USPS Delivery System Story How Did That Happen?

An interesting anecdote about the USPS delivery system. Grandma sent a check to my daughter in Denver and got the address wrong. She put 6th Ave. instead of 67th Ave. on it. When I discovered it, we cancelled the check thinking the letter would be returned as undeliverable and to avoid any possibility of theft had it been delivered to a 6th Ave. address. She issued a new check, confirmed the correct address and sent it again. So, 6 days after the first letter was sent, my daughter got it. Not doing any further thinking, she deposited the check, which was correctly rejected by the bank. Now I get a call saying that the deposit had been withdrawn from my daughters account and this was 10 days after the letter with the correct address was mailed. I got a little excited but decided to give it a couple more days to see if it arrived. Sure enough, after 11 days, the second letter got there. Now here is my bemusement…How did the first letter get to my daughter with it having the wrong address? I know back in the day and even today you might send a letter to a small town with only the person's name on it and it might get delivered correctly but in Denver??? I don't know if I should give the USPS cudos or be pissed for all the aggravation I went through. What do you think? Wolf-==-

Without seeing the envelope it is guesswork, but no doubt an address on 6th Ave and 67th Ave would be in different Zip code areas - enough for the sorting machines to kick it out for closer examination. And using a name and Zip+4 is all it really takes, ignoring the actual street address.

I suspect it's a matter of which sorting center the letter went to. I've had 2 recent examples of correctly addressed letters being returned to the seller marked "Unable to Deliver. Address does not exist." I had him send me the 2nd envelope so I could take it to my PO to explain the numerical codes attached in an attempt to ascertain where and why it was returned. The clerk stated that is was probably from the Portland, OR station but could offer no other explanation. It was during the Christmas rush so probably no one there took the time to manually check the address; they just returned it automatically. Really frustrating for both me and the seller, with whom I had been doing business for several years.

Agree with JOHN BECKER ,ZIP CODE was the key to it getting delivered . Also the depositing of a check with a stopped payment will result in bank fees and charges . The key here is your "not doing any further thinking "---causes the problem and bank charges .

Ask Grandma to use PayPal from now on. (Wink.)