Coles notes version for folks not having time to read the book following:
Check the address on the counter generated postal labels to make sure nothing changed from the online form that was scanned in, in some situations it is possible for it to be mistakenly adjusted.
For those with time:
Today much to my surprise I got a tracked packet sent to the UK back that was sent on December 8th marked as uncalled for. (this has been a frustrating week, got one back from Spain as well also a regular repeat buyer no identifiable reason for that one has been resent)
I checked and saw that the buyer was still active, so was writing up a note to advise them that it came back for some reason et al regarding shipping. Whilst I was doing that I decided to scrub off the sharpie the UK PO used to blacken out the address on the manual address label I attach to make sure with buyer it hadn't changed and I noticed that the physical PO electronic label appeared to have a different house number, it was also sharpied but I could make out that the house number was 2 digits which was wrong (was supposed to be 6, I could tell it was 2 digits, later I discovered it was 36 from the claims folks). It is frustrating that the UK PO didn't notice the discrepancy nor call the buyer, who's phone number was actually at the sharpie arrow point they drew as part of the return to sender!!!
I know that for many international addresses the autofill does not work at all or well and the PO folks have to manually adjust them and or retype parts of them. We can't remember who was on shift on December 8th, and my folks are still becoming comfortable with the new system. I don't keep my online customs forms after the fact but it should be "impossible" for it to have been wrong because I just cut and paste the address right off ebay into the customs form and I always have to cut and paste the first line before the autofill does the rest. It is the first line that is wrong.
Anyway however it happened, it got past me because I always double check the address, although normally I suspect I'm only checking the name, I guess now I'll have to make sure to check the address too.
I called it in to the CP claims department to get the postage reiumbursed ($40) (I didn't even have to go on hold, I was extra shocked about that!!) and the claim has been opened, I'm not sure if they'll just auto approve or if they'll call me to discuss more. I can see where they'll likely try to blame me for filling out the online customs form wrong, however they'll also see that I've shipped about 7,000 packages since the last time I had a claim so they might just let it go. Time will tell.
