USPS is usually fantastic but, when they fail, they fail very bureaucratically.
Ordered a gift with rush shipping on Dec. 20th. Arrives at the local post office Dec. 22nd, marked undeliverable as addressed the next day.
I call them up and say, "Hey, I typed in 123 Sprig Street, but I meant 123 Spring Street. Can I just drive over and get the package?".
"No."
An employee told me all I could do was update my address with the shipper, wait for them to fail 2 more delivery attempts, have them return the package at their leisure, and have the shipper resend. So I checked the shipping status every day and, sure enough, they tried redelivering to the same bogus address twice. Predictable, at least. Got the package last week.
So, the USPS has a pretty strict set of rules for ensuring that mail is only delivered to the address it was mailed to, and it's all based on what's on the package.
One interesting bit: if you mail something to an address that is valid, defined overly simplistically as "zip matches city/state, street exists, street number exists within the valid numerical range for that street regardless of whether there's actually a box there", it doesn't matter what the name is on it, it will go to that address. Even if their own records show no one by that name has received mail there and that someone by that name lives across the street.
On one hand, it's frustrating from a common sense type issue like yours. On the other, it at least blocks one class of social engineering type issues and lets the shipper's intent be fully represented by the package itself (even if it's wrong).
Out of curiosity, was the actual "Sprig" street a real street name or not? I can't remember at what point the name comes into play with a bad address.
I wonder what would have happened if you had have filled out and submitted a change of address form saying that you moved from "123 Sprig Street" to "123 Spring Street"?
Ordered a gift with rush shipping on Dec. 20th. Arrives at the local post office Dec. 22nd, marked undeliverable as addressed the next day.
I call them up and say, "Hey, I typed in 123 Sprig Street, but I meant 123 Spring Street. Can I just drive over and get the package?".
"No."
An employee told me all I could do was update my address with the shipper, wait for them to fail 2 more delivery attempts, have them return the package at their leisure, and have the shipper resend. So I checked the shipping status every day and, sure enough, they tried redelivering to the same bogus address twice. Predictable, at least. Got the package last week.