Buyer Doesn't Have a PO Box... Post Office Only

[teenytrinkets]

I have a buyer who lives on a reserve in MB, and the post office is so small, they don't have PO Boxes - everything is stored and picked up by name.

Am I covered by seller protection when the package is delivered to the post office, since that is the only address provided? Or is it the same as any package held at the post office awaiting pick up and delivered when the addressee shows ID?

[reallynicestamps]

tyler@ebay 

Could you confirm?

I would imagine that this is the same as the old "General Delivery". But if the address is 123 Main Street ( or Band Office, Anishinaabe Reserve #15)  that is the address.

If it gets there, with tracking, it is Delivered.

If it gets there, with Signature Confirmation, it is Delivered, even if there is no actual signature during the current difficulty.

For $1.75, the Signature (which will not be collected) is good insurance given your category.

[teenytrinkets]

The address is the city and postal code - that's it! I confirmed with the buyer, too. I thought about trying to call the post office tomorrow morning to confirm... and maybe Canada Post. I think General Delivery makes more sense, but the buyer said it's not necessary! Anyway, it's a first for me!!!

[recped]

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@teenytrinkets wrote:
I have a buyer who lives on a reserve in MB, and the post office is so small, they don't have PO Boxes - everything is stored and picked up by name.

Am I covered by seller protection when the package is delivered to the post office, since that is the only address provided? Or is it the same as any package held at the post office awaiting pick up and delivered when the addressee shows ID?

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For an Item Not Received claim you would be protected if the tracking shows it was delivered. I'm not of the exact process but the delivery scan would be done either when it arrives at the Post Office or when picked up.

I've been to a number of reserves, usually there are no boxes, it's all done over the counter and the Postmaster knows EVERYONE.

[kawartha-ephemera]

As suggested a strictly correct address would subsdtitute General Delivery for Box No. in that circumstance but it's not really necessary. In the old days before home delivery or rural routes were a thing most rural folks went to town or the local corner crossroad P.O. and asked the postmaster to check if they had any mail, no boxes then so letters were simply addressed, name, post office, province. Almost never see General Delivery on old postcards and letters.

[femmefan1946]

As I remember, General Delivery was not used by residents, but by travellers.

So if you were a sales man with a route that took you through South West Ontario, your office could mail you letters to General Delivery Paris Ont and when you got to town, you could pick up your mail.

Residents would be known and would not need the GD instruction.

[kawartha-ephemera]

May well have been used in that way, I'm no postal history expert. For sure in the olden days the postmaster new who lived in every household around the area and probably had a mail slot for each of them behind the counter, not much need for more than a name.

[ricarmic]

When I was a kid, our mail to our wee village of 200 was "General Delivery", we had no street number that I knew of, at least we never used it for the mail.

When I first started my business, my address was simply my name, village name and postal code, I didn't even need to put in "General Delivery". It was that way for a longggggg time and it was a cost to me when they required the box number because the cost of all my classified ads went up by 2 words worth.....oh the good old days (and more expensive by the way, those ads cost a lot more than the current online world charges).

Some time since then the PO began requiring the street number and/or a PO box and the requirement for one or the other or both has changed a few times over the last 10 or so years.

(The same is true of my current village about 50% larger than my home village).

[reallynicestamps]

Another change , slightly but not much related, is the requirement for addresses in rural areas: part of the move to 911 emergency services.

It's useful for others too. When I was selling woodstoves, it was not unusual for a rural customer to have a convoluted set of directions, since the only address they had was RR#3 or the like.

Once our guys were out for two hours looking for an address and came back with the truck still filled.  I phoned the customer, no cellphones in the 90s, and she said"Ohhhh, I forgot I was going to tie a red flag on the gate." Didn't even apologize.

We rescheduled for a month and a half later, the earliest open date we had and the installers hit the beer parlour.

[tyler@ebay]

Ohhh this is really interesting, thanks for the tag @reallynicestamps!

Hi @teenytrinkets - as long as you have tracking that proves attempted or actual delivery to the address the buyer used at checkout you are protected (signature confirmation purchased as a service if required counts too). 

For what it's worth, any 'hold for pickup' type scan events count as a delivery attempted scan from an eBay perspective, so as long as they scan it once it's ready for the buyer you'll be fine. 

Some great history in this thread, thank you all for sharing!