Wrong City, Right Zip

October 4, 2022 8:19 AM

I ordered a book for my sister who lives in a city other than mine, and I had it shipped directly to her. When I received tracking information from the seller, I realized I had entered the correct zip code, but accidentally entered my city rather than hers. Will she still receive it or will it be returned to sender?
posted by SageTrail to Grab Bag (12 answers total)

How's it being shipped? USPS is supposed to go off the zip code.
posted by kevinbelt at 8:27 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

ZIP code is used over city. There are plenty of people who just use the largest city nearby in their address but as long as the right zip is used, the mail gets delivered.
posted by soelo at 8:39 AM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

Depends on how big the shipper is! If they're using software that reconciles the address with the USPS official format, it's gonna toss up an error and they might manually do something weird. (Had a job where we dealt with a lot of those, and if everything was right except the city name, we'd probably just fix it, but there are other choices we could have made.) Odds are pretty good she'll get it, but definitely keep an eye on the tracker.
posted by restless_nomad at 8:41 AM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

I recently sent something (via USPS certified mail) with the correct zip code but the wrong city (actually, in my case, the wrong borough in NYC, but functionally the same as the city). Unfortunately, in my case, USPS used the city and not the zip code, so the mailing was returned as undeliverable.
posted by Caz721 at 8:53 AM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

When I lived in Hollywood, CA, I would sometimes get mail addressed with Hollywood as the city but the correct ZIP code. Hollywood is not a city, it's a neighborhood in Los Angeles. I currently live in a different neighborhood in Los Angeles, and sometimes get mail addressed as if my neighborhood was the city, but with the correct ZIP code. Never had a problem with delivery.
posted by erst at 10:20 AM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

The purpose of ZIP Codes is to allow high level auto-sorting of mail. If it is bounced it will be by the final delivery office and there is no way of predicting what they will choose to do.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:48 AM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

Zip code will probably get it there. I wouldn’t worry.
posted by Slinga at 10:56 AM on October 4, 2022

Yeah. It might break. But it shouldn't - the post office has a database of valid addresses and one piece of invalid data is unlikely to cause confusion if every other part is valid.
posted by wotsac at 12:16 PM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure how helpful it is to speculate about what would happen, unless you plan on shipping a second copy without waiting to see what happens to the first based on these responses. If the shipment has a tracking number associated with it, you may be able to contact the carrier and correct the issue that way (though if it was shipped by a seller, they may have to be the ones to put in the correction), but otherwise I don't think there's much you can do but wait and see.
posted by Aleyn at 12:53 PM on October 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Good news. US Postal Service tracking shows that the book was delivered to my sister today. In spite of the wrong city, correct zip code got it there!
posted by SageTrail at 9:16 AM on October 11, 2022

Response by poster: I spoke too soon. As it turns out, the tracking info I read at the time of my previous post was incomplete. The book now appears to be being sent back to the shipper. It was scanned as "mis-shipped" after it was scanned as "out for delivery". I'm on the phone with the post office and they are trying to find out where it is.
posted by SageTrail at 1:16 PM on October 12, 2022

Response by poster: How the story ends: I called USPS customer service seven days ago (on October 12th) and they put in a service request to look for the package. It went to my sister's city then to my city then back to my sister's city. I received official notice that it was delivered to my sister today. I think without the service request, it probably would haven been returned to sender.
posted by SageTrail at 5:12 PM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]