Call USPS themselves (not your local post office)?

From personal experience I can tell you USPS is usually hit or miss. Their customer service is pretty useless.

I've been calling the post office where the package is at. One post office said it was because of an incorrect address. Apparently their tracking is further along or can see more than I can because they directed me to a sorting facility in NY. I think its getting ready to be sent back to Germany. They didn't answer so I left a message. I'll just keep calling if I don't hear back.

Shogun wrote:

I've been calling the post office where the package is at. One post office said it was because of an incorrect address. Apparently their tracking is further along or can see more than I can because they directed me to a sorting facility in NY. I think its getting ready to be sent back to Germany. They didn't answer so I left a message. I'll just keep calling if I don't hear back.

you might be able to have the package rerouted to your address if its wrong.

The issue is its at a routing facility in Long Island. The last time it was scanned individually was 2 cities ago. The container its in has been scanned. This sorting facility gets like 400k pieces of mail a day so my chances are slim. This is so frustrating I couldn't find this cpu anywhere except in Germany and I always have issues with international shipping. The postal worker said it could be a bad or damaged label or some sort of bar code on the package throwing it off. I won't have any recourse with the seller because it probably isn't their fault.

That sounds really bad. What could possibly be going so consistently wrong with an address?
Lucky this time it's just a CPU and nothing bigger, and German postal costs are very reasonable.

Use this page to make sure your address is formatted in a way that USPS likes:
https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupAction_input

says it's for looking up ZIP codes but really it verifies/autocorrects the whole address.

shamino wrote:

Use this page to make sure your address is formatted in a way that USPS likes:
https://tools.usps.com/go/ZipLookupAction_input

says it's for looking up ZIP codes but really it verifies/autocorrects the whole address.

Yeah, when I read the OP kept having problems with international parcels sent to him that was the first thing I thought of.

Sometimes it may also help to tell people to write down an address exactly as told, as some sellers will modify the order of the address according to their own country's standards (which obviously leads to problems). In 99.99% of the cases they will understand, but some won't (these suck and are best avoided).

I bought a CM-32L in DK one time and the seller sent it with UPS but skipped the street name. Fortunately I was able to get UPS to fix the address. DK to NL is pretty quick. 😀

USPS Media Mail is the most unreliable IMO. I have had many boxes go MIA or arrive empty at buyers. USPS insurance is useless and eBay GSP (AKA PB) even worse.

Thanks to a very helpful lady at the postal sorting center in NY the package arrived. Sadly the seller did a very poor job packing the cpu. He just had it in an antistatic bag that wasn't taped up or anything which was inside a cd jewel case. So the cpu came loose and was rattling around and has some bent pins. I think I can fix them though. The address also wasn't written correctly and had a type so maybe thats what messed things up. I sent him a message two days ago but no response yet. Its been a long time since I left negative feedback. I guess I'll stick with domestic shipments for a while.

Good to see it turned up (sad that it was damaged by poor packing). When ordering goods internationally it can sometimes help to ask a seller to pack it properly (just give friendly instructions, e.g. "please pack fragile item in so-and-so, and please write down address as provided"), especially if the seller is not one that only sells electronics or not a professional seller. Of course, you'll still get a bad apple now and then, but most sellers will take your advice.

I bought a S1 from BE: paid for tracking: it never arrived.

I have no idea if this was relevant to the issue, but to reduce the chance of your address getting messed up, make sure it passes the USPS online verification. Otherwise when the seller tries to print the shipping label they'll end up trying to figure out how to edit the address to get it accepted. That can be confusing when shipping overseas.
I used to get frustrated with addresses when shipping to Puerto Rico, whose addresses are very different from what I'm used to in the 50 states. They're also longer, and often don't fit in the character limits imposed. At some point USPS verification started working a lot better with PR but it used to be awful.
I also had a verification issue once with the UK, where it turned out the town name given by the seller was obsolete. After some research I found that there was a political controversy about the name of the town/district/whatever, and using the wrong name might lead to mail being angrily rejected. Sheesh.

A seller really should know better than to pack a CPU like that. I guess they haven't done it very many times - you're providing their learning experience, unfortunately. They should also know better than to take any chances with international mail. If it's possible for a package to get abused, it's more likely to happen with international than in any other situation. I will add though that if you're concerned and want to discuss packaging or other details with a seller, the most proper time to do it is before purchase, not after. It can be frustrating to get special requests after something has been bought and an obligation has been established to ship in a set timeframe for a set price (depending on how specific the request is, of course). There's also the risk that the seller won't see the message, they'll just go to work shipping it per their routine.

A few years ago I remember buying something on eBay and the seller (domestic) handwrote the address. They managed to misspell the town name, mangle the zip code, and mangle the house number. Truly amazing. Even more amazing is that it still got delivered to me.

Some good advice - I think next time I purchase internationally I will PM the seller and say please provide extra care to packing as shipping overseas is very rough. Please write the address in exactly this format. I checked my address though and it is correct and USPS verified so I'm not sure where the seller was confused. I never did get a response from the seller so I just left negative feed back. Even an apology would have been sufficient.

Either way I was able to bend the pins on the K6-III+ back in place. However the socket 7 mobo I purchased has a scratch on the underside severing a bunch of tiny connections so I'm back on the hunt for a SS7 mobo.