My mailing snafu

[abunaitoo]

Interesting story of my USPS mailing snafu.
My mistake. I'm an idiot. But interesting way things are done at USPS.
I had a bunch of flat rate boxes to mail out.
Stuff sold here.
I use Click and Ship USPS flat rate boxes.
I got a label mixed up, and put an old small FRB label, with the wrong address, on a med FRB .
Took them to the post office and dropped them in the bin.
Got home and sent tracking numbers to the buyers.
I always do it after I mail, just in case.
Got an email from one of the buyers, that I sent the wrong tracking number to him.
It showed it had already been delivered.
I checked and saw MY screw up.
I let him know and would try to get it back and sent to the correct address.
Next day I called the post office, explained to them what stupid thing I did.
Turns out there was nothing he could do.
We couldn't track it, or have it returned, because they number had already been used.
Asked him if the number is no good, wouldn't they just send it back to me because the shipping wasn't paid.
He said it would go all the way to the address, they would have to pay the shipping to get the box.
If they don't pay the shipping, it would come back to me.
I contacted the buyer, explained to him MY screw up, returned his payment.
Also told him I'd make it good somehow.
He was all good about it. Very understanding.
Anyway......
I contacted the wrong addess. Explained to him about MY screw up.
He said he'd let his wife know not to pay, and have it sent back to me.
He would let me know when it happends.
A few days later, he emailed me that it was dropped off at his door.
No shipping was collected. Free ride. Very fast shipping.
Arranged for him to send it to the correct address.
Paid him and off it went.
A few days later it did get to the correct owner.
1) I would have thought that when it was here, they would scan it, find out it was an old label, and send it back to me.
2) Shows me that tracking number is for tracking only. Doesn't tell them if paid or not.
3) It couldn't be tracked, because the number was no good. But was delivered anyway.
4) No shipping was paid for it, so the first shipping was free.
5) Label was for a small FRB, but it was a med FRB. But label was no good anyway, so no one was the wiser.
Probably just got lucky it went through, but if not, it would be a way to ship for free.
Very strange, but everything worked out in the end.
I will be more careful from now on.
I hope.

[hotrod13]

Well I am a postman, and and yes as soon as a package is scanned delivered that label's numbers are dead. So any tracking on it after the 1st time is dead. Most labels are never checked for correct postage, if you look at a lot of packages that are printed out some do not show how much is paid it a has a a printed design that can only be read with certain instruments, do to the fact many postal retail (not post offices) charge a fee to ship. I am a package pickup guy so on a normal day I pick up 300 to 500 packages in a 2hr span, they give is no tools to check postage weights, I myself can't look at postage on each box, and yes some people have tried to beat the system using old postage, they eventually get caught. If i pick up a package at your house and scan it delivered instead of package received it kills the bar code and no tracking will occur, once it is scanned delivered it can't be undone, which is one of the many problems with our tracking

[Handloader109]

It ain't just usps.
My last company shipped by UPS, boxes that were roughly 16 inch cube and about 16 pounds of styrofoam, 8 plastic frozen ice packs and a bunch of test tube samples. Next day air. Usually an average of 8 per day. And we put a return label inside each for the lab in Birmingham to send them back to us. ( roughly 60 locations did the same every day)
Expensive..... Return shipping was ground so much cheaper. We had a call from our UPS rep once. Seemed we had an employee that instead of printing out new return labels, he was photocopying one label.... We estimated that Several hundred had been used over time. Ups couldn't charge us back as they couldn't tell us how many we had done this way.......

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[abunaitoo]

No wonder USPS is always losing money.
But being gooberment run, no one cares anyway.