Part of what makes shopping on Amazon so great, is the fast delivery and the excellent customer service.
Amazon is quick to make things right if you ever run into any problems, and that includes if your package never arrives.
If Amazon tracking is showing as delivered but the order ended up at the wrong address, what should you do? Will you receive a refund, and what steps do you need to take?
In this article, we’ll cover everything that you need to know.
What To Do When Amazon Delivers To The Wrong Address
If your Amazon package appears to be delivered to the wrong address, don’t worry. There are a few a steps you can take to locate the package, and even if you don’t Amazon will almost certainly refund you.
Before contacting customer service however, you should first take some steps to try and retrieve your package.
1. Check With Neighbors
Most of the time, mistakes with delivery result in the package being delivered to a neighbor instead.
If you have a close relationship with your neighbors, you may consider knocking on their door and asking them if they’ve happened to receive your package. This is particularly common for houses located very close to each other, or in apartment complexes.
However, you should avoid simply going up and taking the package left at someone’s doorstep, even if you believe it to be yours.
Otherwise, people may think that you’re stealing their package. Unless they’ve inspected it, they have no way of knowing that it doesn’t belong to them.
Remember that Amazon Ring doorbells, and other doorbells with video capture capability are increasing in popularity. Without actually talking with your neighbor, they may accuse you of stealing their packages.
2. Look In Common Delivery Areas
Sometimes, packages are delivered to the right address – they are just difficult to find.
Therefore, you should take a moment to check common delivery areas such as:
- Your mailbox (not all packages will be delivered to your door.)
- Behind a bush or other places where the package may have been deliberately hidden.
- Alternate delivery locations on your property.
- In the mailroom, if located in an apartment complex.
- Among the contents of your porch.
- Mailbox parcel lockers.
Couriers may go out of their way to hide packages, especially if you live in an area where package theft is common.
Therefore, you should look around to see where it may be placed. Note that Amazon Logistics drivers will snap a photo of where they’ve left the package, which you can view on Amazon’s website by navigating to the order tracking.
3. Wait An Additional Day
Sometimes, packages will be marked as delivered, even if they actually haven’t been yet. This seems to be more of a problem for packages shipped using USPS.
For whatever reason, USPS occasionally marks products as being delivered despite this being false.
However, in the majority of cases the item will show up the next day as normal.
4. Verify Your Shipping Information Was Correct On Amazon
Regardless of the courier your product is shipped with – be it USPS, Fedex, UPS, DHL, or Amazon Logistics themselves, packages are delivered to the correct address the overwhelming majority of the time.
It is only in extremely rare circumstances that packages are delivered to the wrong place.
So, you may wish to log on to Amazon, and review that you actually had the product shipped to the correct place.
Because Amazon lets you store so many different addresses on your account, it is not uncommon to accidentally select the wrong one – or even worse, ship the item to an old house that you previously lived in.
You can review the shipping address by going to your orders page on Amazon, then clicking on ‘View order details.’ The shipping address for that order will be located towards the top-left corner of the screen.
Unfortunately, if you ordered an item to the wrong address, this is one of the rare circumstances where Amazon may not always give you a refund for the item. Therefore, you should always double check your address prior to ordering, and remove any addresses that you no longer intend to ship to from your account.
5. Contact Amazon Support
Finally, if you’ve tried everything else, it may be time to contact Amazon support.
Amazon’s customer support team is used to this kind of problem, and has processes and systems in place to help you solve it.
In some cases, they may advise you to wait a certain number of days after the product said it’s been delivered.
However, after this time has passed, they will almost always assist you in arranging a replacement or a refund for the item.
Alternatively, you may be able to request a refund without ever speaking to an Amazon customer support representative by filing an A-Z guarantee.
Will Amazon Refund For Orders Delivered To The Wrong Address?
Yes. In most cases, Amazon will issue full refunds (or offer replacements) for orders that were delivered to the wrong address.
However, exceptions may apply if you simply entered the address wrong while checking out, or your Amazon account has a history of return fraud, lying about items not being received, or other deceptive behavior.
Most of the time, the issue can be sorted out by following the steps above. If the package is still not located, contact customer service.
Amazon is known for their world class service, and going to great lengths in order to make customers happy.
Even if the package was originally delivered using Amazon Logistics (Amazon’s personal delivery service, that takes photos when the packages are delivered), you should still be able to receive a refund if the item is not received.
Filing An A-Z Guarantee
If for whatever reason Amazon customer support doesn’t help you, you are usually protected by Amazon’s A-Z guarantee.
This not only protects you in the event of packages being delivered to the wrong address, but even if the package was delivered correctly but was stolen before you were able to receive it.
To file an A-Z guarantee claim on your order, follow these steps:
- Go to the ‘Your Orders’ page on Amazon.
- Find the order, and click on the ‘Problem With Order’ button.
- Select that the item wasn’t received.
- Select ‘Request Refund.’
- Press submit.
Amazon will take a few days to investigate, and will usually give you a refund if everything you mentioned was correct.
Note that Amazon approves almost all A-Z guarantee claims if the item isn’t received, as long as you don’t have a history of abusing the guarantee or engaging in fraudulent behavior.
Can I Keep Amazon Packages That Were Sent To Me By Mistake?
Let’s say that you were the one that received a package by mistake, and it’s not addressed to you. Legally speaking, are you allowed to keep it?
Based on federal law, you are legally permitted to keep products that were sent to you in error, without having to pay for the item. The details about this can be found on the FTC’s website.
We’ve heard stories of people receiving some pretty crazy things, and receiving shipments that were quite valuable!
That being said, the ethical thing to do is to try and remedy the situation.
Rather than delivering the package yourself (unless it was addressed to a neighbor you are friends with), contact Amazon customer support for assistance. Do not attempt to make unsolicited deliveries unless it is safe to do so, and consider calling the phone number listed on the shipping label in advance.
If you contact Amazon customer service instead, it is possible that they will arrange someone to come pick up the package, so it can be redelivered to the correct customer.
Alternatively, Amazon themselves will recommend that you keep the item. However, by contacting them, you’ll give them all the necessary information they need to ensure the person that ordered that item gets a replacement or a full refund.
In some instances, this single action can make the difference whether or not the person receives the refund they are entitled to.
So, we recommend doing the right thing, and contact Amazon customer support regardless. The law may be on your side, but this same event could one day happen to you as well.
Conclusion
Although it can be worrisome when Amazon delivers your items to the wrong address, this usually isn’t something to worry about.
In almost all circumstances, you will be able to receive a refund or a replacement for the item, including any shipping costs.
And if you’re lucky enough to receive a package in the mail that you didn’t order, you’re legally entitled to keep that as well.
I hope that you’ve found this article helpful. If you have any other questions about shopping on Amazon, please feel free to ask them using the comment form below.
Wishing you the best,
– James McAllister
Leave a Reply