If this is an important customer, and you would normally expect repeat business, it would be a bad move not to support them. OTOH, if it's a one-off sale, it's down to your generosity, imho. If it were me, and I made a mistake with the address, i'd expect to have to re-order and pay again. If i received an item I hadn't ordered, i wouldn't just accept it, i'd attempt to return it to the supplier, but i wouldn't expect to have to pay anything for the return.

Does that street address actually exist? If not, the package could not have been delivered correctly, so i'd suggest that's down to the courier/delivery company, imho

You could send a letter to the same name/address and request that they contact you for a shipping return label, maybe offer an incentive and explain the problem. There are still honest people, they may be confused at having received the shipment and help you straighten it out.

I always had a clearly outlined page of policies that covered customer errors and would direct people there in such a case.

Do you send a notification of shipment? That can also help prevent customer errors from happening. If they received an order acknowledgement showing the wrong address and took no action it would be more clear to them that they dropped the ball more than once.

Thanks for the replies. I'll check on the address. The customer has contacted the post office, but apparently had no success. I'm sure this is a one-off customer, but I get a lot of referral business.

The customer got two emails following his order. One was generated by my Magento software, and showed the entire order, including billing and shipping addresses. The other was a personal email sent by me, which also showed the addresses.

I'm going to suggest to him that he try to contact whoever lives at the incorrect address. The item is specialized, so it's not like the people at the wrong address are getting a free Iphone. The order total is $57.81, but my profit is just $4.40, so it's not like I can afford to eat a lot of orders with just 10% markup.

If the customer paid by credit card with the wrong billing address, should not the card been rejected!? I would run the address through USPS zip code locator to verify it.

Marshall

I don't know what processor is being used, but major players in the US (Authorize.net and Verisign/Paypal) processing do not require address verification for card approval, it is an option, and often matching zip-code is an option that can be selected as criteria.

I do address verification on any sales under $300. I do name and address (call the bank or CC company) on anything over $300. If it's obvious to me that the person matches the address, I'll go to $500 with address only.

In this case, it was Visa, and I would have called Visa's automated line for numeric portion of street address and Zip code, and they would have verified. I sometimes wonder about Visa's service.

The guy keeps asking if there's something the post office can do. I don't think the post office is going to pay insurance when the address was wrong.

I did a reverse search of the address he provided, and some names came up, but no phone numbers. I suggested he go to the address and ask if they got the package.

I wind up eating a lot of costs because the customer or the manufacturer did something wrong (ate $60 in total shipping today because of a manufacturing defect). When the customer is so dumb as to put down the wrong address twice, I just can't stomach the idea of losing money.

both the billing and the shipping addresses

I keep thinking the customer has handed you a very nice loophole. Didn't get the shipment? Give a $50 credit ... to the account of the person living at the address he gave you.

I suggested he go to the address and ask if they got the package.

And that’s the very first thing he should have done, on his own.

Every once a while we get people that neglect to supply street numbers..
When queried the usual response is "it’s not necessary, everybody knows me"

Every once a while we get people that neglect to supply street numbers..
When queried the usual response is "it’s not necessary, everybody knows me"

That reminds me of an incident from about ten years ago. For several years I worked a political booth at shows where dealers sell products related to my niche. We were trying to get people to fill out the pre-addressed postcards to their legislators that we provided.

One guy filled it out. I noticed he didn't put a return address on it, and asked if he would. He said he didn't know it.

"Did you just move there?" I asked.

"About three years ago."

"Do you have your wallet on you?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Could you take it out, please?" He did. "Now, could you take out your drivers license?" He did.

I pointed to the address on the license. "Is this your address?"

"Oh, yeah!"

Sigh.