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Old 12-05-2017, 08:58 PM   #1
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Amazon shipping to USPS General Delivery

I experienced an odd situation at the Post Office this week, and I'm wondering if others have had the same problem.

I ordered a Renogy solar kit and some cables from Amazon.com, and had them shipped to General Delivery at a post office close to where I'm boondocking in Arizona. When I went to the Post Office to pick them up, I had to pay postage due, because of the way I had addressed them.

I had tried to enter the shipping address on Amazon in the correct way for general delivery:

My Name
General Delivery
City, State, Zip

However, Amazon would not let me put General Delivery for the first address line, it wanted a street address, so I put in the Post Office's street address:

My Name
Post Office's street address
General Delivery
City, State, Zip

Amazon shipped the two packages by UPS, and they arrived at the Post Office. The Post Mistress explained to me that when UPS delivers packages to a post office for general delivery or for a PO Box number, UPS pays the Post Office to complete the delivery - to hand them over the counter to the recipient. Because I had put the Post Office's street address in the first line, UPS considered the Post Office building to be the final destination, and did not pay the Post Office to complete the delivery. To retrieve my packages, I now had to pay the full cost of shipping the packages from that Post Office's back room to its front counter. I had to pay $8 for the package of cables, and I would have had to pay about $50 for the solar panels, but the Post Mistress was kind enough to waive the charge for that package.

The Post Mistress suggested that, since Amazon would not let me put General Delivery for the first line of the address, I should use a fictitious PO Box number like this:

My Name
PO Box 9999
General Delivery
City, State, Zip

This all seems very odd. I used to have a PO Box when I lived in a S&B house, and I never had any problems with UPS or FedEx shipments to my PO Box. The problem seems to arise with General Delivery.
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Old 12-06-2017, 12:16 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by johntaylor View Post
I experienced an odd situation at the Post Office this week, and I'm wondering if others have had the same problem.

I ordered a Renogy solar kit and some cables from Amazon.com, and had them shipped to General Delivery at a post office close to where I'm boondocking in Arizona. When I went to the Post Office to pick them up, I had to pay postage due, because of the way I had addressed them.

I had tried to enter the shipping address on Amazon in the correct way for general delivery:

My Name
General Delivery
City, State, Zip

However, Amazon would not let me put General Delivery for the first address line, it wanted a street address, so I put in the Post Office's street address:

My Name
Post Office's street address
General Delivery
City, State, Zip

Amazon shipped the two packages by UPS, and they arrived at the Post Office. The Post Mistress explained to me that when UPS delivers packages to a post office for general delivery or for a PO Box number, UPS pays the Post Office to complete the delivery - to hand them over the counter to the recipient. Because I had put the Post Office's street address in the first line, UPS considered the Post Office building to be the final destination, and did not pay the Post Office to complete the delivery. To retrieve my packages, I now had to pay the full cost of shipping the packages from that Post Office's back room to its front counter. I had to pay $8 for the package of cables, and I would have had to pay about $50 for the solar panels, but the Post Mistress was kind enough to waive the charge for that package.

The Post Mistress suggested that, since Amazon would not let me put General Delivery for the first line of the address, I should use a fictitious PO Box number like this:

My Name
PO Box 9999
General Delivery
City, State, Zip

This all seems very odd. I used to have a PO Box when I lived in a S&B house, and I never had any problems with UPS or FedEx shipments to my PO Box. The problem seems to arise with General Delivery.
I'd hit up Amazon's customer service.
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Old 12-06-2017, 01:44 AM   #3
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The 9s are the zip add on for the postmaster's official mail at any stated zip code.
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Old 12-06-2017, 06:22 AM   #4
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If you referred to the the postmaster as the "post mistress" then you most likely got off the a bad start with her! Lol

That does seem to be a bit of hair splitting over an address. I've had Amazon deliver to the campground, but not general delivery.
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Old 12-06-2017, 04:21 PM   #5
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Are you staying in or around Quartzsite ?
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Old 12-06-2017, 04:48 PM   #6
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Simply add at the front C/O then the address. Care Of PS if you call my town Post Mistress a Post Master she will correct you and say Mistress. The job is gender friendly.
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Old 12-06-2017, 08:20 PM   #7
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Simply add at the front C/O then the address. Care Of PS if you call my town Post Mistress a Post Master she will correct you and say Mistress. The job is gender friendly.
The official title is Postmaster no matter the gender.
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Old 12-06-2017, 09:49 PM   #8
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The problem is having UPS delivering to the Post Office Address. If you had specified shipping via USPS and not UPS, you would have had no problem. For UPS, you could have gone on their website and specified Hold For Pickup, which would put a 5 day hold at the UPS delivery center. You would then be able to pick up the parcel there with no additional cost.
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Old 12-06-2017, 11:49 PM   #9
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Yep- if I can’t ship to a hard address, I don’t buy from Amazon because they won’t tell you ahead of time what method of shipping they’ll use. It’s my understanding that FedEx won’t deliver to a post office at all (maybe the PO Box trick will work for them).

I don’t know of a way around it. I do know each post office handles General Delivery differently and I’d suggest anyone that wants to try it to call the destination post office first.
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Old 12-07-2017, 11:10 AM   #10
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I ordered a water softener from Amazon 3 weeks ago and when I put my name, General delivery, the PO address, ect it said it wasn't a correct address but I just continued with my order and in the end that was the address that they used. The only problem I had was I couldn't pick it up until the day after it arrived because the PO didn't go threw UPS deliveries until after 5:00.
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Old 12-07-2017, 12:28 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by Kwralph View Post
Are you staying in or around Quartzsite ?
No. I was staying in the Coronado National Forest on FR687 near Tombstone.
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Old 12-07-2017, 12:30 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by Villagerjjm View Post
The problem is having UPS delivering to the Post Office Address. If you had specified shipping via USPS and not UPS, you would have had no problem. For UPS, you could have gone on their website and specified Hold For Pickup, which would put a 5 day hold at the UPS delivery center. You would then be able to pick up the parcel there with no additional cost.
You can't specify a shipper on Amazon orders. It's pot luck whether they use USPS or UPS. Thanks for the info on putting a hold on UPS shipments. I can do that when I see that Amazon has shipped by UPS.
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Old 12-07-2017, 09:17 PM   #13
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I ran into a similar problem when having an Amazon order shipped to my daughter's dorm room at college. If you call Amazon customer support, they can set up a ship to address on your account with whatever you want.
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Old 12-08-2017, 01:21 AM   #14
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Amazon shipping to USPS General Delivery

We are house setting in Fort Mohave and found out in August from the agent behind the counter at the local USPS that we could not arrange for a mail box since we could not provide a contract/lease or payroll statement that proved we lived at a certain address let alone even in the area and the signs on the door State clearly that general delivery was good only for 30 days whatever that means. This is a hurdle for anyone who does not have a S&B for physical delivery. We solved the problem with minor complications by getting the last small mail box at Postal Connections.

The OP’s problem and description of the solution(s) are excellent are going into my file of what we may have to do in the future as this situation is definitely temporary and we need to be prepared.
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Old 12-08-2017, 09:05 AM   #15
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I am thinking that the problem is that as a UPS general delivery, the post office isn't getting any money. I have had PO Boxes in California and Arizona and have used the PO's street address, but I also have a PO box there. Meaning I paid money for the address so to speak. I'll bet if you had a PO Box you would not have to pay. Just a thought.
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Old 12-09-2017, 10:10 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Villagerjjm View Post
The problem is having UPS delivering to the Post Office Address. If you had specified shipping via USPS and not UPS, you would have had no problem. For UPS, you could have gone on their website and specified Hold For Pickup, which would put a 5 day hold at the UPS delivery center. You would then be able to pick up the parcel there with no additional cost.
What a bunch of BULL poop ups and fed x is in a post office each and every day dropping off packages for USPS to deliver, USPS do not have planes where fed x and ups do so they ship stuff for USPS and in turn deliver stuff for them I know I work as a mail hauler for the USPS for over 10 years and seen it each and every day both at the branch offices and at the main mail center in Cleveland ohio
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Old 12-13-2017, 01:44 AM   #17
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I also placed an order to Amazon this summer delivered to the closest post office to my camped location. I just checked that order's details in my Amazon account. This is the address I used for Amazon to send me a large solar panel:
General Delivery
Attn: (my name)
US Post Office
Manilla, UT. 84046

The post office employee checked my ID and then asked me to come on back to the property room and get my 30lb. box.
From the comments of previous posters I think I was very lucky.
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