6

The solution is simple: Douse it with fuel and light it in their driveway before driving off. Rinse, repeat. Until they feel the pain they have no incentive to act.

I once got a largish, 30 pound package with a company name and our address on it from FedEx. The return address was a woman’s name and an address in New York state. Luckily the company name was unusual so I looked it up and it was a couple miles away. I called them and explained the situation; the guy said he’d be right there and picked up the package.

Thing was we live on a numbered street (think 10th Avenue) and the company was on a named street, and the numbers were entirely dissimilar. I commented I was wondering how she got the company name right but put on what would be a random address. He said, “We’ve dealt with her before. She’s… colorful.”

7

Done that. USPS at least doesn’t retry the same package, but the next one will still be delivered here. UPS took it back and the next guy brought the exact same package (the temp-sensitive medical supplies box) and left it on our doorstep the following day.

I think that is not accurate. They’ve always tried to figure out what the sender intended. Send a package or a letter to Troupville GA and the post office will deliver it to the corresponding address in the city of Valdosta. Put “Rd” instead of “Dr” and if there’s only one by that name it will likely be taken to that-address Drive. Once upon a time they made an effort to ferret out a person’s address if you sent it General Delivery @ City, State. What I think they rely on nowadays is the ZIP Code and within the same ZIP they’ll attempt address correction at least within certain limits.

Heh! It’s a gated community and probably chock-full of Ring doorbell cameras.

8

That’s what I was thinking. Delivering the packages to them, especially when they didn’t meet you halfway there or express any gratitude in any way, was going above and beyond.

9

One would think that their incentive is that they are paying for stuff and not receiving it.

10

Is this seeming like a “drop ship” scam?

:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

11

Why not bring the packages to your local post office and tell the postmaster what’s been happening?

12

I’m in awe! :rofl: :100:

13

USPS doesn’t care about UPS packages.

14

Have you tried filling out an address change on their behalf? You can do so on the USPS website. The postal service then sends a confirmation to both addresses. Once that happens, anything addressed to that recipient will get a forwarding slip. To be safe, make sure you also register your address and the names of the people who live there with the local post office to be sure your actual mail doesn’t get forwarded.

I don’t know if you can do the same thing for UPS, probably not.

15

The OP said that some packages were delivered by UPS while others were delivered by USPS.

16

vs

The USPS barely looks at the city name. It sees “77 Center Street” and “11040” and finds that, yes, that is a valid address and there it goes. The city name is only used if the zip code doesn’t exist.

17

Another vote for writing RETURN TO SENDER–UNKNOWN ADDRESSEE and blacking out the address and bar codes on the packages. Drop them at USPS or UPS as needed every couple of weeks.

We get tax and financial statements for about 10 other people, which includes the previous owner’s family that was never resident in this former rental property. I take 15 minutes now and then to mark up and re-deposit everything, including the junk mail.

18

Parts of North Hills, New York are covered by the 11040 zip code.

The Village of North Hills uses the following zip codes:
Manhasset 11030
Roslyn 11576
Roslyn Heights 11577
New Hyde Park 11040
Albertson 11507

19

never mind – probably off topic

20

Did that earlier today. They can’t do anything about it. (Or so they say).